 Once there was a man who was trying to build a restaurant Well, he wanted to really get into the food business and Create a really nice culinary experience. He was not just interested in building a restaurant Just for the sake of selling food he really wanted to have people experience healthy food nutritious food at an affordable price and He wanted to have people talk about it and this place would also have He would be able to cater to the needs of the people in terms of selling the ingredients the recipes Etc. So it was like a very grand vision Of course, there are a lot of people who question this saying that boom. Do you think it's the right place to start a such an ambitious Venture do you think we'll find the right people? Do you think they'll really accept ends because there are a lot of Hardships which others have gone through Nevertheless, he decided to go ahead. Why because he had already dabbled into this Field for quite some time. He's worked with probably five-star restaurants small Roadside vendors vegetable markets grocery stores, etc. So a little bit of an experience of what you are he was getting into now The big thing was really about the vision What was the kind of vision he had? How would you translate that into a set of people who would be able to share the same vision? That was the single most challenging part when you start out right So the journey started This man was looking at building a team which consists of The most important thing the cooks you need somebody to cook the food You need people to chop the vegetables you need people who would be able to buy it from the market You need people who would be able to manage the business who would Manage the cash counter and you need of course people who would serve the food so it was all about building or Orchestrating a team of people with very different skillset very diverse background and Then what sharing a common vision? That was the mission with which the Man started out and the journey began now the first question when you start The first question you get to ask is What kind of people should we be looking at? Do you look for people who say oh, I've come from a big hotel management Institute I have worked with this superstar chef Michelin rated Steph and I've had so much of experience or I have come with these lot of tags Well, the reality was It was like a mixed bag Not necessarily everybody who came with a big tag Was really suitable at the same time there were people who did not have any formal background Who only worked with the panipuri wallas or the small shy shops who had the aspiration and the vision and the excellence to join the team Then came the question of somebody who said oh, I have worked on many different things I have I know how to cook Chinese. I know how to cook Italian. I know how to cook French I know how to cook Indian. I worked on many many different things very good because when you're looking at building a new Restaurant, probably you have to experiment a lot The reality was that of course some of them were really good as generalists, but many of them could not even get to the explanation part of What have they worked on in terms of many different things? So that was the lesson number two Then comes The specialists so there's one person who said I chop vegetables Okay, that's great We need vegetable people who can chop vegetables because they all need to be nice even Uniform so that cooking time is less the presentation would be great, but What else can you do? I chop vegetables? But I understand but well, we are going to build a small restaurant Probably when you scale up into a bigger Organization we might need people who might be able to do this job day in and day out So though it was a really really niche scale Probably did not fit the Ambience or the kind of intention with which this Restaurant was going to be started Then comes the question of How open were people? There's one person who said oh, I worked in a Chinese restaurant. I've always worked with this menu Which was set by my leader Okay, that's fine. But are you able to? Work on something else? No, because this is what all I have done in my life the big question on willingness to unlearn and learn was Not satisfactorily answered by many people. Of course, there were a lot of other people who said well I have a lot of interest in cooking. I have done a little bit of cooking, but I am willing to learn I might be cooking really horrible stuff which might give people diarrhea, but then I am still willing to learn That was the kind of people this man was looking for Of course the values the core values of the organization itself. Do the people have Do they share the same values? These are something which could not be well tangibly measured or Experienced, but at the same time you can still get the feel of it How are you able to articulate in terms of what you have done and what was your real share in that work and How do you actually credit others and In what manner are you sharing this information? All this would made a big impact in terms of how that person was going to be perceived Now this was the next big learning in terms of building this nice overall experience then The man realized of course this is going very well. He was able to Assemble a team a small team by this time who also helped him in terms of Looking at other people who might be able to come in and join the organization, but there is always a budget It's never that you work with Extraordinary amount of money you still have to look at no optimizing on things There were a lot of people who said who are excellent people no doubt They had the right skill set. They would have readily fitted into the restaurant ambience, but very very expensive Now you have to as a leader He had to make the hard choice in terms of saying no to many of them So this was the other big hard lesson this man learned as he went along Now by this time as I said he already had a core team of the market it was changing The assumptions with which they started off Well, not of those a lot of things were not valid anymore because there are no stuffs coming in there were startups There were this food delivery systems. There is even 3d printing of food Cookery shows reality shows YouTube videos people wanting to have the experience Sitting at the comfort of a home not even venturing out to have this all these things had a big big big Bearing in terms of the thinking itself as to how he would take this business forward Well as the team it's not just about the leader as I said unless the the whole team shares the vision It's really not going to take forward. So the question also came in terms of As a restaurant, how are you going to differentiate yourself from the others? Obviously, you know every hundred meters you would find a nice fine-dine restaurant Many of them are branded very nicely. The ambience is good. The food is good. The ratings are good What's the differentiator? This is a question everybody gets asked and all probably needs to get asked and When you're trying to