MphasiS finds tool to hire 'Right' people

Will focus on skillsets, not academic records

Those lacking a good grade or percentage during their academics need not feel they will be deprived of a job in the IT industry. Mid-sized IT and BPO services company MphasiS has introduced a hiring methodology which gives candidates even with very poor academic record a chance to make their way into the company if they are good in their logical and reasoning skills.

With the aim to finding the right kind of candidates who can make successful software engineers, the company has launched an initiative ‘MphasiS Right’ which helps the company hire the right candidate. This means, any graduate irrespective of his marks or grades during their academics, are eligible to appear for the test to get into the company. Traditionally, most top tier IT services firms including Infosys, TCS and Wipro shortlist the candidates based on their academic record and percentage of marks they have scored.

Elango R, chief human resources officer, told Business Standard that the company started the initiative almost three years ago when it hired recruitment solutions provider Aspiring Mind to help improve the quality of their hires. As part of this, the company did an internal survey wherein the company tried to correlate the academic records of the software engineers of various grades within the company with their track record and performance. The test found that those with the brilliant academic credentials do not necessarily make good software engineers as it requires strong reasoning and quantitative skills.

The company has already started using this new recruitment tool to select the ‘right’ candidate almost six months ago. Elango says that the results are quite satisfactory as the amount of time the new recruits take to become billable has improved significantly. And the company is very much satisfied with their performance.

“One does not necessarily have to be academically strong to have a strong logical mindset. With the MphasiS Right test, we are trying to get people with quantitative skills, logical reasoning skills which are required in the software industry. The academic records of a candidate writing the test may look terrible, but he can still make it,” said Elango.

Initially meant for fresher hiring, the company is now considering to use the tool for hiring laterals (people with experience).

Elango said that the hiring tool would help in getting people who can fetch maximum rewards by putting in minimum effort. MphasiS employs close to 40,000 people including about 17,000 for its BPO operations. During the quarter-ended December 31, 2010, MphasiS had a net addition of 5,330 people which include those joined its BPO operations.