Multi-skilled/Multi-talented resources are the need of the hour.  There is a gradual shift in hiring candidates based on the skills and talent they possess rather just the degrees they hold.  Students are hired through campus recruitments on the basis of the assessment scores evaluating the knowledge and skills relevant to the industry.  In addition, organizations look for their academic performance and their performance in the interview. Though, the focus is relatively lesser as compared to the focus on their skills. These skills include their ability to work in teams, the ability to prioritise, the ability to manage the time, in short, “the soft skills”. Firms are making strategic efforts to recruit quality hires by leveraging several channels of engagement with potential management students. 

According to the survey by Wisdomjobs.com on 120 companies including IT, e-commerce, retails, pharma, manufacturing across the cities of Hyderabad, Mumbai, Delhi, Pune, Bangalore, Chennai, number of top corporations are going to offer premium packages for job roles in segments like automation, IoT (Internet of Things) etc.  On other hand, top six IT companies in India have declared a decline of 10,505 employees in the first two quarters of financial year 2018. The same period of last year, the companies witnessed a hiring of 58, 765 employees. The possible reason for this slowdown of hiring in Indian IT firms as reported by Live Mint is the shift of technology enabled business model like cloud computing which demands less manpower. Technology industries witnessed the biggest increase in hiring management students in 2017. Few studies have predicted that this trend will decline in the coming year 2018.

E- Commerce firms are looking for management students who specialise in operations for job roles like supply chain, logistics, vendor management, inventory management, delivery and returns. IT and ITES firms are looking to hire management students for their back – end operations to work for the parent companies in the areas such as banking, financial services etc. 

Hiring in consulting industries expect a steady growth in 2018 as compared to 2017. However after this spike, employers also expect a decline in hiring during 2019, though the predictions are somewhat less solid.

In 2018, technology becoming the way of work life is the biggest shift in the workplace. For example, the use of gamification in hiring process is the next workplace trend. Gamification can be used to screen the students, turn the tests of critical skill sets and cognitive abilities into fun engagement. While students have fun playing recruitment games, the employers have huge amount of data to predict the students’ strengths and weaknesses through critical analytics thereby enabling quality hires into the organizations.

Digital India, “Make in India” initiatives along with IoT will demand a rise for entry- level candidates. As per NASSCOM reports, India will expand 3100 tech start-ups to 11,500 by 2020. 

Put together, there could be top three hiring trends for the year 2018 which management students must keep in their in order to be the right fit in the organizations thereby improving the organizational capabilities.

Quality of Hire

Though Quality of Hire indicates the efficiency of the recruiting manager, it is also important for the management students to improve their soft skills, develop quality performance and conform to the corporate culture by continuous learning. This will make them to be more engaged in their work environment and improve their retention rate. One has to remember that Quality of Hire is measured using benchmarks such as performance indicators, retention rates etc.

Upskilling

In this VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous) world, organizations are increasingly becoming less concerned about the management degrees; rather they focus on skill sets. Enhancing the skill set and becoming multi- talented resource is the key to success in the dynamic workplace. Continuous upskilling must be the focus of the management students to be the right fit in the workforce.

Artificial Intelligence 

Most of the recruiters use LinkedIn to hire candidates. About 70% of the candidates in the job market use social media to find new jobs. Almost many recruiters use artificial intelligence enabled technology to screen candidates, conduct preliminary interviews and also in other facets of hiring process. As the face of workforce is dramatically changing, the management students, irrespective of their campus placements must make themselves comfortable using social media for their hiring needs. 

In 2018, it is clear that technology will impact the hiring of management students sooner rather than later.  Thus even before the calendar hits 2018, it is worthy to start preparing for the future today.