EP94: NLB Services - How to Use Human Intelligence to Find Talent

All-In Recruitment is a podcast by Manatal focusing on all things related to the recruitment industry’s missions and trends. Join us in our weekly conversations with leaders in the recruitment space and learn their best practices to transform the way you hire.

This transcript has been edited for clarity.

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Lydia: Welcome to the All-In Recruitment podcast by Manatal where we explore best practices, learnings, and trends with leaders in the recruitment space. If you like our content, please subscribe to our channels on YouTube and Spotify to stay tuned for weekly episodes.

My name is Lydia. Joining us today is Varun Sachdeva of NLB Services. Thanks for joining us today and welcome to the show.

Varun: Thank you so much, Lydia. Thank you for having me on the show.

Bridging Technology and Human Intelligence in Recruitment

Lydia: So, Varun, tell us a little bit about your current role in NLB Services. I understand that your focus is APAC.

Varun: I essentially manage the entire Asia Pacific region for NLB Services. Predominantly, we are a digital talent solution organization.

I have been associated with the industry for over two decades and have been with the firm for over five years now. So, I’m looking forward to a very interesting conversation with you now.

Lydia: As a digital talent solutions provider, in what aspects do you look into the needs of clients in this sense?

Varun: So, we basically help our clients in hiring the right talent at the right time using the right combination of technology and human intelligence. What we have done in the last decade or so is that we have invested heavily in digitization of the entire recruitment ecosystem. For every step in the recruitment lifecycle, we have a technology in place, which basically acts as an enabler and accelerator and the human intelligence portion focuses on the engagement and experience part.

That's what is needed for the recruitment industry and that's how we help our clients in identifying, engaging, and retaining the right talent for the growth of the organization.

Lydia: And this includes sourcing and building the talent pipeline.

Varun: Absolutely. That’s a critical part. We take care of our customers. First, we understand the needs of our customers and then define a sourcing strategy. This allows us to engage and attract the right talent for the organization.

We take them through a candidate journey. In today’s world, candidates have to be treated and managed the way you manage your customers. That’s where we put a lot of focus on taking them through the screening process.

We ensure that hiring managers do not spend a lot of time evaluating and looking at resumes. They should absolutely be looking at the profiles where they can make decisions faster. It should be quality-driven.

Once a person is selected, the person should also join the project or the organization. In the last couple of years, the industry has been bleeding because of awkward dropouts. As a company, we ensure that we focus on all these elements before we even start an engagement with any of our clients.

Lydia: Is there a particular industry or specific market segment that NLB specializes in?

Varun: We cater to anything and everything related to technology. Over the last three or four years, we have also started building our capabilities in non-IT domains.

These include manufacturing, BFSI, pharmaceuticals, healthcare, and life sciences. We heavily support all these verticals at this point in time.

Addressing Talent Shortages through Upskilling and Reskilling in APAC

Lydia: In terms of Asia Pacific, what are some observations you might have made maybe, in terms of demand or even availability of talent in this region? Are there any interesting insights to share because we've seen a very critical shift in the past three, two to three years especially?

Varun: I personally feel that the Asia Pacific region is going through a pivotal juncture in the global Talent Acquisition and digital landscape. There are many countries emerging as hotspots or hubs for innovation and skill building.

For example, if you look at global capability centers, Vietnam and India have become the preferred destinations for global organizations to establish their capability centers. This is due to the availability of talent, infrastructure, technology, and the investor-friendly approach from these countries. That’s why we see organizations wanting to support their global clients.

At NLB Services, we definitely want to be a solution provider and service provider. We aim to share our know-how and industry expertise, which we have gained over many years, with organizations to accelerate their expansion plans. That’s what we do, that’s what we take care of, and that’s how we strategically partner with our clients.

I also wanted to cover the second aspect, which you mentioned about the demand and supply of talent. I was reading an article a couple of weeks back, and it clearly mentioned that 80% of the organizations in the Asia Pacific region are struggling to identify, hire, or retain the talent required for the organization to build capabilities.

