AI Recruiting

This article has been updated on April 3rd, 2023.

There’s no such thing as finding the right time to catch up on your reading, is there? If you want to, you will.

Agreed not everyone is a bibliophile. But there are many of us who find the answers we seek in books from wonderful authors. Perhaps, reading is also an acknowledgment of willingness and humility, accepting that there is so much you don’t know.

Most people who aspire to become better, be it in their personal or work lives, look toward books that introduce them to a plethora of ideas and possibilities.

As John Coleman says in his HBR article,

“deep, broad reading habits are often a defining characteristic of our greatest leaders and can catalyze insight, innovation, empathy, and personal effectiveness.”

Do you have these recruitment books on your bookshelf?

We put this reading list together, after speaking with several recruiters/hiring managers and doing our own research, and hopefully, it will make your life exponentially more fulfilling!

Read on…

#1—Recruiting Sucks… But It Doesn’t Have To: Breaking Through the Myths That Got Us Here by Steve Lowisz

Recruiting developers should be a rewarding experience, not a challenging one. Why do recruiters/hiring managers feel that most tech interview experiences are bad? Maybe it’s time to rethink the entire recruiting process, identify gaps, and hire the best of the best. This is exactly what Steve Lowisz swears by.

In his book, he urges recruiters to leave traditional recruiting practices behind them and be better marketers to attract top talent. He also debunks 7 myths that are associated with and hinder recruiting a high-quality workforce.

Get your copy here.

#2—Social Media Recruitment: How to Successfully Integrate Social Media into Recruitment Strategy by Andy Headworth

With the pandemic shuttering offices, remote work has come to the forefront. Companies are changing the way they work while their employees remain scattered across geographies. Recruitment strategies need to be tweaked to attract and hire talent from a remote perspective. This is where social media steps in.

Social Media Recruitment deals with choosing suitable platforms, devising social media strategies, creating content that caters to a global audience, and building strong brand recall. Leveraging social media to improve your hiring efforts is a useful tactic to have in your corner, believes Andy Headworth.

Find the book here.

#3—High-Tech High-Touch Recruiting: How to Attract and Retain the Best Talent By Improving the Candidate Experience by Barbara Bruno

Hiring great candidates is only half the battle; engaging and retaining them to become long-term employees is the end goal. In her latest book, Barbara Bruno blends “high-tech” hiring tools with “high-touch” relationship-based recruiting methods to provide a better candidate experience.

She gives pointers on how to enhance the human aspect of recruiting while utilizing new technology to source candidates.

Get your copy here.

#4—Hire Right, Fire Right: A Leader’s Guide to Finding and Keeping Your Best People by Roxi Bahar Hewertson

Every recruiter/HR professional knows the importance of firing an employee when required. It is just as important as hiring right. In this book, Roxi Bahar Hewertson gives leaders the tools to hire top talent and fire someone at the right time, cleanly and gracefully. She tackles a sensitive subject that is not usually talked about in recruitment books.

Hire Right, Fire Right demonstrates how to weed out mismatched hires and how to handle the loss of great talent. From increasing their company’s hiring success rate, employee retention rates, and even lowering the risk of lawsuits and damage to your organization’s reputation, decision-makers are fully armed to make the right hiring decisions with this book.

Get your copy here.

#5—Hiring for Diversity: A Complete Guide by Gerardus Blokdyk

If you want your company to head towards a future where technology is inclusive and built with everyone in mind, you need a workforce that is inclusive, diverse, and representative of the market that your tech company hopes to reach.

Fostering a D&I culture at the workplace is no piece of cake, which is why Hiring for Diversity comes equipped with design strategies and recent advances to improve your diversity hiring efforts. It also teaches you to set diversity goals appropriately and achieve them through the right initiatives.

Find the book here.

