Before the workshop sees the applicant

## The convenience belonged to our process

I had approved the degree requirement without asking a sufficiently practical question. What would it tell the workshop about the person who arrived? The vacancy concerned an entry assistant working under supervision. Careful handling, listening and following an instruction mattered. The degree might describe useful education, but it did not establish those capabilities. Rohan Tevzuri, our workshop head, asked why we were excluding people before his team could observe them. My first answer concerned the number of applications. That was a real administrative problem, but it was not an answer about competence.

Hiring processes often inherit requirements because nobody wants to be the person who appears to lower a standard. A familiar credential is easy to defend in a meeting, especially when the person defending it does not perform the work. It gives the shortlist a tidy appearance and makes rejection straightforward. The difficulty is that a tidy shortlist can contain weak evidence for the actual appointment. I had confused a condition that made our process manageable with a condition that made the workshop's decision more reliable. The distinction became uncomfortable only when somebody asked me to explain it.

This did not make qualifications irrelevant. Some roles require specific credentials, and some forms of study provide essential knowledge. Our review concerned a defined workshop-assistant role, not a general campaign against formal education. We retained the genuine entry requirements and asked technical colleagues what could be assessed safely before appointment. The point was to improve the connection between evidence and work. Replacing a degree filter with an equally vague judgement about enthusiasm would have created a different problem, possibly giving more room to personal preference while appearing more inclusive.

I also had to consider what candidates could reasonably understand about the process. If we asked them to demonstrate practical aptitude, they needed clear instructions, an appropriate task and a fair account of how the decision would be made. A person unfamiliar with our organisation should not have to guess which unwritten behaviours would impress an assessor. HR could help make that structure consistent. It could not determine whether an instrument had been handled correctly simply because the hiring exercise belonged to an HR workflow. Technical judgement required technical ownership throughout.

## Pay for the evidence you need

We built a supervised practical assessment with Rohan's team and paid the applicants for taking part. That expense mattered to the design. An audition can become unpaid productive work if the employer treats candidates as temporary capacity while continuing to call the activity selection. We wanted a bounded exercise that produced evidence for recruitment, with suitable supervision and no pretence that the participants were already independent repair specialists. Payment did not solve every fairness question, but it made clear that the company was asking people to devote time and effort to its decision.

Sixty-two adults completed the process. Twenty-eight did not have degrees, and thirty-four did. Those categories helped us understand the effect of the previous filter; they were not competing identities to which we allocated appointments. The assessors reviewed the practical evidence against the role's requirements. Ten candidates were hired, seven without degrees and three with them. Fifty-two were not appointed. The result did not establish that applicants without degrees were generally better, or that the educational background of the successful candidates explained their performance. It showed that our former filter would have excluded seven people whom the workshop was prepared to train.

Assessment and introductory training cost ₹18 lakh. I presented that amount as the cost of obtaining and acting on better evidence. It would have been tempting to describe the exercise as cheaper recruitment, but we had not established that comparison on a dependable basis. The CEO needed to decide whether the additional work was worthwhile for this hiring problem. A responsible people proposal can ask for more expense without hiding it inside a claim about culture. The commercial question was whether the workshop gained a credible route to the capability it needed, with the cost understood.

There was still a boundary after appointment. The ten recruits entered supervised training. They were not described as fully qualified technicians on the strength of a selection exercise. Learning managers and technical supervisors had further work to do, and some tasks remained outside the recruits' authority. This distinction protected the meaning of the result. An assessment of aptitude for a supervised role is different from evidence of independent competence. HR should preserve that difference in the appointment letter, the manager's expectations and any later account of the programme's success.

## Keep the result proportionate to the experiment

All ten completed the initial training. At twelve months, nine remained employed and one had left to pursue further study. Those are observable outcomes worth reporting, but the group is small. Retention alone does not establish quality, and a departure for study does not make the hiring decision a failure. We did not have a basis for claiming that this method would outperform every alternative across the business. The useful conclusion was that the practical route produced ten appointments and gave seven candidates access they would previously have lacked. The next decision should begin from that bounded account.

I would also want to know how the assessment felt to unsuccessful applicants. A process can produce good appointments and still leave people uncertain about what happened. Clear feedback does not require revealing another candidate's performance or suggesting that every unsuccessful person lacks ability. It can explain the evidence considered, the scope of the vacancy and the limits of the judgement reached. Our responsibility does not end when the successful names are passed to payroll. Recruitment is a professional encounter with people who have given time to a decision that may matter greatly to them.

For a board, the issue is not whether directors should redesign individual exercises. It is whether management can explain why a hiring condition belongs to the work and how it knows the alternative is functioning. A board might ask where unexamined filters restrict access to difficult skills, whether technical owners participate in the decision and what the selected approach costs. Those questions can improve the quality of management's account without turning directors into interviewers. The evidence should be specific enough to support oversight and restrained enough not to convert one successful exercise into a universal prescription.

I now ask a different first question when a requirement appears in a vacancy. What uncertainty does this condition resolve, and who is qualified to say that it resolves it? Sometimes the credential will have a strong answer. Sometimes we will need to observe the work more directly. In either case, the hiring process should earn the confidence we place in it. Our workshop review began with a requirement I had allowed to stand because it was convenient. It became useful when I accepted that convenience was a cost question for HR, not proof of a candidate's ability.