Women candidates are increasingly outperforming men when it comes to being short listed for interview calls or written tests for jobs. Additionally, more number of Muslim women are making it to India Inc in advertising, journalism, public relations, travel and tourism and private sector banking, a study by the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (Assocham) says.
The study is based on the feedback received from 110 Human Resource heads of leading companies from all over India and it found that the ratio for receiving interview or test calls is 1 to 1.20 in favour of women. This is fast resulting into girls from business schools, journalism institutions, travel and tourism courses filling more vacancies than their male counterparts, at least in select key sectors of the service sector.
The good thing is that these Muslim women are joining the corporate sector across different levels. The study also shows that even if HR managers try to balance the male-female ratio in companies, they end up finding more women on the final roll-call.
“The main reason being women are more focused and navigating their career paths more professionally than was the case earlier. Besides, they are found to be more suitable than men when it comes to soft skills like spoken English,” the study said.
The study found that in certain areas like television news anchoring, including the business channels, the males are finding themselves in minority. “Besides being photogenic, the women reporters and anchors are asking quizzing questions be it relating to stock markets, car launches, golf shows etc,” an HR manager, based in Pune said. In any case in fields such as corporate communication, advertising, human resource management, personnel management, women are increasingly being preferred.
The Assocham study found that even in the business chambers – mainly at the apex level – the number of women employees is increasing fast. “The point to be noted is that the female candidates are not only competing well with their male counterparts for the lower hierarchy jobs like those of receptionists, house-keepers, but also for management trainees and senior positions. The trend line is quite visible in banks like ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, Yes Bank, Axis Bank and other private sector banks,” says the study.
However, the issue of security to the women employees is being taken seriously and the top level corporates are asking HR and logistics divisions to see how less number of women are put on late evening or night duty.
The study, after feedbacks from HR personnels, said this issue in the long run may even adversely impact the job prospects as the corporates may employ women staff for night duty only as a last choice. However, industries like media, particularly television are coping with the situation rather well.