Recommended read: 4 Things The Pandemic Taught Us About Diverse Tech Teams

#6—The Robot-Proof Recruiter: A Survival Guide for Recruitment and Sourcing Professionals by Katrina Collier

Technology is known to be a recruiter’s best friend. However, with the plethora of automated screening tools, online assessments, and other remote interviewing software, some aspects have begun to get lost in translation. The human factor is being taken over by automated practices, and candidates are supremely dissatisfied with the recruitment process where they often feel like numbers rather than people.

Katrina Collier explains how to stand out and recruit successfully in a world of tech overload. The Robot-Proof Recruiter is an indispensable guide for recruiters to gain the trust of any candidate and be the one that candidates want to talk to.

Find the book here.

#7—Hiring Success: How Visionary CEOs Compete for the Best Talent by Jerome Ternynck

Future-proofing tech teams is the way forward in 2021. To keep up with the trends in the market, companies need to adapt quickly and design hiring strategies that are aligned with these changes.

Jerome Ternynck distills the 30 years he’s spent creating future-ready tech teams in this popular book, which describes several recruiting strategies that CEOs can make use of when hiring.

Get your copy of this book here.

#8—The Talent Fix: A Leader’s Guide to Recruiting Great Talent by Tim Sackett

The Talent Fix outlines a unique recruiting model for talent acquisition leaders and practitioners. It is a practical book, which provides scalable real-world examples of how organizations are successfully recruiting today.

Building and retaining a great talent pool is what companies dream of, and this book shows you exactly how to go about it.

Find the book here.

#9—Recruit Rockstars: The 10 Step Playbook to Find the Winners and Ignite Your Business by Jeff Hyman

This is the go-to book for recruiters looking to make hiring less instinct-driven and more skill-based, recruit talent with limitless potential, and understand the essential elements of an effective hiring campaign.

Follow Jeff Hyman’s 10-step approach for hiring the right talent for every role. In other words, hire rockstars and star performers effortlessly, every single time.

Find the book here.

#10—The Art of Sustainable Performance: A Model for Recruiting, Selection, and Professional Development by Bas Kodden

Published in 2020, this book approaches recruitment and selection of candidates in a distinctly new light. Bas Kodden stresses the importance of key performance indicators as being the secret sauce to building successful teams.

This book ensures that recruiters and HR professionals will find a practical, innovative, and fruitful model to adopt for their recruiting strategies.

Get your copy here.

What’s on your reading list?

There are plenty of great books on talent acquisition and recruiting out there. These are just a few that have caught our attention. Did we miss a must-have on your reading list for 2023? We want to know! Tell us what books you think should go on this list in the comments section.

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The last time college graduates faced an uncertain job future, it was 2008 and we were staring down at the Great Recession. This time, it’s worse.

Statistics suggest that the pandemic has left us with a worse labor market than 2008. While some companies like Google, Salesforce, and Amazon decided to forge ahead with remote internships despite the pandemic, there were many like L’Oreal, Indeed, Discovery Inc. and Buzzfeed who had to cancel offers. Hiring freeze was a commonly used term across industries last year.

Now, with the vaccine in play and normalcy looking achievable, there are signs that the freeze has begun to thaw. Monster’s recent Future Of Work report filled out by 3,100 respondents shows that tech hiring is on the rise. 49% of the respondents from the tech industry who took the survey said that they would either backfill existing roles or open up new ones in 2021.

So, that’s good news! But…

If you’re a tech recruiter hiring in 2021, you know that the playing field has changed. First up, you’re probably looking at a larger talent pool with more graduates vying for the same role than ever before. While a larger funnel is welcome, it also means that your assessment and interview process has to be streamlined and well structured.

Second, you are going to be dealing with altered expectations. The pandemic has changed the definitions of jargons we took for granted – job satisfaction, loyalty, empathy. Employees joining the workforce today expect different things than their predecessors. Our State of Developer Recruitment 2020 report shows that more developers were asking for benefits like health insurance, mental wellness days, and; most importantly, upskilling, before taking up an offer.