bring in people this is again a very very hard question Which this man had to ask and his team of course by now? What is the big differentiator? What is your USP? How can you really come in and help our restaurant? Unless people are able to articulate it able to substantiate it. Well, it became a hard hard choice to Say no to many of the people Finally it boiled down in terms of the articulation skills. There were many many people who had excellent Competencies they have the experience they have the exposure But really not able to substantiate the previous mind in terms of what's the differentiator? Why he or she should be hired as against anybody else Now this became a big bottleneck as far as the hiring process went on How do you really put forth your ideas? How do you project yourself? What methods do you use? What kind of? Storytelling skills do you have what kind of presentations do you make? Of course many people said oh, I have this portfolio That's fine. Can you please explain what is in the portfolio? That's where most of the times Things were starting to fall flat The next big question What are you trying to hire here? Are you trying to hire resources or? People well the man was looking to hire people who have a life who have emotions who have their own share of frustrations anger feelings Unless you bring in your whole self How would you one be able to evaluate you as a person? Beyond what you show in terms of your work in terms of well all the creative stuff you have done Well, there was one instance in which the man asked okay How would you work? Oh, I work in an Italian restaurant. I have this experience. I work with these these these kind of dishes Okay, what else do you do? I mainly do cooking. Okay, beyond cooking. What do you do? Do you like music? Do you like movies? What kind of movies? What excites you in life? Well seldom there was real There was a good response in terms of projecting yourself as somebody as a person Well, as they say it's a very small world The world is very small, but not when you look at the airline affairs But the thing is that today everybody gets connected to each other in a very short span of time over various different mediums Could be the social media could be in various of the news groups and especially design designers in India it's a very very small group and so it is Fairly easy to find out who you are what you have done what you have been up to and the likes This is again going back to the same point of Honesty and being able to come forth in terms of what are the real What is the your real self? Okay as The man realized the journey was very long. It was pleasurable painful fun frustrating But the good thing There are a lot of people out there who are able to share the vision who are able to work on many different things Who can honestly say hey? I don't know a lot of things, but I am still willing to experiment I may fail, but I am willing to get back up on the stage that was exactly the Motivation or what kept the team going in terms of coming to nice ensemble of people and They lived happily ever after Ladies and gentlemen, that is the story But of course, we are far from perfect. We are still learning. We make mistakes, of course we fail but we've been able to keep up with the high spirits and the enthusiasm and the passion okay now Any story would need to have a moral right without that the story is incomplete. So what are the morals of the story? The first thing There's always something called as the gut feel This goes beyond the measurable ways in terms of assessing a person The HR team might be able to come out with matrixes Standard guidelines Procedures in terms of evaluating the qualifications of a person But all said and done the gut feel really matters The second thing passion Passion can overpower any other credentials that you might have Anything else you might portray yourself to be in unless you show that passion that you really really decide to do something Very strongly It's not gonna really work. The third thing communication Even having done the best of the work unless you are able to portray it to the person sitting across the table in the right fashion Sorry now Ladies and gentlemen, this is an era wherein we talk about big things the big data the artificial intelligence Augmented reality etc. But I would say the small data still matters and That is one of the things which has been our cornerstone in terms of building a very successful team out there in Bosch Of course, as I said It's not perfect. We are trying and We are happy Thank you Good afternoon, sir as a recruiter What are the kind of qualities do you see in a fresher like the fresher won't may have the good? Skill set or portfolio because he's at the starting of the career If you want to get into a very good company like Bosch or Honeywell What are the kind of qualities that you would expect from the fresher good questions as to say, you know Are you going to tell that what exactly? Needs to be there in terms of getting hired. I said, oh, well, that's not my idea because I'm going to tell a story and if the people can get the story, they should know by now What are the ingredients which needs to go in there? Of course, nevertheless, I'll share some of the things The very question of bringing yourself No, I would say that is something which as a fresher you should be doing Because obviously you don't have a big experience to showcase but at the same time. What are the things that you? Watch really excites you and what is it that you've done from your heart? It could be a project. It could be a painting. It could be well a drama organized for someplace Are you able to really talk with passion in terms of how you did it why you did it and why it mattered to you? I think that does the trick for us and nowadays all of us are bound by a non disclosure agreement with our companies So how how do you suggest how we should handle that in my case? We have our font created for John dear JD sands. Nobody is allowed to use that Green and yellow band brand bar. I cannot use that on my CV either without the permission of certain authorities So how would you expect me to put my portfolio together considering the NDA part? I think the brew coffee also comes in green and yellow, right? Okay All right, then I get your point. I mean this is again a question many of the candidates also ask us and then our straightforward answer is that We need to see something which is good enough to articulate us to well Which area have you worked in what was your special con no specific contribution and then why you did it? And what really excited you in that we are not really asking for the final big image of showing Oh, this was the microwave oven or this was a software interface, which we did for and that's exactly one of the big mistakes That people do in their portfolios. They think that the final image is what really matters Don't you remember in school? You know even you do the math Even if your final answer is wrong if your steps are right, you still get marks, right? Did