"Apply in Confidence" the last line of a recruitment ad gets hilarious responses, But these are the one who deliver better than others.

APPLY IN CONFIDENCE TO......

We often see this line at the bottom of a recruitment ad. Different candidates interpret this sentence differently. And this sends in guffaws through the HR personnel. I have seen many such cases, but I will give just one example.

The cover letter read thus…..

“Sir, you ask me to apply in confidence,

I apply in full confidence.

I have full confidence in my abilities sir.

I also have full confidence in success in your organization.

Sir, you also have confidence in me please.

Sir, your full confidence in me will make me work with full confidence to fulfill your task with full confidence.

Sir, I need your full confidence, and encouragement.

Please have confidence in me and give me a chance.

Thank you sir in anticipation, for your confidence.

Yours obediently

Mr. XYZ

Now has the candidate applied in confidence ….

But these are the same people, who become success stories in the organization afterwards.
I used to get such funny applications, when I used to recruit people for the position of Medical Representative. I used to wave of the requirement of basic English proficiency for the candidates of Hindi speaking states like MP, UP, Bihar, and others.

What I found surprising was, these people performed better than the ones with English proficiency. The less proficient ones used to ‘by heart’ the text of the presentation and then practice the sync with the visual aid. The sync used to be so perfect, that tone and the tenor used to be the same as thought by the trainers. they obeyed all the instructions sincerely. They even followed minute instructions like, when it was written in the text words like "Take a deep breath", "A long sigh", " pause for five seconds" they mimicked that too.

They used to present flawlessly to the medical professional, and it was difficult to believe, that they were the same, that made the mistakes in their written English text.

Contrary to this, those very proficient in English used to perform lesser, on account of their overconfidence, they never bothered to read and learn the text seriously. And when it came to presentation before the doctor. They used get stuck in their presentation and used to use the words and phrases which came to their mind at that time. By the time they completed their presentation, they strayed so much from their text that, purpose of the presentation was defeated. The hours of labour the Product Management team spent on designing gets totally defeated. And they repeated this call after call, day after day, month after month.

The purpose of the presentation in pharmaceuticals, is to link the pharmacology of the product to the physiology of the human being, and tell the doctor, how the product helps in correcting the disorder or curing the disease and restoring normal human physiology. A very correct and accurate presentation of facts with the support of relevant case studies usually gives the doctor the confidence to prescribe the product. Medical Profession has its own inherent risks. One wrong prescription can cause permanent damage to the reputation. That is the reason, that they show lot of diffidence to accept a new product.

The same is true is about a technical product, an engineering product, A software application. The precision in product presentation helps the customer or buyer to understand the precision of the product accompanied by the relevant case studies or the laboratory test reports. These act as testimony for the quality and suitability of the product. Adherence to company narrative is an essential pre-requisite. The executive need not even clear the technical doubts of the product himself. He can refer it to the technical department, or the product development. They can address the doubts of the customer through an online technical demonstration.

The most interesting thing is, for the same product, the narratives change from organization to organization depending on the technical positioning of the same product by different organizations. A person who has sold the same product in a previous organization, finds it very difficult to shrug of culture and the narratives of the previous organization. He ends mixing both the narratives, which cause more harm to the product than good. While a candidate who has not sold that product previously is like a clean slate.

The adoption and adaption process becomes all the easier. Of course an experienced person may have better customer and market knowledge, but all these come to a naught if the product is not presented with required technical precision.

This is also true of the Manufacturing, production processes, Distribution and Warehousing and across other supply chains. Most of the conversations in the shop floors take place in the native regional language. Sometimes there are managers who have excellent English conversation skills but poor native language knowledge, they find it difficult to interact with team members.

So when the technical head asks for English proficiency in the prospective candidates, the HR department should ask the person as to how much this adds to the job efficiency, or how much lack of it take away from it. HR on its own cannot make an assessment in this respect. Hence the HR also needs to keep this factor also in mind along with so many others they usually consider during the recruitment process.

The gist of what I have written in this article is that the communication is too specific an attribute to be treated in a generic sense. To effectively and efficiently communicate, we need domain specific skills.

We need domain specific communication experts to impart domain specific skills. Responsible communication skills emanate only out of the underlying domain expertise.
We must evolve ourselves to a stage where the communication skills are re-segmented under technical skills, not just Soft Skills.

Even people aspiring for leadership, need a performance, that speaks, based on robust domain Knowledge.

Here the technical linguistics, work better than the language linguistics, and convey a more impactful message. Even a silent demonstration of work, results in better imbibing of skills by the trainees. This also results in better and more impactful sharing of knowledge and intellect.

I am not against the imparting of communication skills. I want it to be upgraded to technical perquisite for the trainees.

Finally, I do not want the communication skills to be identified with the language proficiency, ability to gesticulate, outwardly visible buoyance, a forced extrovert outlook.

I feel articulation is more important than gesticulation.

Sedate seriousness can deliver better than outwardly visible buoyance.

An introvert need not wear a mask of extrovert behavior to communicate better.

Don’t we have the need to redefine, what actually communication skills are?????

Your insights please, I am all prepared to learn from you, the young guns, and the experienced missiles.

Best Wishes,

Shyam