Then there’s the increased focus on skill-based, bias-free hiring practices. Tech hiring has been called out again and again for it’s “boys club” nature, which keeps women and minorities away from leadership roles. As recruiters, the onus is on us to make changes at the grassroot levels (i.e. when hiring early talent) and not give in to age-old practices.

Sounds overwhelming? Don’t worry, we got you!

We went around and asked our favorite recruiters to give us some tips on how to realign the campus hiring process for 2021 and beyond. Here’s what they told us:

1. Be honest about job requirements and the ideal candidate fit

A downturn can cause individual workloads to increase, and might expand other job roles. If you’re still being conscientious with your hiring budget and not doing a lot of lateral hiring, then you might need interns and early hires to take on more work than under normal circumstances. Considering the influx of candidates you might be dealing with, this is the time to be open about your requirements and your company culture.

SUBSCRIBE to the HackerEarth blog and enrich your monthly reading with our free e-newsletter – Fresh, insightful and awesome articles like these straight into your inbox from around the tech recruiting world!

2. Hire for skills and ditch those resumes

The class of 2021 will have a gap year on their resumes. So did the class of 2008. Many of them went back to college to enroll in further studies, while others decided to use the time upskill and learn new skills.

Don’t look for the flaws in the resumes. Look for the skills that would make a developer fit in with your company’s changed business model and outlook. Somebody who invests in themselves and their skills is an asset during changing times, and you’ll be happy to have them on your side through tough times.

The right tools go a long way in helping you hire the best talent. Especially with campus hiring, where you’re dealing with a large talent pool, manual assessments do not make the cut. Instead, you should look to using platforms that let you send out standardized tests to multiple candidates, and choose the best. Even with interviews, make sure you’re using a platform that has real-time pair-programming and coding features so as to gauge skill levels better.

3. Talk about upskilling initiatives

On the subject of skills, let’s make it a two-way conversation, please. As important as it is for companies to hire skilled talent, the reverse is equally true, too. Developers at every level are looking for upskilling opportunities, and they would like their employers to understand this. In our annual recruiter survey, we found that 60.7% of our respondents said ‘Company Sponsored Upskilling’ was a must-have benefit for a tech employer. This is what prospective candidates were asking for during the interviews.

Studies show that 40% of Gen Z professionals prefer learning and growth opportunities over other benefits at the workplace. This is a generation that grew up on YouTube tutorials and podcasts, and had an entire gap year to do nothing but upskill. Do they still want more? Yes!

So, shine the light on your company’s L&D initiatives and get ready to have some fruitful conversations.

Further Reading

Learn more about how HackerEarth can help you upskill your team!

4. Promote your brand values

A Deloitte survey shows that Gen Z prefers to interact with and work for companies based on their ethics, practices, and social impact. Companies have to go beyond lip service. It’s important to validate your commitment towards society through action. These values, or “karma points”, can help you create a distinct brand identity among all the others vying for the top talent.

Having a clearly defined employer brand and promoting your core values and benefits also enables you to attract the best candidate fit right from the start, thereby reducing time-to-hire, increasing retention rates, and driving down additional costs of re-recruiting.

Gen Z is also attracted to brands that promote and foster diversity as we found out. Companies like Salesforce with their equality and inclusion programs have changed the dialogue around D&I, and promoting your company’s efforts will only help you be a part of an important conversation.

5. Get your remote onboarding process organized

This one is a no-brainer, right? And yet, it matters quite a bit. Jamini Pulyadath; HackerEarth’s Senior Manager (Talent Acquisition), recently wrote about the ways in which recruiters can make remote onboarding easier for new employees, and you can adopt some of her tricks for your early hires as well.

You can also take a page out of our team member Ruehie’s book here. She recently wrote a piece aimed at helping recruiters create a meaningful and engaging virtual onboarding experience for interns and I think this might help you if you’re running an internship program.

Looking for remote hiring solutions? We got your back!