That’s why, in the last couple of years, we have seen upskilling and reskilling initiatives taking a very important role in the overall talent management space for organizations. At NLB, we help organizations hire talent laterally. Simultaneously, we also help in the campus-to-corporate journey, where we tap into talent at the initial stages of their career, or those about to graduate from universities.

We put a structured training program in collaboration with our clients so that we can build talent for the organization which might be required in the future for our corporate clients. We have seen a very successful rate in this model in the last couple of years, and the organizations that have adopted this model have done so very successfully.

Lydia: We’ve seen mass layoffs and large, sudden availability of talent, especially in the technology sector. However, there are also some challenges when it comes to hiring candidates at a certain level and above.

For instance, senior-level hires are very difficult to find, especially in a climate where companies demand capabilities with digital transformation. So, are there any insights into finding senior-level talent to accelerate or facilitate digital transformation?

Varun: You’re absolutely right. We have definitely seen a muted demand when it comes to technology resources in the IT services sector. However, if you look at it from another perspective, non-IT domains such as BFSI, manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, healthcare, life sciences, automotive, and so on, have also started picking up technology talent.

They have realized that it’s all about operational excellence. They want to lower their cost of delivery to maintain their profits. That’s why technology talent, which probably was working with technology services companies in the past, is now shifting gears and wanting to work for non-IT sectors as well. That’s a reason we see an uptick in demand from these sectors.

If I specifically talk about the demand we see in the market today for cybersecurity resources, artificial intelligence, machine learning, data analytics resources, and high-tech emerging skills like full-stack development, we definitely see a demand coming from non-traditional sectors as well. These sectors are equally promising to the IT sector when it comes to hiring the right talent.

If we go back a decade or two, it was all about the academic qualification of a resource and the experience, that was actually driving the decision for someone to get hired at a particular organization. Now, the ecosystem has changed. It’s more about the adoption of continuous learning, interpersonal skills, and communication skills.

When you talk about hiring resources at the leadership level, it’s about how they can lead the organization from Level A to Level B, and how they can be growth-oriented. That’s the reason there are a lot of skill-based assessments done for leadership-level hiring, even before someone is actually presented to the business.

So, there has been a paradigm shift in terms of how the recruitment ecosystem was operating earlier. Now, technology plays a very important role. That’s why we see an unbiased hiring approach being adopted by organizations globally. It’s all about hiring the right talent for the right skill and opportunity, rather than just focusing on filling a vacancy, which was the traditional model.

Matching Client Requirements with Talent Availability

Lydia: In terms of keeping it unbiased and also focusing on growth orientation, what kind of growth mindset is needed? What are the assessments that are put in place for that? What might be some solutions or ways to assess all these factors when hiring?

For instance, as a digital talent solutions provider, what might be some steps that are involved?

Varun: At NLB Services, we focus on building talent cohorts, which we also refer to as ‘talent.’ For example, if a customer approaches us wanting to build a capability for a particular skill, let’s take full stack development or any other skill for that matter.

What we do first is gather market intelligence. We proactively reach out to the available talent pool in the market and start engaging with them. We cannot start discussing opportunities with the talent in the first call. Instead, we begin by understanding their motivating factors. We try to understand why someone would be looking for a change, whether it’s about compensation, location, skills, technology, or anything else related to their career aspirations.

Once we have all of this information, we ensure that we thoroughly understand the client's requirements. We then match these requirements with the availability of talent in our pool. We present the top two candidates from our side to the business. Once we get the go-ahead from the business to move forward, we schedule the interviews and proceed through the recruitment lifecycle.

If we receive negative feedback from the hiring managers, we go back to the drawing board to understand where the gap was and what we need to do to fix it. With this approach, I would like to talk about some numbers as well. In 2022, when the entire technology industry in India was dealing with about a 45 to 55% offer dropout rate for certain technology skills, we were able to cap it at a flat 28% for all our clients across the domain.

This was all because of the engagement we were doing, and that too, in a proactive fashion while building these talent communities. Today, if you ask me, I don’t need a job board to find talent. What we have done is create an alternative sourcing channel, where we already have resources available in our community. We are engaged with them, we know what they are looking for in their next opportunity, and we just need to ensure that we present them with the right opportunities. This way, we can fill the position and help the customer build the required capability.

