If you’re a recruiter who is considering taking the course, you might find the first three points useful, the same goes for anyone who wants to know the difference between great and awful seminars. For anyone who isn’t a recruiter, but wishes that recruiters would pounce on them via social media, you could skip to point four.

Four reasons why the Blue Belt in Internet Recruiting is worth every penny of the £395 price tag:

1) It had great, useful content

Let’s look at what they offer:

Upon completion of this one day module attendees will have a solid understanding of Boolean operators, modifiers and commands and will be able to find 100% of LinkedIn profiles using only a free account, find candidates on Twitter, Blogs, Google Plus, Video Sites, Blogs, Staff Directories and much more. Most importantly attendees will be able to provide their expert recruitment knowledge in building search strings and following “rabbit holes” to produce candidates that other recruiters will not find.

It’s no exaggeration to say that’s what I got. The tricks like ‘x-ray searches’ and ‘rabbit holes’ certainly produced a lot of wow moments, but the less glamorous insights were also eye-opening. We learned what will help web pages shoot up in search result rankings, and what will make them plummet out of sight. How Bing and Google differ. How browsers differ. Which Chrome apps save you time and effort. Which websites do all the work for you.

2) I learned something, no homework required

And let’s look at the first line again:

Upon completion of this one day module attendees will have a solid understanding of… and will be able to….

This is the crunch. It’s a familiar sentence, but few courses actually deliver anything above and beyond what you could gain from reading the presentation slides.

All the participants were provided with a computer and we were constantly doing things and comparing results. The tasks were a mix of cleverly orchestrated tasks and real-life tasks provided by the participants, providing an authentic learning experience.

The session closed with an online timed test. Despite assurances that we could have a second stab at it if we failed to get the pass mark, it was challenging. I have to say I did really break a sweat. But I did pass, and getting over that hurdle brought a great sense of achievement.

3) It was engaging

And, dare I say it, fun. How many seminars have you sat through where someone drones on while you sit passively, your mind wandering towards more interesting matters, like what you’ll have for dinner or the colour of the presenter’s socks? All the hands-on learning meant the participants kept focused and on-task, and the time flew by.

Jonathan Campbell was a great presenter, and that’s important. I firmly believe that all training seminars should be led by charismatic and funny presenters. People pay good money to attend, and if no one in the company has a spark of charm some of that cash should go towards hiring and training someone who fits the bill. Fortunately for Social Talent, Jonathan is the CEO, so everyone is happy.

4) I got an invaluable insight into the murky world of recruitment

I’m not a recruiter, and I don’t really know any. Recruiters, headhunters – they sound like those strange renegades you find skulking around the jungles in untouristy parts of Southeast Asia. And they’re a mysterious shadowy presence – In a world of recruiters, why is it so hard for people to find jobs? Who are these slippery creatures?

Actually they seemed like a terribly normal bunch of folk just getting on with their work, and facing the challenges of finding people with the right skills for the job. That’s the crux of it; the right skills. You’re most likely only going to get hunted out if you have a formidable skill set and level of experience that pretty much ensures you’re already happily employed.

It turns out that most of their database of candidates lies untouched, and with such a vast dead weight, the power of social recruiting can enable them to make the whole of the online world into their database.

Still, social media isn’t just a one-way street for the benefit of the recruiters. Candidates can also leverage a number of channels and techniques to gain more visibility and showcase their skills. You can get insider know-how on pimping your Linkedin Profile, how to get hired using social media, and a whole lot more on Social Talent’s Youtube channel.

I would love to recommend the Blue Belt in Internet Recruitment to absolutely everyone, but it is designed for actual recruiters who are looking to do the social side well and to really get beneath the skin of LinkedIn, but I don’t think Social Talent would be very happy if droves of jilted ex’s with questionable motives turned up to learn about boolean searches. Let’s just leave it to the recruiters, and remember to thank Social Talent when one of them pops up on your twitter feed with the dream job offer you’ve always wanted.

The Blue Belt in Internet Recruiting is part Social Talent’s Black Belt in Internet Recruiting qualification. Click for details.

Photo credit: Michaela Kobyakov

According to the European Commission, Europe is facing an acute lack of ITC talent that is threatening to hamper economic growth and global competitiveness (see video below). Demand for skilled professionals is increasing rapidly but companies are still struggling to fill positions. At the same time unemployment among young adults in Europe has reached 20%, and computer science degrees are falling in popularity.

In its ongoing battle against this talent gulf, the European Commission has this week launched “e-skills week 2012”. It aims to give young people an idea of how to get involved in the IT industry through company visits and exhibitions and to foster their interest through competitions and activities.

