Recruitment – a Spiritual Dimension to Creating Career Opportunities

For a long while now I have wanted to do Vipasanna again. The only time that I did of it was in Bodh Gaya in the year 2000 and it had both shaken me and transformed me to my very core. Of late, with my busy schedule and this boundless hunger to do more to expand my capabilities to solve real world issues I was in search again.

Something remarkable happened during a 3-day workshop I was conducting in the area of Leadership and Managerial Excellence. I had a participant who while having a day-job as a techie also runs a yoga practice and is currently differently-abled due to an accident. Through a couple of breaks we had a few conversations about auras, doing good, expanding human capabilities, working multiple jobs…and he let it slip that he had done Vipassanna 9 times and practiced it on a daily basis. When I expressed my desire to do Vipasanna again he very compassionately told me “But you do Vipassanna all the time. I watch you during the program and you are in the present…nothing matters other than what you do. There is no pain, no gain, just the present and what you have to do”. I found the words deeply consoling and energizing. My restlessness and my zeal addressed all at one shot.

So much so that two-days later at another 2-day program that I had to do on Building Competent Teams – a program on Recruitment practices while looking for the ‘inspiration’ to share, I had a remarkable insight. In today’s crazy world of career complexities and rapid rises and flummoxing falls the job of a person who plays a role in recruitment is quite remarkable. So I led in my session with just that…how blessed are we all in this room as we create job and career opportunities for our fellow humans. We are in the unique position to influence the livelihood of so many!

My career which spans nearly 20 years now has seen me do a lot of ‘awful’ things which I knew to be as such only in retrospect. At that time I was ‘doing my job’ within my limited understanding of ethics and morality. At least twice in my career I have led massive downsizing (or what we call rightsizing to feel good) exercises. And while I clinically executed my surgical strikes being lauded and quickly rising due to my objectivity and cost-saving I hove now come to believe that my actions were extremely wrong.

The purpose of modern management has to be to create beauty in the world – I believe that I would have better served the higher purpose of mankind by creating opportunity to be more productive for the people who were let off. The vast profits of the companies I worked for would be better served creating new businesses and avenues for growth instead of better margins.

Hence my rethink on recruitment – those of us who are in the unique place to give a job, create an opportunity for livelihood must push ourselves to do more.

 I end my program on recruitment by emphasizing on the need to have the line or reporting manager at the reception of the company to welcome the new recruits and immediately take them through their job role and inspire them with all that is in store for them with the Company and how they can be their very best. I further add that perhaps we should welcome new recruits (no matter at which level) as babies into a family – making them the center of all our love, care and attention and also all our nurturing. And like we do with our children – we should only enable and never forsake. And as we are rich in resources we need to ensure we welcome more and more into our family by creating avenues for employment and growth.

If you are a recruiter or a hiring manager – remember the next time you shortlist a candidate – enable him or her to do well in the interview. When you interview look for how he or she can add value to your business and when you find that indeed he or she can, extend that offer – but even more important than the offer is a lifetime of love and nurturing and the opportunity to create great future for the next batch of recruits J