HR Strategies to hire talent from tier 2/3 cities: Paid internship training program

🔍Insights

Jeenal Jain

Dec 14, 2021 — 5 min read

Hiring Strategies for Tier 2/3 Cities

This article is contributed by Mr. Bala Kumaran, CEO, Brandstory.

Running and developing your own business is no easy feat, I'll tell you this from my personal experience in building, scaling, branding, and managing a startup of my own. Boiling right down to it, the very first challenge that most startups face is HR, that’s right - Human Resources!

That is because, in a bustling digital world like ours, there is no dearth of opportunity for people with the right skill set. This, of course, makes recruiting all the more difficult when we consider the startup ecosystem.

One of the first things startup owners must learn to do is, understand when to take off their entrepreneur hat, and put themselves in the shoes of their potential employees. Then, weigh questions ranging from why someone would want to work for them, to the growth opportunities they have within the organization.

Although there are no magic mantras to solve this problem, there are a few rather nifty strategies that can help proliferate a much better hiring experience! Something that can likely be implemented across the board for startup owners who are still on the hunt for the right skill sets!

The following are the approaches that we had implemented with Brandstory.in -

Leveraging Satellite Offices

A satellite office is just a branch of a company that is physically separate from the main office or headquarters. That’s right! You just have to go right to the core of it, and place yourself right in the center of wherever the talent is at!

When a company hires, it is not just hiring an employee, it is hiring a skill set, a skill set that helps contribute to the one thing that customers across any industry appreciate and that is - quality! Skilled employees make a company's product, service, or customer support what it is and help brand and scale the company's reputation over time.

This means every hire you make is an investment towards this goal. Hence, you would seek to make your workplace the most appealing to your workforce, in the hopes of attracting new talent and retaining your team!

For instance, many people resent having to relocate, and would much rather live and work in the city they currently live in. This is exactly the issue a satellite office will help curb - by eliminating the need to relocate and hence automatically making your company a better, more appealing place to work at for any potential hires in that area.

Also Read: Checklist for Hiring Remote Employees - Everything that you need to do

Hiring Freshers from Tier 2 and 3 Cities

Just the mention of freshers often scares people off, but the truth is they can be one of the most loyal, and valuable additions to a company over time. However, you will need to invest your time and resources in transforming them into the skilled professionals you have always wanted to be working alongside you, within your organization.

This holds to be especially true when hiring from Tier 2 and 3 cities because unlike metro cities there aren’t 100s of companies desperately scavenging for talent where you are competing with both funded and non funded enterprises. Hence, it would both provide freshers residing within Tier 2 and 3 cities a better chance to develop their skills, while also giving you a stream of hand-trained talent flowing into your organization!

This is precisely why Brandstory has long been working to identify talented individuals in these cities, and providing opportunities for them to further themselves all the while ensuring good placements within the organization itself - through its paid internship program.

I am proud to say that, after years of refinement, we at Brandstory have developed one of the finest training and development internship programs within the digital industry. We had worked to develop an extensive curriculum integrating hands-on work experience in which freshers can work on real-time projects; all while being mentored by experts in the field.

This type of training program and hiring regimes would probably prove to be helpful for startups who are looking to attract fresher talent from Tier 2 and 3 cities across India and the world! This is especially because these new candidates can be shaped from the ground up to reflect your brand’s core work ethics, values, and morales all the while adhering to the quality standards and expectations as benchmarked by your respective organization.

Compensation: Paying Out A Tier 1 City Payscale in Tier 2

This is perhaps a very lucrative opportunity for your organization to quickly snatch up the local talent, and absorb them into your organization. Due to a dynamic spread in the cost of living, companies often payout lower salaries to employees located in Tier 2 cities, but that may not benefit your organization when you consider the long run.

A higher pay eliminates the need for people within Tier 2 cities to migrate to Tier 1 cities, all the while enabling them to adhere to a much higher standard of living. This sort of recruitment strategy not only helps you attract talent faster but also allows you to keep your team happy and less likely to start looking for other opportunities.

Summing It Up In A Nutshell

We can likely agree that recruitment is one of the biggest challenges companies face in the 21st century. However, we can also agree that it makes sense that the problem would be drastically reduced if people sought out your company or organization as a place they just have to work at!

So, hopefully, these HR hiring strategies and the advent of paid internship training programs can eventually help startup owners bridge the gap between their requirements and talented personnel!