Red bus recruitment

A red bus journey can teach us a lot about US recruitment industry as is currently setup.?The journey on a crowded red bus on roads of India starts with planning out a strategy to get into the bus through the blocked entrance, and privileged alternatives thereof.

The first and foremost way of getting in the bus is to shovel around and push people in the way to gain access to the only door that leads you to the seating area.?Some smart Indians decide to put the bottom dollar on other witty ways to accomplish the same outcome.

Jostling through the main door is so similar to Recruiters fighting through colleagues and 100’s of other unseen recruiters to get in their candidate for the open submission slot.?This strategy is a sure shot winner for animal instincts in you.?The more you can throw other recruiters aside, the higher your chance of success.

Other witty ways, huh, surely they are!?One of the easiest ways discovered is to negotiate an entry with the driver of the bus.?This will almost surely get you into the bus without a hassle.?Other, and more common ways is to ask a sitting passenger to block a seat for you. While doing this hara-kiri, we have found one more ingenious way of using our towels and kerchiefs to accomplish this goal. A piece of cloth almost always assures you of reservation to an empty seat, while you are jostling through the crowd to get in.?The sanctity of piece of cloth is such that it is as good as a signed blank cheque.?Any other person displacing that single piece of proof of your reservation almost certainly leads to be fight. ?Now think how many times have we not put a note in our ATS reserving a candidate?

A setup with driver of the bus is akin to a negotiated deal with the MSP contact/Hiring Manager.?A decision is already made to get the submittal in the VMS system. But the job still needs to be released.?Resumes need to be sourced on that posting, just like people jostling for a seating spot coming from the door.

There is also the case of privileged information about an opening available through existing contractors, and other stake holders.?This one is similar to reserving a seat for your candidate, in advance, even before a formal submission through VMS is made.?Then there are ugly fights about who gets ownership of such candidate(s), vendor who made VMS submittal, or agency that stitched an outside deal for the candidate.

Then there are otherways of starting the journey.?This is by climbing on the roof through steps at the back end of the bus.?This choice comes with a risk of being thrown out while in a journey, but certainly comes free of cost.?Also, foot boarding is a style symbol.?Here the goal is to make a statement, and the passenger has no intention whatsoever to be seated, even if the whole bus is empty. Here you pay the ticket price and decide to stand and go on a journey.?This is akin to submitting a candidate who has no intention to accepting the offer.?This way you show the challenge as covered, and push out the fight to make an entry through the door for a different day. You do not gain anything with this strategy; though will certainly lose a submission spot.

Then there are those infamous ways, roof tops, under carriage and what not.?These are overflow submissions that might complete the journey, buy no record can be found anywhere.?

Then and not to miss final set of aspirants, ones who lean through the window above the tyres of the bus to gain access.?They go beyond the “just place a piece of cloth”, and engineer a whole new concept of “fitting the circle in a square” strategy. They push through the curvy human body through the small rectangular window above the tyre to somehow squeeze into a seat.?This one is my favourite!?Hats off to all that make this strategy work successfully.?This one is an ode to all those cut through set of recruiters who decide to get the impossible done.?These are those beg, borrow, or steal kind of recruiters that keep the journey lively.

In hindsight, one is left wondering if orderly entry through the door is ever going to be made possible.?While doing the trade, can the practice still be legal, moral, and ethical.?Time holds the key, as always!?The bus hasn’t been any more crowded as was before, though the animal instincts have surely come to the fore. The biggest risk taker, or one with brawn wins the game.

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