it applies right? It's the same thing in The portfolio that I have for myself here my portfolio there I have done usability testing but then because it was internal to CA I had to cross out the names and put dummy names So probably that's the way you can go ahead and Take you just need to say that you've worked these things and you know these principles and you follow this process You are adept with it That's what is what the interviewer looks at most probably I think and that also goes back to the honesty part We also check for that if somebody says, oh, this is something secret. This is confidential. However, I am showing it for the interviewer's sake Not good I'm a design manager in a company the execute lab in Hyderabad So I have taken more than like, you know 150 plus interviews of different designers freshers Even 15 in experience even my welcome to the club. So yeah, cool So my experience is 10 year I have taken interview 16 experienced designer as well like more a like 40 plus is right? So the thing is that sometime designers are really enthusiastic really amazing when they talk portfolio is zero Design thinking is zero. They don't know the process. They're having 10 year experience design, right? Now on the other hand a Person can't good in English can't talk properly. I can understand Telugu, right? Now this guy is somehow managing Hindi That's fine. I'm fine with that. I don't have any problem in the language now No communication at all. I Don't think this guy can be presentable in front of client but portfolio is amazing, right now in that case How to proceed with that, right? I Mostly proceed. I want a communicative guy if the guy is communicative have zero portfolio I can do something to make his portfolio great He can spend one year in a six-month in a company and we can we can make him great But communication has to be there now without communication how those guys proceed. This is one question the second question on the same time is now We we take interviews of 10 people in a day these guys go out, right? What I want is basically like the people who are not great Should we call them again and tell them these are the pinfall pinpoints? Which is not there in your resume increase your resume or make it like more presentable or your communication was not good We want to hurt them sentiments. This is one thing, but how to like, you know Make them happy or how to like alert them that you know This is the flaw in your resume and the next time wherever you're going do this thing so that you know, it could be good Excellent. I mean they're really nice questions. I'll take the second one first. This is part of our standard process We always give a feedback to the candidate because it might be just a question of fit men at that point in time It might not be a really a question in terms of their abilities Whatever it may be. So the first thing we say is that hey look for these these regions. Well, we don't find a fit now Do you really want a detailed feedback and believe me some of them say and then we really sit together and as a You know the interview panelists we spend time in terms of Giving them a very wholehearted feedback in terms of what were the shortcomings and how they could improve and many people Are really appreciated that so that really goes a long way See that the funny thing is that we talk about user experience We need to have experience for our customers, etc But do we even really think about the people who we interact with like the candidates? It's very easy to say. Oh, this guy is not good or that girl is not good and send a rejection note, but Are we treating them in the right way? No, are these the small things which you can do of course it takes more time No for each of us. I know I might have to spend an extra 10 or 15 minutes in drafting that email But I would still willing to load that because you know, it makes a big difference for that person coming to your first Question it again depends in terms of what do you want this person to do if going back to the restaurant experience? If that person is an excellent cook You might still want him to dish out fantastic stuff for the customers But probably he may not be the front desk manager, right? You would still be able to find a fitment for that, but In the in the in the necessities of the role He or she should be able to communicate it if you say that he has an excellent portfolio fantastic He's able to communicate it visually I'm strictly against the people who say I have a lot of great ideas you talks about it But nothing really comes out in terms of you know something more tangible or outcome So that's what where I was more referring to So I would say it's more of the room position and the role you have in your company. I would say great Whenever I take interviews and all sometimes no there are cases people come with a Portfolio set and there'll be two folders. One is like work samples from the company and one is called personal Okay, so when I talk to them, I realize Sometimes they're not really happy with what they work in their professional environment and they put some extra Effort take up some extra work extra assignment and you know, give a very good thought process and come out with something really nice And when I go through that I could feel that okay. So this guy is doing some kind of Hard work home work thinking and all sometimes it's it's it lacks some orientation or whatever it is But he put some effort. So that's a good sign. Sometimes I felt that's one thing and regarding the communication part Many people In the project management level or something They're getting rejected because they don't speak English and it's written as communication is bad So I don't really believe in that Sometimes what happens is they're not communicating well because somebody told them your communication is bad so they they have that no inhibition automatically comes into their mind and They're silent and sometimes They do the thinking process and the design thinking sometimes really better so what I do with them I get them in and work with them and No, okay. You are good at this point. So do that better and give some training Okay, if you can just communicate you don't have to really speak English. So sometimes I learn their language and you know Empathize with him and So that works really it works and after a couple of years there is a significant Improvement or some kind of results. Excellent. So here is a great manager. So if you want to give your resume Please go ahead and do that. No, no, I really appreciate that you're doing this This is again Just connecting the dots between these two points One is of course where you are currently you may not be the best in terms of verbally communicating your language skills But that doesn't stop you from learning that doesn't should say that Oh, I'm already always here I have come from such and such in non-English medium school. I'm like this. Yes You are like that, but you need to get better. Yeah, so that that aspiration should also be there