It is natural for organisations across the world to want to ensure that their hiring processes are strong enough to make the right hiring decisions. Lam Research India uses the Behavioural Event Interview (BEI) for hiring, which helps the Company hire candidates who come with the right skills and competencies, which can ensure their success at Lam Research India.
The engineering and R&D company specialises in processes and solutions for wafer fabrication equipment (WFE), which are very precise tools used to build semiconductors.
While Lam Research is directly involved in the manufacturing of these instruments, Lam Research India assists with software, hardware solutions, and logistics even while playing a massive role in global operations.
With almost 2000 employees in India, the Company’s workforce in the country comprises largely of engineers and software engineers who strengthen its global R&D capabilities.
Talking to HRKatha, Jeevant Kumar, senior director – HR, Lam Research India, shares that according to many researches, it is impossible to have a hiring success rate that is 100 per cent foolproof.
“These robust assessment tools, which have a battery of assessment levels, have their limitations, and many researches have established that even after implementing these, the hiring success rate does not go beyond 50 to 60 per cent,” admits Kumar.
But as per Kumar, the BEI technique has worked for Lam Research India.
Kumar reveals that using the BEI hiring technique, Lam Research India identifies some of the core and behavioural competencies that make candidates successful at their job roles in the Company.
The Company has drawn up a list of certain competencies that can ensure a successful career for a candidate at Lam Reasearch India. During the hiring process, the hiring managers assess candidates based on the given list of competencies and hire the suitable ones accordingly.
Shedding light on the list of competencies, Kumar says that some sets of competencies are common to every role in the organisation. For instance, communication skills and ability to work in a team are some competencies that are essential to succeed in any job role at Lam Research India. In addition, every role would require its own set of unique competencies, which would be essential for success in that particular role.
Giving an example Kumar says that every engineer would be expected to have the behavioural skill of ‘speaking up,’ which means putting forward their views in front of the team. “For instance, if one is sitting in a meeting with engineers from all around the world, one cannot just accept everything and move on. One needs to put forward one’s views and point out if something is not right,” asserts Kumar.
“We want to be a company where successful people want to work and not just a company where people become successful”
Jeevant Kumar, senior director – HR, Lam Research India
Not speaking up at the right time can lead the team to make bad decisions. Employees themselves may end up being questioned for being unable to justify the timeline for a particular project. To mitigate these instances, one needs to ‘speak up.’
While matching the candidate with the given set of competencies, if the hiring managers see even a 60 to 70 per cent match, the candidate is hired.
In fact, Lam Research India has trained and certified all its hiring managers in the BEI technique of hiring.
As the company works in a pretty niche segment, there is a shortage of ready-made talent in the country. Talent that possesses the perfect set of skills and competencies is not easy to come by. The BEI technique helps the Company assess some of the competencies which the candidates would need to work upon and upskill to get better at the job.
To train the employees, the Company has some internal development processes wherein it has also tied up with academia to upskill the new hires.
As the BEI technique focuses on ensuring that the candidates are successful in their specific roles within the Company, it is a win-win for both the employees and the Company.
In fact, one of the key differentiators that helps Lam Research India draw talent in the midst of this great war for talent is, ensuring a culture where employees can develop and grow.
“We want to be a company where successful people want to work and not just a company where people become successful,” tells Kumar.
Inclusion and diversity
Attracting women talent, especially in the engineering space, has always remained a challenge for most organisations. Lam Research India realises that the availability of women engineers is less as there are very few women who choose to pursue a career in mechanical engineering.
However, Lam Research India has been taking baby steps towards increasing the number of women within its workforce. Currently, as Kumar reveals, women account for 20-22 per cent of Lam Research India’s workforce. However, the Company aspires to take this figure up to 25 per cent.
“We are not very hard pressed when it comes to this internal goal, as we also want to ensure a culture of meritocracy at the Company. However, we have sensitised all managers to unconscious biases and are making gradual progress in this area,” says Kumar.
Lam Research India also has an internal employee resource group, which drives the female diversity agenda. This further helps the Company make the workplace more inclusive.
1 Comment
Sir,
I have been trying in Lam research for a job for quite some time. I have 14 yrs experience in Procurement, but 4 years career gap. my profile is getting rejected due to a career gap. It’s not that, every woman who has taken a career gap, would have lost job interest or job skill set. Can Lam research initiate programs with rehiring options for career-break women. A humble request to Jeevant sir.