Lydia: So, would you consider this some form of future-proofing recruitment to a certain extent?

Varun: Absolutely. That’s where recruitment is moving towards. It’s transitioning from a model I spoke about earlier, where we simply fill a role in a cookie-cutter recruitment fashion, to a more engagement and experience-driven approach. This is what Talent Acquisition professionals in today’s world should be doing.

They should be detail-oriented and focus on the vision and mission of the organization. They should also concentrate on data analytics so that they can have meaningful conversations with the business. At the same time, they should always focus on the engagement and experience of the candidate as well.

Gone are the days when organizations used to take eight to ten hours of interviews to identify and hire talent. Today, it’s all about speed, quality, and engagement at all levels in the recruitment lifecycle.

Enhancing Candidate Experience with Engagement and Brand Recognition

Lydia: And in what ways have companies, in your experience, shifted their approach towards engagement with candidates or even talent attraction given so many changes in the demands and preferences of employers, candidates, specifically, and even employees for that matter?

Varun: I think the process, or what organizations are calling it today, is ever-evolving. When we talk about the engagement initiatives being taken, they’re becoming over-communicated. Earlier, it used to be all about what the customer was looking for, and then just presenting the candidate for this position. Now, it’s about finding that bridge between what the candidate is looking for and what the demand is. Let’s try to build a bridge between them and give equal importance to both of them.

I also feel that technology is playing a very important role in automating some of the processes that were done manually earlier. It used to take a lot of time to source the right talent, then take them through a screening process, and then schedule the interviews. Today, if I talk about NLB services, our response time is about four hours when we get the position from a customer. It only takes about two to three days for us to present a candidate. So, I think technology has definitely been a key differentiator in our approach when we talk about the changes happening in the recruitment industry.

Also, when we talk about the policies that were being made by the HR of the talent management team earlier, they were heavily focused on the business’s profitability. Now, I think it is more towards providing flexibility to the mental well-being of the employees and the prospect of talent as well. Nowadays, it’s all about marketing. Recruitment has become a marketing business, wherein what we show is actually itself. Otherwise, it’s very difficult to attract the right talent.

That is the reason it is the responsibility of a Talent Acquisition professional to act as a true brand ambassador of the organization while talking to any of the candidates for positions at the organization which are probably immediate or in the future as well. It’s the experience, the engagement, and the brand recognition that matters a lot today than it used to matter about five years back.

Lydia: You mentioned something pivotal, which is reducing the response time to your clients. So, in other words, how has technology impacted the time to hire for those in the technology sector, especially when you look out for talent that is niche and hard to find? How does that work? Is there an ideal time range, or is there no such thing?

Varun: So, if you talk about middle management, for four years to say, eight to ten years of experience, I would say lateral hiring. To be honest, earlier organizations used to talk about 30 days, 60 days, or 90 days notice period here, depending on the geography they are operating in. In some locations, there is a two-week notice period policy as well.

Now, what has changed is that companies like NLB Services, and corporates have started building that database, that talent community or talent cohorts wherein they have candidates available with shorter notice periods as well.

So, based on the demand of the business, it is called just-in-time hiring. If the business says that they need to hire talent today, there is definitely talent available in the market or in that community, who is probably available to take the interview and join in the next two to three weeks timeframe. For us, the time to fill, which used to look like six to eight weeks earlier, we have been able to shorten it down to say three to four weeks of onboarding.

This is because we go to the talent pool, which is probably in between jobs, or they are on contractual opportunities and would like to take a full-time opportunity or another contingent opportunity. So, we have been able to use technology very efficiently to shorten this time to-fill to about three to four weeks for our customers, especially on the technology side.

When you talk about the niche skills, which are probably rare to find, that’s where the timelines are very dependent on what we’re trying to look for. But otherwise, for vanilla roles, or the relevant roles that are there in the market, it takes about three to four weeks for us to onboard the talent.

Transforming Talent Acquisition with AI and Machine Learning

Lydia: We're seeing so many different types of trends in the workforce today, many of them, as you said, contractual and contingent roles that are out there, and there's a need to build more connectivity in the workforce within teams, especially in tandem with the kind of productivity that is expected of them.

