Vidushi: Greetings everyone. Welcome to another episode of HR Today Leadership Insight, a podcast series brought to you by HR today where bring, bring together some of the most impactful personality across the corporate world and voices that shape the future of work. Today we are pleased to welcome Ms. Ishita Agghi, a new generation HR leader. Who has shared her journey across talent transformation and people strategy with experience spanning leadership role at sipr, and as a co-founder of CLIKD and CoHire, she brings a sharp focus on innovation and agility. We welcome you, ma’am, today.
Ishita Agghi: Thank you, Vidushi. Thanks for having me here and the whole HR today team.
Vidushi: In this episode, we will explore the theme, redefining recruitment, emerging trends, and CLIKD Vision for the future of Hiring a Deep Dive, how hiring is evolving, and how organizations can reimagine recruitment and make it better, impactful, and more meaningful. let’s dive into this conversation.
The very first question that I would to begin with you, ma’am, is about your journey from starting at a leadership role at CIPLA to being the co-founder of CLIKD. How has the lead between how, what inspired you to take the lead from corporate to entrepreneurship and recruitment?
Ishita Agghi: I was blessed to start my career with CIPLA and I was even more blessed to have multiple opportunities within CIPLA as well. And while I was doing the roles of employee engagement, OD, in the CHRO’S office, it was my last role, which was the sales HR VP role, which got me into entrepreneurship.
It was not really on the cards for me. It just happened that we were doing recruitment in our role and we realized that we were still using a lot of traditional ways. I was not solving the problem for us, we had to look out for something else, and I felt there was an opportunity good enough to explore and find some solutions for, and hence the journey for CLIKD started.
Vidushi: Your career as an entrepreneur was an organic, but it was not pre-planned at all.
Ishita Agghi: Definitely it was not pre-planned at all for me. My career was,, quite planned in the corporate industry. It just happened, I want finish. You found me.
Vidushi: Ma’am, over the last few years, recruitment has seen a massive shift. According to you, what are the top two or three emerging trends that are affecting recruitment diseases?
Ishita Agghi: I feel recruitment has changed over the last few years. it’s, it was high time that we saw a change in recruitment. There were multiple areas in HR, which have been changing for decades now. Recruitment caught up a little late. Maybe the last five years is when we saw some changes happening in recruitment. Some of the bigger changes, I feel is,, how we are assessing talent. Removed from resume based, interview-based assessment to skill-based assessment, which I feel was the much weighted change for recruitment to come in.
Second, I feel, is also AI based screening. A lot of people using bots to do screening., there are recruiters in the industry who do about hundred calls a day, and for them it’s a, a respite that was much weighted. we’ve got bots that do those screening calls for them, and once they do, the recruiters only have to do calls with the shortlisted ones. it’s a huge movement that’s happened for recruitment, and I see these two trends happen, not just in some pockets, but literally across the country and across the world at the same time. I feel, we’re gonna soon see a a revolutionary movement in recruitment, not just incremental changes.
Vidushi: Do you believe that these two new trends are here for the longer run? Will they be in the run for a long time or will they perish shortly?
Ishita Agghi: I think for the first one, which is skill-based assessment, I feel it’s here to stay because, interviews have been an old method of assessing candidates and finding the right talent. However, I feel we’ve overdone it and we yet to get the right value for it. maybe this one is here to stay. For AI-based screening bots, I’m not really sure how, the population is responding to it. We’ve seen a huge acceptance as of now, but since we’re seeing AI moving up in a lot of areas, we might see some bit of resistance later.
For this one, I think we have to, see it out and wait it out.
Vidushi: What provides more weight, the skills or the work experience at that an individual have?
Ishita Agghi: It’s related. I feel work experience does get you skills and skills, get you work experience. There’s an interdependence on both of this. However, for me, if I’d say personally, skill is much more important. Your work experience can be in any vertical as long as you have the skills for the role that you are hiring for. I would prioritize skill over experience, but that’s a personal call. Everywhere in the industry it’s different. Depends on the roles that you’re going for, the companies that you’re going for. Also, how has your experience been personally that really dictates, what you put as a priority? Yeah.