Bonus: Don’t forget to be empathetic

I recently read an article in the Harvard Business Review about handling grief in the workplace. What we have been through as a collective is unprecedented, and it’s hurt us all in different ways. The graduating class of 2021 lost the chance to start a life they had been dreaming of, and are worried about getting a late start to their careers. Economists call this phenomenon a ‘failure to launch’, and they say it can have a lasting impact on a generation.

Empathy is the least we can offer them, and it doesn’t come at a high cost. So, why not bake it into your early talent hiring process, eh?

*****

To know more about how HackerEarth can help you with your campus hiring requirements, do write to us at support@hackerearth.com.

The intern hiring season (beginning in February) usually serves as a breath of fresh air, and offers an undisturbed, fresh talent pool for companies. Throwing a full-fledged spanner in the works, however, last year’s pandemic led to nation-wide lockdowns, and shuttered campuses and offices. Hiring for interns on Glassdoor for April 2020 fell as much as 39% when compared to April 2019.With the inevitable shift to remote work, virtual or remote internships started coming into the spotlight. With a wider talent pool to pick from, recruiters have had their work cut out for them to make good hires.

In post-pandemic 2021, the one word defining any practice is reinvention. The same is also true of tech recruiters who, whether hiring for interns or full-time employees, need to transform their practices, right from the grassroots level.

They have to ask themselves, are remote internships a new fad or are they here to stay?

What do we think?

At HackerEarth, reinvention is second nature to us. We aim to stay ahead of the curve and constantly change the way we address our talent needs, right from sourcing to onboarding. We decided to assess where we currently stand on remote hiring for interns and how best to take it forward this year.

My conversations with Sachin Gupta, our CEO, Vishwastam Shukla, CTO, and Murali Krishna, HackerEarth’s Senior HR Generalist, brought to fore some insightful strategies that everyone can benefit from when hiring and onboarding interns this year. Read on!

#1 How has HackerEarth transformed the entire process of hiring and onboarding post-COVID?

In Sachin’s words, “Interviewing and in a lot of cases, even screening, was done manually before COVID-19. The pandemic has forced everyone to move to a virtual recruiting process. This has had a huge impact on campus recruiting and face-to-face interviews.

HackerEarth has been instrumental in helping companies adapt their recruiting processes to a completely virtual set up. The take-home assessments can be used for screening candidates in both campuses as well as lateral hiring and FaceCode makes it super simple to have pair programming interviews.”

#2 When you think about remote onboarding, how much of it is purely digital? Is there still a need for the “human element” to be present? If yes, how can recruiters ensure that personal touch is brought to the table, virtually?

“Personally, there is always a need for “human element” in onboarding. While a lot of functional aspects of onboarding interns can be covered digitally through pre-recorded videos and self-serve portals, they can only do so much. A human touch to it can make the employees feel a lot more welcome and integrated.

A simple way is to ensure there are regular check-ins about work and casual interactions about everything else by the key stakeholders for every new employee. We, at HackerEarth, assign a buddy to each intern at the beginning of the onboarding process. A buddy helps ease them into their role and navigate uncharted waters. For the initial two weeks, every manager that interns would be working with takes some time and personally introduces themselves and their team,” says our CEO.

#3 How do you think HackerEarth has been able to provide an engaging, meaningful internship experience, all the while from a remote perspective?

Our CTO, Vishy being the expert in this area, answered this for us.

“Interns at HackerEarth were always entrusted with significant responsibilities. Continuing with this practice and asking interns to help with high impact projects has helped us engage with them at a deeper level right from the beginning.

The pandemic required us to do things a little differently to make sure that the interns felt like they belonged here. We assigned each intern with a buddy engineer who has always been available to guide them. Virtual mentorship has meant that managers and mentors double down their efforts towards mentees by defining crisp goals for them.”

#4 At the onset of the pandemic, and throughout the last year, companies’ hiring processes have undergone significant changes . What changes would you want to keep, and what part of the pre-COVID hiring process would you want to go back to?

