Nisha Oza: "It extremely important to get the right talent to hire the right talent"
Hello friends!
🤩 We continue to meet awesome HR professionals to share useful tips and insights for collaborative HR development!
And today our guest is Senior HR Professional Nisha Oza.
Nisha is a Human Resources Professional with over 12 years of experience, developing expertise in areas of recruitment & selection, talent management, succession planning, employee communications and managing campus relations/recruitment.
She has a passion for writing (2 books published), a great love for animals and is an avid traveler.
“She is your usual, close woman, except that she has a daily dose of fire” - an intriguing quote from her author's page at amazon.com. ...
So, let's star the interview!
AO: Hi Nisha! Did you work somewhere before becoming an HR professional, why did you decide to become an HR professional?
Nisha: I studied HR and got my internship straight out of college. So I have always been working in the field of HR.
I liked various aspects of working in HR, from recruitment, to managing HR newsletters, and going to various campuses for recruiting, performance appraisals.
AO: What have you managed to achieve during your work in HR? What are you most proud of?
Nisha: Some of my achievements working in HR is running a smooth recruitment cycle, getting acknowledgements from clients on better work practices.
But what I consider as one of my biggest achievements is the learning process over the years.
There is always something new to learn, some new hurdles to cross, and some new acquaintances to be made. It may not always be a smooth ride, some days more stressful than the others, but I assure you it's never been boring.
Some of my proudest moments are when I have ensured the right candidate gets the job.
There are times when a candidate really needs a job and I have helped source a job through contacts or HR circle. That to me is what is job satisfaction.
AO: Cool, it feels like HR is your true vocation!
What 5 main steps can you name for building a recruiting process in a company?
Nisha:
- Companies have to ensure they have the right talent acquisition team, who are trained in the hiring process, understand the need and also be able to drive the recruitment initiative. It's extremely important to get the right talent to hire the right talent.
- Companies should ensure their leadership team is trained / aware about labor market trends to get a check on expectation VS reality, as most of the time there is a big gap in what the expectations are vs what is available in the labor market.
- There has to be a set timeline for the recruitment process along with the workflow process. It cannot be open-ended. It ensures the speed of work as well.
- Ensure that all stakeholders are informed and are part of the recruiting process. Communication plays a vital role in the whole process, with internal and external stakeholders.
- Smooth transition from resume sourcing, interview, selection to background verification and onboarding the candidate.
AO: In your opinion, what checks / stages of testing candidates should precede the invitation for an interview?
Nisha: Some of the checks which precede the interview stage are to :
- assess the resume,
- check if the candidate has the relevant experience and the technical skill set to do the job.
Salary fitment also needs to be assessed before you start the interview process, as you don't want to interview a candidate who does not fit the salary range /band for the job.
For technical jobs, a pre-test can be done before the interview process.
AO: Do you have clear criteria by which a person passes/does not pass an interview? On what other than the position do these criteria depend?
Nisha: There are a lot of factors that come in play in the selection stage. A few important criteria are Knowledge of the job and the skill set required to do the job.
The other most essential criteria besides the technical knowledge and skill set is an aptitude to learn, and the biggest one is company cultural fitment.
AO: What do you think should be the ideal onboarding process for new employees?
Nisha:
Onboarding of an employee happens even before they join the company.
The candidates should be sent all communications informing them on what to expect on the first day of joining.
Once they join, they need to be given time to adjust to the work environment and also know the teams whom they will be working with. Training on internal systems is extremely significant.
New employees should also be assigned a buddy or mentor whom they can talk to or clarify any doubts when stuck.
AO: What are the main ways of improving diversity & inclusion in the workplace? How do you manage to maintain diversity while building a team of people with the same values?
Nisha:
One of the key roles as an HR professional to introduce diversity in the systems is to hire candidates from different platforms, and not have a tunnel vision.
Hiring candidates who have experience in different perimeters, but have technical knowledge and the skill set for the role.
Managing diversity always comes from the TOP. Managers need to be trained to encourage diversity within their team and ensure an environment which encourages performance from all its team members.
Why Diversity & Inclusion matter? HRD experts share their opinion
AO: Why is feedback important in HR? What are the best ways to create and maintain a culture of feedback?
Nisha: Feedback is vital for any function in the company.
For HR, feedback helps in aligning the recruitment needs and expectations.
It's extremely essential to get feedback after every interview, and ensure each candidate who is interviewed also gets to know the feedback on where he/she stands in the process.
Feedback helps in quicker turnaround time for hiring and also sets a positive impact with external clients and candidates, as there is very little or no room for ambiguity.
AO: What modern technologies or programs would you recommend other HR experts to use to simplify their work? Do you use any technologies or practices in your work?
Nisha: There are Applicant tracking systems used by companies nowadays, and it does help in sourcing candidates, it's also a one-stop shop for the entire hiring process, it makes the work transparent for internal clients which inturn cuts out exchange of emails.
The best part about these ATS is that they can be tweaked according to organizational needs.
What HR software is a must in 2021 [Expert Opinion]?
AO: What is the most valuable professional development advice you have ever gotten?
Nisha: One of the most valuable professional development advice I have got was in the beginning of my career was not to have a narrow vision on things. Be it any aspect of work. Be it a small job or a big project, to ensure that full dedication if given to the task from start to finish, and also respect everyone whom you interact and work with.
AO: Thank you, Nisha, it was a pleasure to interview you. We wish you success and inspiration in your work!
Dear readers, if you want to see an interview with someone specific - be sure to write in the comments.
See you soon on the blog pages 😉