The Tough Task

SNDU (if you have forgotten by now, it’s the company I work for – Sabun, Nakhun and Datun Unlimited) sometime back started asking me to go and recruit from campuses. Amongst all the tasks that increase my heart’s palpitation, this probably is the toughest. It’s even more stressful than the times when you have to disagree with your boss on the costumes of your model in the ads that you make or when data fails to answer a question and you have to swallow hard and take a stance. Now close to 8 years later you have enough confidence to take that stance, but nothing prepares you to face a Placement Committee Member (Placeu as we called them) and tell her how many candidates have you decided to make an offer to.

Now these Placeus come in all shapes and sizes. Some of them make puppy faces, some of them play the martyr, some are plain obnoxious (to both the candidate and the company) but generally they have a tough job trying to place a batch that believes that getting a job offer at the highest pay scale is their birthright.

Anyway, the placeus are always handled well by the world famous (really, true story!) HR team of SNDU. So that takes care of the first problem. But then begins the most important task of selecting a candidate.

Multiple rounds continue, the day changes to night and we meet some of the brightest youngsters in India. Sometimes, they freeze up, sometimes they try to put on a show, sometimes they realize as soon as they walk in and this probably is not what they have wanted to do in their lives but for the most of them, it’s an opportunity they have been waiting for.

I was talking to my grandma the other day about how this stresses me out. Not because I cannot do it, but mainly because every time I say “No” my heart feels a pang of sorrow. And there is no way I can select someone who I do not think is right for the organization I love so much. She reminded me of a Tagore line, “When the judge feels the pain of the convicted, that’s the greatest justice that can be done.” The important feeling to have is empathy that ensures when someone walks out after meeting you, they feel nice about the process irrespective of its outcome.

But still, every time I walk into that room I am scared as if I am the one going in for mine.