Caught in the middle of a talent crunch, high attrition, and escalating cost of hiring, companies are tapping freshers from tier 2 and tier 3 cities to curtail the effects of great resignation.
Human resource managers argue that along with cost, this move aids cutting down attrition, and promotes the idea of build over buying of capabilities. Corporates also believe that with exposure and a larger talent funnel, this will aid manage the great reshuffle phenomenon a bit better.
Some even believe that tier 2 and tier 3 talents are good at sales and marketing, and are proving to be an asset for successful rural penetration of products and services.
“Lateral hiring has become very expensive. We are now looking to reach out and scout talent directly from more colleges. We are going to tier 2 and tier 3 cities to source them and it has helped us off late,” Pawan Alamchandani, global head, human resources, at Vinculum Group, a technology firm in the retail SaaS solution space.
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“I believe, you can get good talents from smaller towns and it does help in curbing the kind of attrition industries have witnessed in the past one and half years. In the next six months to one year, we should be with a good talent pipeline,” said Alamchandani.
Ritu Rakhra, regional HR leader (India) at Dell Technologies almost agreed and said that Dell too is looking at freshers from tier 2 and tier 3 cities. Increasing the pipeline helps and It offers a bigger canvas to source talent from, said Rakhra.
“There are multiple benefits when you source manpower from non-metro cities and smaller towns. I believe talent is available all across, we just have to focus…we have got excellent talent from tier 2 and tier 3 cities,” said Chandrajit Pati, Chief People Officer (CPO) at listed agro-chemical firm PI Industries Ltd.
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“In agro chemical space and otherwise also, we have seen tier 2 and tier 3 students are better sales people than tier one candidates. They know the rural market (an important business requirement), they know the nuances of the place and need of the people,” Pati explained, further adding that “more than anything, they have the inclination to go and prove themselves.”.
Hiring for freshers:
While leading IT firms have already announced their intention to hire freshers in good numbers in Fy23, across sectors freshers seem to have got a good attention.
According to job board Naukri.com, demand for fresh professionals having 0-3 years of work experience witnessed the highest growth of 52 percent in April when compared with a year ago. In contrast, demand for professionals having 8-12 years of work experience grew by 24% in April 2022 against April 2021. Besides, non-metros like Coimbatore, Kochi, Baroda, Jaipur showed good hiring sentiment.
A recent survey from Teamlease edtech too has indicated that there is a 30 percent spike in the intent to hire freshers in the first half of 2022 as compared to the previous half-year. While only 17 percent companies were keen on increasing their fresher pool in the second half of 2021, more than 47 percent of the companies have expressed their intent to on-board new recruits in the half-year ending June 30, 2022.
India Inc has been battling a wave of resignations in the past one year in several sectors including the most hit IT and IT enabled industries. Global recruitment firm Michael Page has said last month that in India around 38% employees have only been at their current jobs for not more than two years.