“At HackerEarth, two big changes that we saw were a wider adoption of automated screening and an increased number of virtual video interviews . We believe both are likely to stay even if we go back to pre-COVID work environments. The ability to effectively screen candidates without a lot of manual intervention allows companies to widen their recruiting funnel without spending too much. This leads to a more diverse candidate pipeline and eventually a better talent pool.

Even in the case of interviews, it’s highly ineffective for people to conduct in-person interviews where the candidates have to write code on a white board or use pen/paper. Our intelligent tool, FaceCode allows interviewers conduct streamlined interviews and reduces discrimination or bias while making decisions,” shares Sachin.

SUBSCRIBE to the HackerEarth blog and enrich your monthly reading with our free e-newsletter – Fresh, insightful and awesome articles straight into your inbox from around the tech recruiting world!

#5 Companies are changing the way they usually hire and are looking at newer traits in 2021. What, in your opinion, does talent acquisition look like in the post-COVID phase?

Our CEO believes that the outlook towards recruiting has been significantly altered by the pandemic.

He says, “We are likely to see a lot more hybrid workspaces where people are working from office, working from homes and working remotely. Today, both candidates and companies will have a wider set of options at their disposal, which means that recruiters will have to dip into sourcing channels that were earlier not relevant to them.

It also means that they will be competing for the candidate’s mindshare against organizations that were previously not their competitors. Recruiters have to step up their game and provide the right candidate experience to attract the best talent from this diversified pool.

COVID has accelerated adoption of tools across segments and talent acquisition is no different. Recruiters should be proactively thinking about how they can be more efficient by using the right tools in their recruiting process. We will see increased adoption of tools that help automate various aspects of recruitment, without taking away the human touch from it.”

#6 What are some practices that you have used personally that you would suggest recruiters follow to ensure that new joinees feel like a part of the team, right from the start?

One of the most difficult things, according to Murali, that the team had to face when onboarding new joinees was making them understand our work culture.

“We overcame this by trying to create as much interaction as possible. We wanted to ensure that they were a part of conversations that had nothing to do with work. Holding fun-filled virtual activities also helped in making them get to know each other and engage comfortably with the existing team members.

We made sure that the new joinees had access to all the required tools and resources right from the get-go. Providing google drive access, which consisted of policies and documents related to HE, assigning a buddy to each new joinee and holding orientation sessions with every team, helps in making every new member feel like a part of the team.

Another thing that is specific to HackerEarth is our MyStory sessions. We aim to make every employee feel like they can be their complete self with no apologies or judgement. These sessions are a platform for our employees to share their personal experiences and stories and show them that we care. Not only about their work but also about their personal lives. We try to bring their personality out into the world and make them feel comfortable,” says Murali.

#7 A recent Forbes article listing predictions for hiring and recruitment in 2021 foreshadows an increased adoption of practices aimed at eliminating bias in the screening and hiring process. This being one of HackerEarth’s critical values, what do you think needs to be done to eliminate bias, wherever possible?

We posed this question to Sachin, and here’s what he had to say.

1. “There needs to be a measurement framework in place that regularly tracks the diversity quotient of the recruiting process, metrics like ratio of diverse candidates, fallout from screening to interviews, and interviews to hire. This should allow companies to see how their diversity efforts are trending, and enable them to identify areas that are having a high negative impact on diversity.
2. A lot of bias is unconscious so it’s important for people to understand where they can go wrong. Rigorous bias training for hiring managers and recruiters helps in identifying and controlling their biases.
3. Remote interviewing tools are a great way of reducing bias in the recruiting process. They have options to mask unimportant PII from hiring managers, as well as the option of conducting a blind interview.
4. Skill-based hiring processes ensure that hiring managers focus on skills and not on other traits that may not have any relevance to the job.
5. Structured interviewing process enables recruiters to use pre-defined, standardized questions and evaluation parameters. This ensures that all candidates are assessed fairly and objectively. Post interview feedback should be recorded in real-time to avoid recency bias.”