Vidushi: CLIKD positions itself as a tech led recruitment platform. Would you to explain how CLIKD differentiates itself from the traditional recruitment model?
Ishita Agghi: We started with, traditional recruitment ourselves, our organization, we started for two years. We just did, recruitment the old fashioned way. We wanted to see what was the issue in the market.
We wanted to understand what exactly the challenge was before we, sought after, or we sought out to find a solution to it. And, hence we’ve realized that there was a solution or a gap in recruitment, how we were doing it earlier and we wanted to move,, to a tech enabled solution. our current solution that we give is an AI enabled assessment based recruitment. We prioritize skills similar to the first question that you asked., we prioritize, and this should be a skill-based assessment that decides whether the talent is right or not, and if that fits the role or not. Okay. that’s what we’ve changed, from traditional recruitment.
Vidushi: Coming to the AI part, do you think that there is a specific line that the recruiter should not cross when it comes to automating decision making while hiring someone?
Ishita Agghi: It’s a very tricky question, I must say., yes, there are always,, people always fear that there are jobs at stake, when we take too much of AI interference into that particular process. And that is the fear that recruiters also have. Hence, there is a resistance in accepting a lot of AI automations.
We are moving one step at a time and, Skill or the part here from the recruiters is that, they also upskill themselves in learning the ways of ai. It’s not that AI can replace recruiters. It’s not that the recruitment industry altogether would be wiped out by ai. There is a lot of human that we need in recruitment and we just cannot do without that.
But yes, there is a fear, that’s come from the recruiter’s side and, there is a slow amalgamation of AI that’s happening in,, recruitment. However, I feel over time, maybe the next two years, you’d see a lot of steps being modified or being automated by AI. it’s gonna entrench soon.
Vidushi: Do you believe that the fact that AI is gonna end up taking the human job, or do you believe that it’ll just increase the level of job? For example, supposedly if I am entering at a level one job, with the help of, yeah, I will be able to enter at a level four job. which one do you think is true? Sure.
Ishita Agghi: I don’t feel AI is gonna take recruitment jobs. It’s gonna take some part of a recruiter’s job and make it easier for them.
However, I don’t think. The jobs, it’s gonna be wiped out by AI on this. It’s definitely enabling us to find better talent faster, our TATs for hiring would get lower. I. Our correlation between our hiring and performance gonna increase definitely. our assessment, whatever we do via AI, is gonna give us the right talent.
That’s definitely gonna help our attrition levels, our engagement at work. it’s gonna make our employee experience better in the organization. In terms of if it’s gonna get you a better job, yes, it’s gonna automate a lot of root work here. A lot of work, which is more on the coordination front, more on the calling front, that’s definitely gonna go out. It’s for recruiters on how do they, or how agile they are to enable AI to do their jobs or help them in it, but it’s not gonna go away, for sure.
Vidushi: Can we just say that in order to sustain a job, in order to get better job, one must get accustomed to AI.
Ishita Agghi: I feel definitely right now you’ve got to do it.
Vidushi: Candidate experience the buzzword, but it’s still a challenge. it’s definitely a challenge. Yeah. what would you to say, on this?
Ishita Agghi: Candidate experience, honestly is still a challenge. We’ve not yet mastered it. We still don’t, extend feedbacks to them on time. We don’t close the candidate journey very well, and there are very few candidates who can say some from very few companies that they’ve had a very good recruitment process. Usually candidates come out dissatisfied from any process. Be the top most NCS that we have in the country right now. We are yet to find way around because everyone’s literally running. Everyone’s trying to, manage the TAT on recruitment at every stage of recruitment, it becomes very difficult to keep customer experience or candidate experience at the center.
However, what we discussed earlier, I see AI would definitely do that job to ensure that there is candidate engagement throughout the process, plus regular feedback. That’s what makes the difference. maybe if we use AI right, I think we’d be able to master that. We’re yet to get that
Vidushi: With Gen Z. Now entering the workforce expectations are evolving really fast. How do you tailor hiring strategies to the new talent that we have now?
