Aviva Life Insurance company

Industry: Insurance

No. of employees: 5000+

Could you tell us about the work culture in your organization?
IT-Wherein while working in my previous company which is an IT company, employees get motivated by responsibilities and they have different sets of rewards and recognition structure. There we need to do lot of employee engagement activities to keep them motivated and to make them stay loyal.

Current recruitment status, Recruitment forecast

Insurance: Aviva was doing recruitment even during recession time but yes with less in numbers, currently the numbers we have in hand is very high, and it is forecasted to get more in the months to come, especially during JFM- Jan- feb- march as the people invest in insurance to save tax

IT: Current status is quite welcoming; things have improved drastically regarding recruitment. Few months before HR people was busy issuing pink slips and now the recruitment bells are ringing like fire alarm.

What is your recruitment process like?

We have mainly 4 modes of recruitment. 1) Through search engines like monster and naukri, 2) Through Job Consultants 3) Employee reference 4) campus Recruitment
IT: Basically have the same set of modes, but we rely more on job portals and consultants based on urgency of recruitment TAT.

Steps involved in your recruitment process

Insurance: We have a specific recruitment process which is automated and works very efficient. As soon as the need for recruitment arises, the line manager let the HR department know about it and the HR post the requirement in our intranet for the employees to upload the reference resume. Simultaneously HR starts searching for resumes in job portals and start sourcing.

First round of Interview is being done by HR and then the selected candidates is being sent to line managers for the next few rounds of interview and in the end the selected candidates come for final round of interview with HR where the salary negotiation takes place. InIT Industry just that there will be technical tests given for candidates based on their number of years of experience.

Skill sets you look for in a prospective candidate

As HR personnel we are basically looking for people with confidence especially when it comes to client interaction, English language skills are of outmost importance. That doesn’t mean that we are completely degrading people who are bad in English, but minimum confidence in speaking what they really want to speak out regarding their education, experience and achievements are looked upon with outmost importance. We also rely on psychometric tests to know their attitude towards their future and company. I will go for a candidate who look in my eyes and speak the truth rather than a blown up resume with not a single truth in it.

Tips about the kind of resumes you expect.

I expect resumes which explains the experience of the person and looking for people with soft skills and I always tell the candidates to avoid making resume based on the job description, and be truthful especially when it comes to the experience. A small mistake will make them loose the job even if they are heavily talented.

Major challenges you’ve faced in the campus or fresher recruitment process.

Campus recruitment are becoming difficult all the more nowadays. First thing is the time we spend on such a recruitment drive. Eventually we end up getting very less number of real talents that we require. The worst part is that the talent we end up getting is highly demanding and not fitting into the cap that we have in hand. Most of the colleges are still not giving importance to soft skills and finishing school training which is the most important aspect we look upon when we look for attributes in a potential candidate.

The HR challenges faced by the industry today.

For a HR person, everyday is a challenge, in today’s scenario, our greatest challenge is to get good quality profiles to fill our current requirements and in bringing about various employee engagement programs and rewards & recognition structures to control attrition.

Your advice to the future IT professionals

Give more importance to your soft skills along with your usual curriculum; try to do assignments on improving your skills on public speaking, interview skills, presentation skills etc, think out of the box when it comes to your future and plan accordingly.