IT sector wants middle management experience over other attributes: HR survey

30 June 2005

Chennai: Competition is making IT employers give overriding precedence to relevant job experience for middle and upper management hires over other attributes like domain expertise and qualifications. For entry level positions, educational qualifications followed by cultural attributes and teamwork takes precedence. These are the major findings of Monster India Private Limited's human resources (HR) survey, Monster HR Panel report.

The Hyderabad-based Monster India is the Indian subsidiary of US company Monster Worldwide, Inc. The company runs an online recruitment portal.

The Monster HR Panel was set up in November 2004 with to bring together the HR community's collective experience to gauge and foresee trends in the recruitment market.

The HR Panel included participants of human resource personnel from organisations like Accenture, Adobe Systems, Agilent Technologies, Corbus, Computer Associates, Deloitte, Eicher Motors, Geometric Software, Ionidea, Kanbay, Lucent Technologies, Mentor Graphics, Siemens Information Systems, Technovate Solutions, Verizon Data Services, among other companies.

Commenting on the results and findings of the second Monster HR panel report, Dhruv Shenoy, vice president, marketing, Monster Asia, said, "During our panel, the HR community made its preference clear: when they are looking for experienced professionals, they move those with the most relevant experience to the top of their list. With today's competitive pressures, we are hearing more and more from companies that new hires must be able to hit the ground running."

Highlighting the importance of relevant experience and domain expertise another panelist Sunil Bellara, head, recruitment and staffing (India and Asia Pacific Region) of Kanbay cited, "One would undoubtedly look for relevant experience in the candidate especially if he or she is interviewing for a senior position. Other factors such as core values, technical competence and business sense are equally important."

Concurring, Ravi Kumar, head — Recruitments of Geometric Software stated, "Relevant experience and domain expertise go hand in hand while evaluating candidates. We believe that we can get the best benefit from the employee when he or she knows our business and can start contributing from day one."