By Vega Schools’
DEEP KALRA (CEO-MAKEMYTRIP.COM) ON THE FUTURE OF SCHOOL EDUCATION
Vega Schools’ : Is it easy for you to find talent in your area of work?
Deep Kalra – You know high quality talent is the scarcest commodity for sure. For us, we need to hire a lot of bright young people in technology, in product and then, in online marketing and marketing. Of course we have a whole travel vertical too but scarcest places where we don’t easily get resources or there’s a big fight for resources between us and some other cutting edge companies in (the) online world are definitely in tech and product.
It’s hard. (But) I think we manage to get them, we are known to be good employers, people stay. But then, every now and then, after (a) few years the youngsters are lured away with more money, the promise to go overseas or things like that. So that’s very frustrating, because we spend a lot of time and energy training them up and I believe it takes at least one year to settle in fully, to understand the rhythm of an organisation, to learn to start giving back and, some guys will do it in 6 months, but by and large it?ll take a year. And then if you are going to quit in 2 years you?ve actually really contributed heavily only for a year. So it’s nice when people come with a longer time horizon for 5 years, they are ready to give. I think if they cross a few (years), like 4- 5 years then they stay even longer. So we have people who have been with us for 5 years, 6 years, 10- 12 years, a lot of them. So I think we do okay but there is a big war for talent, especially in the tech side…big war!
Vega Schools– When you are hiring people, do they have the skill sets which really are required for them to be successful at their work?
Deep Kalra – So we hire two kinds of people. So we hire fresh from college and I think we know very well we are getting into this where they have never worked before so it’s a bit of a gamble but we love their energy and the excitement. So then they are like wet clay. It’s our job to mould them and I like that part because then you can mould them but we also get laterals, people who have worked in other companies, who have their own way of thinking. Sometimes there is an unlearning. So it’s hard to say across the board, do they have the skills.
The skills that I would really like to see much more of is out of the box thinking, is creativity and is a problem solving approach. So for me maybe out of the box thinking, creativity are quite linked but the approach is problem solving. So I am constantly telling my young colleagues – go out and talk to consumers. Talk to consumers to understand what they like and don’t like about us, what they like and don’t like about competition. Also talk to customers and try to understand what they would love to have. Also talk to your partners, your hotel partners: What can we give them that they don’t have in terms of technology and tools.