So, when you are looking out for talent across different roles, or maybe there are some senior roles or mid-level roles that you look out for, what are some traits that you look for when you search for top talent?

Varun: I think I partially answered this question. From academic qualification-based hiring, we’ve moved to skill-based hiring. Now, it’s not just about hiring for a particular position, but rather, it’s about hiring for a capability.

Earlier, everything used to be manual. Now, organizations are using technology as an enabler for them. Previously, there used to be an Applicant Tracking System where the database just sat idle. Now, we have Artificial Intelligence and machine learning.

These technologies provide us with information about the talent pool required for a particular organization, and whether the capability already exists in the system. That’s where the engagement is already there because their resumes are in the database.

So, I think all these factors are driving recruitment today. It’s different from what we used to do traditionally in terms of Talent Acquisition and hiring domains.

Lydia: In terms of DE&I, what is the approach taken by NLB Services to ensure there is some level of adherence to achieve diversity in the kinds of higher hiring structures that you put in place?

Varun: I personally feel that diversity, inclusion, and equity are fundamentally wired into the NLB ecosystem. We operate out of 15 different locations across the globe. We have employees from different walks of life, working in multiple geographies with different interests and thoughts, coming from different backgrounds, races, ethnicities, and groups.

What matters to us is the collaborative approach that is being followed and the respect for an individual that is given at the organization. It’s not only internally. As a company, we ran the biggest and largest diversity hackathon in corporate India in 2022 and 2023. We collaborated with NTT DATA as our strategic client and ran a hackathon on International Women’s Day. The hackathon goes on for about 45 days.

Interestingly, when we did it in 2022, we were able to get about 3.4 million impressions on the entire digital content. We were able to onboard about 100 women coders for NTT DATA in India. The entire program was covered by over 140 media houses.

When we did the same in 2023, we were able to build a talent community of over 12,000 women coders on Java and .NET skills. The engagement and the impressions on the digital content were absolutely double what we saw last year, and we onboarded over 154 people for NTT DATA during that timeframe.

So, it is a part of our DNA. We support it very successfully with our clients and internally as well. That’s what I would have to say about diversity and inclusion at NLB Services.

Building Relationships is the Core of Effective Talent Management

Lydia: How would you describe, I think you already spoke a little bit about the traits of a Talent Acquisition professional today, but focusing on this, what does a Talent Acquisition specialist or a professional need to be or what kind of person, or what kind of traits do they need to have in order to be successful?

Varun: I think they should be technology savvy. That’s a must because 90% of the work for Talent Acquisition is done through technology today while human intelligence should focus on providing that engagement, that proactive engagement to the talent. Communication is required to share information about the role and continuous learning.

This entire industry is evolving. There are new tools that are available at the disposal of recruiters or Talent Acquisition professionals. They should be forthcoming in using those technologies, those tools. They should be very agile and flexible in their approach so that they can be successful when it comes to identifying, retaining, and engaging with the right talent.

I personally feel that in the last decade or so, Talent Acquisition as a domain has shifted the focus from being a support function to a business enabler or a core business function for the organization. This is because there is a direct impact on the revenue of the organization.

I think it’s the perfect time to be in the Talent Acquisition domain. Focus on being detail-oriented, and technology savvy, and focus on engagement and building relationships with candidates. That’s what is required for someone to be successful in this domain.

Lydia: Thank you very much, Varun, for your time and your insights today. You have been very generous, and I'm sure the audience can derive plenty of value from it. So, in case someone wants to pick up a conversation with you later, please drop us your contact details.

Varun: Absolutely. I’ll be more than happy to share that. My email address is varun.sachdeva@nlbtech.com. I would be more than happy to connect with anybody who would like to know more about the industry and even partner with NLB Services on some of these strategic initiatives.

Lydia: Thank you so much, Varun. I hope you have a pleasant day ahead.

Varun: Thank you so much, Lydia.

Lydia: And we have been in conversation with Varun Sachdeva of NLB Services. Thank you for joining us and remember to subscribe for more weekly episodes of All-In Recruitment.