Godrej goes off-beat while hiring

At campus placements, students are asked to answer questions in creative formats like poems, videos, etc

Rishu Raheja, a student at Management Development Institute (MDI), Gurgaon, preferred to use a comic strip to describe herself, her strengths and weaknesses. Similarly, Nikhil Chitlangia of Symbiosis Institute of Business Mana-gement (SIBM), Pune, used a video application to portray his characteristics and talents.

This is not a college festival or a competition where these students are taking part. This is in fact the selection process for the summer internship programme at Godrej Industries and allied companies. The firm has an initiative where students are recruited not through the traditional written test, group discussion (GD) and personal interview format. Instead, students are asked to send in applications based on a given format.

A set of questions that range from basic description of the individual to one on what the student and Godrej have in common tests students on their creativity. The catch here is that the responses need to be sent in a creative format: poem, video, audio or ppt (not more than three slides).

There is also a section in the application titled ‘Bedhadak Bolo’ (say whatever you feel). Here, a close friend of the person (whom he hasn’t met for the past two months) is asked to write about what he/she would like the applicant to start, stop and continue.

After the students are selected through this process, instead of the GD, the company uses creative simulated games. This year, one was on a street play format and the other was on making bandanas as part of a sales pitch. This is finally followed by a personal interview.

“There was a lot of buzz on the campus when my peers got to know about this initiative. I could see my friends practically emptying their rooms in order to design something creative. Some were busy learning the video-editing software, while others were involved in writing poems about themselves,” said Chitlangia of SIBM who will begin his summer internship with the GCPL sales team in April.

Raheja of MDI, who will be interning with the corporate HR team, explained that others in her institute mostly used animation, video-software, PowerPoint and flash to express themselves differently. “The second round of selection through street play was instrumental in the aspects of comprehending a theme, thinking on the spot and displaying team building skills,” she said.

Others like Aman Brara from SIBM who has been recruited for the Design and Innovation team feel this has helped them break away from the formal rigid selection process of corporates. He says Godrej also allowed them to wear casuals for the interviews. “They wanted to discover the real individual in us, through their initiatives," Brara said.

Placements in-charge at top B-schools in India said such initiatives for recruiting students were not a regular at their campuses, because of the time factor. A placement officer of an IIM said they had not seen any other companies plan such a programme in the past. Some have been talking about this but have not implemented it, according to the officer.

Sumit Mitra, executive vice-president (human resources), Godrej Industries, said, “The students found this association a great platform to express themselves in an innovative manner and prove their mettle. The students, who participate and are recruited, feel this medium assists them to pro-actively express their views in a corporate set-up.” He added the success of the programme can be gauged by the fact that they had filled 95 per cent of their final management trainee requirement through these B-school summer interns.

Though the company started the initiative last year only for the summer internship programme, this has been extended to the final placement process for this year