Antonio Tajani, the European commissioner for industry and entrepreneurship, opened e-skills week with a rousing call to action.  In the wake of the speech, Computer Weekly magazine announced shocking news, claiming that  ‘Young Europeans lack basic IT skills’. Shocking indeed, because the European Commission informs us that by 2015, 90% of jobs will require IT skills.

Hang on a minute – “young people lack IT skills”? How many young people in Europe don’t use social media, email, word processors? The statistics from Computer skills in the EU27 in figures tell us that 60% of 16-24 year-olds in the EU have made an electronic presentation, and 1 in 5 have written a computer program.

It’s a confusing message. Call them e-skills, IT skills or ITC skills, it’s clear we need them, but what exactly are they? Everything from sending an email to designing complex software is conflated into one term.  Is the problem we are facing one of widespread computer illiteracy, or one of a shortage of tech specialists? Which of these elusive e-skills will lead graduates to those job openings that companies are struggling to fill?

What young people really are lacking is information about the ITC skills they need, a clear picture of the ITC industry, and a school syllabus that will equip them with all the basic ITC skills, as well as the foundations of computer science.

Thankfully, more resources are becoming available for young people, such as Microsoft Europe’s guide to popular ITC careers and the required skills for each. Additionally, education reform is underway in the UK. Education secretary Michael Gove is instigating an overhaul of ITC teaching and putting computer science on the curriculum. However a lack of qualified teachers and a potential removal of ITC from the curriculum for up to two years pending the introduction of the new syllabus is a cause for concern.

Steps are being taken in the right direction, but until this skills gap is plugged, more companies may follow Facebook, who took the unprecedented move of scouting out talent in India for their domestic bases.

Beyond Europe, there is an army of young ITC-savvy graduates – what can we learn from them?

Well, here’s the thing. Nilofer Merchant said it in her HBS blog post: “Why social marketing is so hard”

The way goods and services are sold and consumed have changed. The earlier era was of advertising to build awareness, be considered for purchase and then actual purchase. The funnel was the way marketers and recruiters are made to think.

However,  in the social era, people expect to consume and try first – and then if that excites them they purchase. If that experience is great then they become “superfans”. Yes, a company cannot really scale social reach. However, what it can do is empower these “superfans” (also referred to as brand evangelists, brand advocates, etc) to scale it on its behalf.

So the first question in social recruiting should not be “How do I attract the best people to apply to my jobs?” but instead “What can I give away for free that would spread amongst people that in turn would attract them to my firm?”

So what can you give away to attract professionals to your firm?

One answer springs to my mind: knowledge and expertise. Not the knowledge and expertise that is Intellectual Property and trade secret, but rather expertise in skills and learning in subject matter communities like marketing, leadership, entrepreneurship, PHP, Java, Recruiting and others.

People join online skills communities to connect with and learn from experts. Unleashing your organizational experts would help them to build their own skills and mark you out as a “social employer”.

In fact, in a recent article Prof. Gary Hamel describes the “12 realities employees will use to determine if your company is “with it” or “past it””.

One of them is that power comes from sharing, not hoarding. Quoting from the article:

“To gain influence and status, you have to give away your expertise and content. And you must do it quickly; if you don’t, someone else will beat you to the punch and garner the credit that might have been yours.”

So are you ready to be a “social employer”? Contact me at Gautam@BraveNewTalent.com to know more.

“You now have to decide what image you want for your brand. Image means personality. Products, like people, have personalities, and they can make or break them in the marketplace.” —David Ogilvy

In today’s mature talent acquisition world, employers have shifted their focus from “top talent from top universities” to “ideal talent for our culture.” In other words, the level of academic skill is less important than the person’s ability to apply those skills within the specific company culture.

Employers have also realized that diversity – academic as well as ethnic – strengthens their business. So mixing people from different universities and with different degrees is a high priority. At the same time, talent groups are continuing to prioritize cultural fit and values over financial benefits when they choose employers.

The Old School : Earlier talent acquisition was characterized by demographic targeting, where certain schools were selected for focused campaigns. Universities were classified as tier 1, tier 2, tier 3 and so on. The classification was typically based on the reputation of the universities. Top schools became tier 1, and pretty much everybody focused their resources on those top universities.

Then a few Shifts happened the Internet revolution, attitude shifts amongst talent groups, and the maturity of employer branding. Using technology instead of geographical presence made it possible to brand oneself at more universities, and more developed employer branding strategies made the corporate identity stronger.

Shift #1 : Talent Value Proposition Simultaneously, talent groups shifted from prioritizing salary and benefits when choosing employers, to putting greater value on corporate values and culture. Alignment of interests that complimented Talent and Employer Brand became the central focus at both ends in the Talent marketplace.