Companies are plodding on and finding ways to make remote internships work, because internships serve as a test drive for employers to seal the deal with the new joinees. They are the most effective way that a recruiter or hiring manager can see the value that the interns bring to the table. According to research by the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE), nearly 68% of interns are offered full-time jobs.

Interns, there is light at the end of the pandemic tunnel! Stay equipped to intern virtually and better your chances of getting that job.

You can always write to us at contact@hackerearth.com to know more about how HackerEarth can help you with remote hiring.

How does one define a word that has been around for ages, and yet has no distinct meaning? Having just come out of an interview, where someone said “I want to be a part of HackerEarth because of your culture”, I found myself thinking, how oft-used (to the point of becoming banal) yet indecipherable the word culture really is. Contradictory, don’t you think?

Peter Drucker said that culture eats strategy for breakfast. I totally believe that it eats strategy for lunch and dinner too (someone said that as well I think).

The reason why culture is so hard to pin down, in my opinion, is because it’s not a specific set of processes that everyone agrees upon. Wall Street swears by its black-tie culture. Startups think it’s cool that you can use four-letter words in a conversation with your CEO and not get flak for it. Perhaps it’s not as much as what we do as what we don’t, which is the real measure of an organization’s culture.

When writing your culture handbook, the must-nots are probably more important than the must-haves. As HR professionals, it is our job to help define what the must-nots really are.

At HackerEarth, our work culture revolves around a central DON’T.

Don’t Be An Asshole.

When I first walked into HackerEarth, I was awestruck by a poster screaming “Don’t Be An Asshole”. Which, if you look closely, should be the basic tenet of every company’s culture handbook. The poster was a big part of the reason I signed up for the job.

The tenet is self-explanatory, but if asked to explain I would say it translates to don’t be that manager, that colleague, that employee, and that person who makes life hell for others at work. Period. Everything at HackerEarth stems from this basic idea of respect – for self, and for others.

Keeping respect as the central sun of HackerEarth’s galaxy helps us do a few things well:

• It helps us keep our employees at the forefront of our organization.
• It helps us underline what is NOT OKAY – behaviors, patterns, conflicts get called out much more easily and resolved faster.
• It helps us trust our teammates and give them the freedom they need.
• It helps us understand differences and find common ground.
• It helps us put the team above individual egos.

Let me elaborate.

1. Keeping employees at the forefront of the organization.

Our approach is ‘inside-out’ when it comes to our people. For anything and everything we do, we start the conversation by asking what it means for our people and then move outward to answer what it means for the company. Yes, it does mean there’s a lot of care and mutual trust for our people. No, it does not mean that we don’t make difficult decisions. We make those decisions too; only we do so with care.

For my peers in HR, you need to move away from the crutches of policies, processes, and practice, and start placing that lens more on individuals. Your policies are just a guidebook. They aren’t written in stone. If you must break the rules to do the right thing, then just do it.

2. Underlining what is NOT OKAY.

We like to keep it straightforward and simple. If someone is disrespectful in their tone, or their action, we boldly call it out and tell them it’s NOT OK. In some of these conversations people stay; in others we politely, but firmly, take corrective action.

As an HR professional, you need to be proactive in constantly calling out what’s NOT OK. And that’s how the company learns to do it, too. You also need to ensure that what’s NOT OK does not change for a company’s CEO, the top leaders, your boss, your employees, or yourself.

3. Trusting our people and giving them complete freedom.

Before HackerEarth, I had never worked in a company that trusts so unconditionally. It’s commendable how we do it. We do not hide any information. We always give our people an understanding of the why behind a decision. Even if it is the decision about a pandemic-induced pay-cut or about letting someone go. If we have made a mistake, we own it. We provide every opportunity for our people to ask difficult questions. In fact, we get worried when they don’t. We are never afraid to be vulnerable in front or to show emotions, and that takes a lot of trust.

We want our people to feel as confident to say ‘NO’, as they would feel saying a ‘YES’. We’re not afraid to make mistakes. We’re famously anal about learning from those mistakes. This is part of trusting them.

