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To many, solving a Rubik’s cube is just a hobby or an exercise to sharpen the brain, but at IT firm Fluid AI, it’s the basic necessity to get a job. In the first round, the company wants all its job aspirants to solve a 3x3 cube and later higher versions such as 4x4 and 3-D ones.
“We ask them to solve it and based on how much they can solve, we give them ideas and clues to solve them faster. This is to gauge how much they can learn in a short span of time, say in two or three minutes,” said Fluid AI’s co-founder and CEO Abhinav Aggarwal.
“Further, the Rubik’s cube prompts one to think 7-8 moves ahead,” he said, adding this method helps to filter the best 20-25 candidates from about 10,000 applicants .
Gone are the days of hiring new employees by looking at just their CV and conducting mundane interviews. From solving Rubik’s cube to making video clips to highlight the candidate’s personality traits, Indian IT firms are using quirky ways to find new talent.
Mumbai-based cloud software and mobile app start-up Tentacle asks potential employees to attend interviews with a video ‘elevator pitch’. The self-introducing video, in this case of not more than 120 seconds, should be of movie clips, Bollywood or regional languages, but without the candidate appearing in it.
For example, the company received a clip from a Hindi movie in which actor Preity Zinta is seen screaming, indicating the candidate’s intolerance to bugs.
“Much like a movie it should have a definite structure and the voice over could be either of the original clipping or user’s voice,” Tentacle co-founder and COO Sumontro Roy said, adding it is a whole new “ice-breaker”.
Then there is Express Bike Works (EBW), an engineering technology start-up in which Mark Mobius has a stake, which takes its future employees for hiking, trekking and motorcycling as part of the induction plan.
“This is generally a two-day trip during the probation period. This is to develop their leadership skills, access them as a team player and evaluate their core competencies,” said Niraj Taksande, Co-founder of EBW.
Pune-based Persistent Systems, which conducts hackathons to recruit, invites newly on boarded employees, along with their friends and family, for a lunch with top management. According to the firm, this brings in “bonding and connect”.
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