Ishita Agghi: Gen Z is usually called a problem child. In organizations, we feel that they have a lot of potential. However performance comes a little later. And they’re also settling into the organization, understanding what exactly is the role about how do you function in a professional setup that is still yet to happen. There is a bit of challenge. There is definitely a bit of gap in how,, the Gen Z is expecting plus working and how a traditional organization right now is working, progressing. But there are startups who are all, gen Z based, who have accepted this wholly, and who thrive in that environment.
What we need to be cognizant is that in any organization, we have every candidate, every employees, they come from different backgrounds. They’re gonna be millennials, they’re gonna be Gen Z. However,, we have to make the environment right for everybody. It should not be that we tailor the environment for one particular part of our employees or segments that we are taking. But yes, also I feel,, any. Expectant in terms of what are the expectations that Gen Z has? That’s our expectation setting on both sides. What is the expectations from organization? What is the expectation from Gen Z?, we need to do that, right? there needs to be that part addressed in the induction itself that they’re at peace.
Vidushi: A lot of employers call Gen Z lazy. what do you think about that? Is Gen Z lazy or they just look for smarter ways to do, get a job done?
Ishita Agghi: We’ve got a lot of Gen Zs in our company itself, and I don’t feel they’re lazy, honestly, but, they definitely look for smarter ways to find solutions. They also, at the risk of, sounding very millennial from our side, but they also look for easier solutions sometimes. And that’s fine. I think,, it’s okay to do that. It’s okay if you have an easier solution. You need not, get through the, your earlier ways of working just because that’s how it’s been.
If you’re able to find easier or a better or faster, smarter solution, might not. I don’t feel that they’re lazy. I feel they just have a different way of working and we as organizations need to make space for it, be more accommodated.
Vidushi: Have you seen a particular difference on how Gen Z, perform in an interview versus how millennial used to perform in an interview? Are the expectations or the way of working.
Ishita Agghi: I feel there is a difference on how they’re performing in an interview. I would not call it performing in an interview, but how they’re responding in an interview, I feel they’re more candid. And it’s not a one-way interview anymore with the millennials or baby boom or earlier generation. We usually had one-way interviews where interview was checking if the candidate is a fit for an organization. But now when I interview Gen Z, I feel it’s a two-way conversation where the candidate is also exploring if this organization is a right fit for them or not. the conversations become more equal.
I feel that’s a very good step for recruitment and we’ve set ourselves at an equal footing, both candidates and employers. It’s not employer’s market anymore. We’re both there equally now.
Vidushi: Earlier you also mentioned about diversity., and you also have the post on the LinkedIn talking about diversity. Do you feel that, is it really true that reservation or quotas might jeopardize the quality of work that we get from the employees or,, it’s just the same?
Ishita Agghi: I honestly am very against the quota system. I believe that’s not the way you address diversity. Even when I was younger and we were, we used to travel by Metro, there was one coach, which was reserved for ladies, and we made a point as a group to never travel in that coach because we felt that.
That’s not really how you do diversity, and that’s not how you integrate both sides of population. You rather are, causing a lot of strain on the other gender by doing this. There have been some bit of inequality over the past definitely, but that’s not today’s generations doing. it’ll be wrong to punish one gender because your previous generations have been causing that inequality. One is that. Second, I feel we definitely have to create opportunities, but there has to be a culture of meritocracy. Even when we,, assess candidates for a particular position, we ensure that in the pool we have both genders or all genders, or I should say now, but we don’t prioritize any gender.
We ensure that we have equal number or equal representatives on all genders. However they have to go through the process,, at the same level, same,, assessment or same evaluation. And if they get through, we’re more than happy to have more of any gender. Yeah. But definitely not, prioritizing any particular agenda.
It’s a personal opinion, I feel that’s not how we would want us to be,, assessed or catered to. I would not want after 20 years of somebody to say that,, you’ve made it in this world because you were a woman. Yeah. And not even say that you’ve made it in spite of being government. I think that should not really be related to your success at all.
Vidushi: Again, coming to AI, AI and automation are becoming critical tools in recruitment. what is your take on balancing tech and human intuition and hiring?
Ishita Agghi:, Recruitment initially was I think very individual base or very human base, and a lot of parts still is. Even when we recommend our solutions to our current clients,, we tell them that it’s not that your recruitment will be free from human interference. It’s just that you will have more data and you will have more analysis to take that call. We still recommend that the final interview or the final call, has to be taken by the hiring manager itself, that you have all the,, data points, you have all the analysis that we’ve done, but you match it to the role requirements.