Dear HR peeps, please don’t kill the human side of the job. Rather, deal with the ‘people’ side of things to make your job, and the company, better. You have plenty of time to go back to those 2 Ps (Policies, Processes) later. This also means that you need to openly show your human side, too. It’s unfortunate that the strong conditioning of the HR industry has always asked us to portray a ‘rock-solid HR’ figure. Spend time thinking about how comfortable you feel about owning your emotions, and creating a safe space for others to do so, too.

4. Understanding differences. Finding common grounds.

We let our people bring their whole selves to work. We don’t expect anyone to be under any pressure to outperform the other person. We understand that each one of us is different. Yes, we expect them to be the best version of themselves, and give their best, while respecting their innate differences.

As a startup, velocity is extremely important for us. So is listening to everyone at the table and finding what works best for an individual, the team, and the company at large. In that order. You cannot dream of the best ideas without critique. Everyone loves doers. We love and respect naysayers as well, and trust them to be our conscience keepers.

A word of caution here. Differences and diversity are beautiful, only when practiced with intent. Dear HR people, please don’t overuse the word diversity and inclusion at the drop of your hat. ‘Inclusion’ is really not for everyone. You need to be bold to allow for it. Be honest if you want similar people. That’s OK too. Be honest if you want people to say ‘yes’ all the time. But if you really want your people to say ‘NO’, then bloody well coach yourself and your leaders to listen to the ‘NO’, embrace the diverse thoughts, encourage it. I’m not championing ‘Inclusion’ for the sake of it. I’m fiercely advocating it for the merit of it – for any business and its people.

5. Putting the team above individual egos.

At HackerEarth, we pride ourselves on being the stone that cuts brilliant individuals, but it cannot stop there. They need to contribute to creating brilliant teams. We do not tolerate cut-throat behavior between individuals, ever.

Putting the team above individual egos also means allowing for and respecting divergence. Our people challenge us, all the time. And we absolutely adore the fact! We strongly believe in Team > Me and do not compromise on it, at any cost.

Dear HR people, creating a brilliant or high-performing team does not mean individuals need to be in constant competition. It means supporting them in becoming the best version of themselves. Don’t create stress in the guise of gunning for performance.

Coach your leaders to intuitively understand strengths and weaknesses. Not everyone performs at the same level.

Some parting advice from Anti-AssholeVille.

I have always believed that the role of an HR professional is to be the sole custodian of a company’s culture. In the span of my career, I have seen the conversation around work culture morph from ‘what time does an employee punch in’ to ‘what can we do to make our employees happier?’. Topics of diversity, equality, and the creation of a fair and hospitable workplace are our water-cooler gossip now.

To me, it all stems from respecting the Other. In literature and philosophy, the ‘Other’ is anyone who is not you or doesn’t follow the norms laid down by you. ‘Otherization’ is an actual verb, and something I see happening in many HR teams. We are trained to believe a good employee is one who is always hungry, acing their projects; a rabbit on a constant dopamine hunt.

For instance, when someone says “what do I need to do if I need to stay in the same job role and level for the next 3 years?”, our first instinct is to brand them as ‘unambitious’. That’s Otherization. And that’s being an Asshole.

In situations like this, I remind myself to approach with respect. The person in front of me may not have the same life goals as I do, or as I was taught that all employees should have, but it is a goal they believe in personally and I do not have the right to judge. Instead of stereotyping, I remind myself that their statement only means that this is what they want NOW. My role: to facilitate this NOW, so that I can retain a hard-working teammate for the future.

It’s NOT OK to judge, or draw people into boxes, or pitch them against each other. Or otherize them in any manner. This is where we as HR professionals need to be aware of our unconscious biases, and the assholes we can be if we let age-old dictums govern the way we create our workplaces.

So, take charge. Be open to learn and unlearn. Lead with respect so that you can create a more fair, equitable, honest, and pleasant workplace.

And never, ever, be an Asshole.