You see the human side of it. Nuances are still required. Gut feelings are still required. I feel you still get those ideas that,, sometimes you meet somebody, you just click right? And that feeling or that intuition, we can not really train AI to do. it’s always gonna be a mix of both. There’s only some part that we can automate, but human defense is much more important, it’s still gonna be there.
Vidushi: we can say that AI has just eased up our job and human touch is absolutely necessary for anything we can automate without it. ma’am, you just mentioned that with some human, that you just find a click. Is this the reason why you named the company CLIKD?
Ishita Agghi: Rightly. We name the organization CLIKD because we feel that,, finding the right role fit for an organization is important. And there are multiple aspects to it. There is ai, there is a gut feeling. There are different nuances that come into place. And when you get that feeling that you say, this, just click. That is when you find the best talent or the best role fit. that’s where the inspiration of the company name came.
Vidushi: How do you see the future of hiring in the next few years and what roles will a platform CLIKD play in the future of hiring?
Ishita Agghi:, I don’t know about future of hiring. I think hiring is a smaller,, window or a smaller part of talent acquisition. But we believe in working on the whole aspect of talent acquisition. talent acquisition’s got a smaller part, which is called recruitment, and they’ve got a smaller part, which is hiring. For us, we are working on the whole aspect of talent acquisition in including your branding of it, your candidate experience, your onboarding experience. All of that is,, we want all that to come together at CLIKD, and that’s what we are working on in terms of how we play a role in it, or we are trying to, it’s CLIKD a movement that we’ve started where we want candidates or employers both to find the right role fit.
And to do that, we’ve ensure that we’ve changed the ways of recruitment. In which we say that the traditional ways of recruitment is not how we do, rather we’ll do assessment based recruitment. And that’s something which is moving from CV based, portfolio based recruitment. We are rather moving to skill-based assessment and we believe that even if there are, freshers entering the workforce, or if there are people who wanna change their functions, change their role, they will be assessed on the skill.
And that’s, becoming much more common Nowadays. There’s increase in gig workforce, there’s increase in project based deployment. People,, their flexibility, they don’t wanna get into full-time employment or full-time commitment through it. And that is what we wanna enable via that, that you are not being assessed for what you’ve done previously or what, and what you can, and that we feel is the future of recruitment and talent.
That’s what we’re working on.
Vidushi: Beyond recruitment, what is next for CLIKD? Are there any new verticals that you are aspiring for?
Ishita Agghi: What we’ve done Vidushi is we do recruitment. Yes, we do assessment based recruitment, we also sell assessments online. Companies can take and use those assessments at multiple places in a candidate journey. What we are now doing is we wanna get assessments to be used beyond the candidate journey, be it for a role movement if the employees already there in the organization, and if moving from one role to the other or getting promoted, or, being the first time manager.
We want assessments to be catered to those lifecycle points as well, not just during recruitment. Apart from that, we’ve also started creating small,, talent. Training modules that anybody who wants to upskill themselves or brush up on their knowledge before they wanna get assessed, they can do that via our platform itself.
These are two things that we’re working on right now.
Vidushi: I would also to ask you one question. If you were to go back in the past and advise your younger self, what will be that piece of advice that you would to give yourself?
Ishita Agghi: I’m honestly not sure what I can, share as an advice to my younger self, honestly. But I feel I would definitely say do study in your MBA class, understand, attend more of those classes. I would definitely that, I think I would also advise my younger self to take the plunge sooner. I waited for four years to start this company. And I feel I could have maybe started a little earlier and I could have given, more time to, this venture, whatever steps we’re taking now to move onto AI or, what other offerings do we have?
We could have just done this a little earlier, but I feel that’s all entrepreneurs. You’d hear this a lot, everyone would say that you could have solved this earlier. You’ve done this before. yes, that’s gonna be for me as well.
Vidushi: Okay. ma’am, as you mentioned that you wanted, you would advise yourself to start a bit earlier, but do you also feel that that three years and 11 months of work experience was something that has,, helped you to grow.
Ishita Agghi: As a professional, Definitely it did.. It, it’s because of the experience where I started the organization. But, it’s your mind that has your,, brain always keeps telling you,, you could have done this earlier,, you could have done more. And,, I have a habit of pushing myself more than what’s required.
Vidushi: Finally, What advice you would to give to younger HR professional and aspiring entrepreneurs. In the HR tech space.
Ishita Agghi: I feel for all, the people who are entering into hr, it’s a new space. It’s not the same HR that it was a decade ago. All the functional HR has changed. Your academic knowledge is really important. However, what’s even more important right now is the practical knowledge. Get into a lot of projects, do a lot of internships, understand how organizations are doing, different verticals of hr, be it talent management, learning.
The game has changed altogether. It’s not what we are studying anymore. It’s not what we are reading around. And there are many nuances that come in hr, which become a lot more important than the conceptual execution that we are doing. And you only understand once you’re doing it. on the job training or on the job learning is really important.
HR to do as much of that as possible and do it before you get formally into a full-time job or your first jobs.
Vidushi: And what advice about the on aspiring entrepreneurs.
Ishita Agghi: I think to all the aspiring entrepreneurs or,, starting into this particular journey, I’d say select your team right. Really important. You are not going to carry your company alone. You’re not going to work on it alone. There are going to be late nights. There are going to be times when you have 16 hours plus of Workday and your team is going to carry that whole company with you. it’s really important to find the right co-founders and the right team. That is what will help you carry it all out.
Vidushi: You mentioned that in CLIKD you do assessment based hiring. What are the types of assessment that you do?
Ishita Agghi: We do three types of assessments right now. One is behavioral assessments. Where we allow companies to customize the assessment as per their requirements and their behavioral frameworks that they have, where we assess how the candidate, once that candidate comes into the role, how that person would behave.
Second part that we have is technical or functional assessment. Where we again, give the option of customizing as per the competency framework that the companies have where they can assess how the candidate would behave on the job or would perform the job on the technical or the functional aspect of it.
And the third part, which is very commonly used these days are, after your assessments, we have a three tier aptitude assessment that we’ve made. And this is something that people have accepted very proactively. And functional and behavioral is something which is still reaching out to companies and people are yet to accept it in their everyday assessment or every role assessment.
Vidushi: Thank you much ma’am for these incredible insights. And with this we have the, the final and the most interesting segment of our podcast, the rapid fire round. are you ready for the rapid fire round now?
Ishita Agghi: Definitely.
Rapid Fire Round
Q. One word to describe the future of recruitment.
A. I think future recruitment is gonna be very agile. It’s gonna keep changing for the next five to 10 years.
Q. Resume a portfolio. Which one do you see first?
A. Portfolio. I wanna see how they’ve done than what they’ve done.
Q. One skill that you believe that every candidate should have today. Anybody specifically for Freshers?
A. I feel one skill that they need to have is critical thinking, and I feel that’s lack, it’s not common. As opposed to popular belief is not common, and I think that’s something that everybody should come with when they’re going through the interviews.
Q. leadership trait that you admire the most?
A. I feel, team management. And not micromanaging. Managing your team Right. Is something that I would really admire.
Q. Office, formal wear or smart casuals.
A. I think somewhere in between. I. Formals are something which sometimes feel that are not approachable and, smart, smart formals say, that it’s work, but,, it’s still approachable.
Q. One book or podcast that has helped you in your professional journey.
A. I don’t know about the professional journey honestly, but there are two books that I read in my childhood and a lot of females out there would have said the same thing, but the one is Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austin and the other is Little Women by Louisa May Alcott. I feel these two books,, made me think of the individuality of financial independence that you need to get as women. That really impacted my education and how I went on at my job.
Q. the best advice that you have received in your career?
A. The best advice that I have received in my career is, put your head down and work hard and you will get there. Career is a very long term game. Okay.
Vidushi: That was a really far back conversation full of Insight, ForSight and Heart.
Thank you much, ma’am for sharing us your story and for sharing that how hiring is evolving and the future of hiring to our audience. Thank you much for tuning in. Share Connected with HR Today, leadership Insight Promote podcast. Thank you.
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