Shift #2 : Rise of Communities This resulted in Communities of Interest where Employer Brands started talking to Talent Brands. Largely powered by Social media, users started presenting themselves to the world, revealing personal details and insights into their lives. There are research studies that are beginning to understand how some of this information can be utilized to improve the users’ experiences with interfaces and with one another.

Shift #3 : The emergence of Reputation Graphs Personality has been shown to be relevant to many types of interactions; it has been shown to be useful in predicting job satisfaction, professional and romantic relationship success, and even preference for different interfaces.

The social graph or social profile is becoming an important data-source for identifying passive candidates, vetting current candidates, and building talent pools. For the first time, powerful semantic filters and constant monitoring of status updates from more than 30 leading social media sites make it possible to manage and track this at a global talent scale.

In this changing talent marketplace powered by social media the power of your brand needs to have a compelling value story. What you are doing and saying on the social web is already building a story about you. The key question is about you being aware of your personality behind the brand that you are building on the social web.

Social Experiments for Brand Building “You are a brand. You are in charge of your brand. There is no single path to success. And there is no one right way to create the brand called You.” Tom Peters was right! You need to experiment and find the right way that works for Brand You.

As you scope out the path your “career” will take, remember: the last thing you want to do is only become a manager. “Like résumé, “manager” is an obsolete term”, says Tom Peters. It’s practically synonymous with “dead end job.” What you want are well thought out experiments, more challenging, more provocative projects. Make these projects an end-to-end experience!

When you look at the progression of a career constructed out of projects, directionality is not only hard to track — Which way is up? — but it’s also totally irrelevant. Instead of making yourself a slave to the concept of a career ladder, reinvent yourself on a semiregular basis. Just like a space shuttle, learn how to dislodge a few launch panels that helped you to take off , to start the next set of engines that will help you go up in the orbit space!

Step #1 : Start with what Epitomizes Brand You As Oscar Wilde said, “I am the only person in the world I should like to know thoroughly”. It takes deep introspection and self realization to get to know the sweet spot between your competencies and things that you are passionate about. In many ways your friends, family and colleagues can help in this process.

BraveNewTalent is a great a platform for building a custom profile. A lot of us have multiple online profiles scattered across various services, including Facebook, LinkedIn, Flickr, and Twitter. And one problem we face is pulling all of this information together to build a single on-line identity — be it for personal use, or to create a professional on-line profile.

Step #2 : Design an Interactive Resume that brings out Your Personality Start by writing your own mission statement, and Statement of Purpose. What turns you on? Learning something new? Shepherding new ideas from concept to market? What’s your personal definition of success? Money? Power? Fame? Or doing what you love? However you answer these questions, search relentlessly for job or project opportunities that fit your mission statement. And review that mission statement every six months to make sure you still believe what you wrote.

I recently met DJ Waldow who personally inspired me and many others on the social web through his Social Media Experiment – Finding a New Job! DJ started with a hope that his next job will come as the result of leveraging the social networks and specifically the relationships and trust he’s build over the past decade. He asked a few of his friends to film 30 seconds “Hire DJ” clips. He went on to build his voice over interactive video resume that has attracted many fans and followers on the social web.

Step #3 : Design a Personal Logo – Your QR Code Social Media is changing the way information is being shared both online and offline. Get a QR code on your business card that helps to build your personal logo and connect you both online and offline to the world of opportunities.

So, by placing them on a business card, you can digitally pass on your contact details, direct people to a website; send them to a Flickr photo set or Facebook fan page. Here are a few examples to inspire you on how QR codes can be incorporated creatively in your designs and connect offline and online media.

The one that you follow is the path that has been traversed by others. You have role models close at hand. It probably pays a lot. It offers you work-life balance. It is a perfectly sane choice to make.

The career that you define, is the one for the outlier. There are few role models. It probably doesn’t pay as much. It’s on the edge (and there’s often the danger of falling off). It doesn’t offer you much work life balance. It is probably the crazy choice to make.

However, the first one is probably going to be redundant in five years. And the second one is the future.

What would you put your bets on?

Find out about emerging careers like Viral Marketing, Social Recruiting, Community Management at BraveNewTalent

(Cross posted from my Talent and Social Business blog)

Charlie Duff has put together eight of the many reasons you should get on board…

1. You learn by teaching others

Have you ever noticed that once you know how to do something, if you then teach someone else, you become even more confident in your skills? It happens because teaching someone else can help seal in your knowledge of the topic and helps you know it inside out. Skills communities give you the opportunity to do just that with potentially thousands of people.

2. Raise your profile with ‘expert’ status

When you add a skill on BraveNewTalent you can also rate your level of skill on that area. If you are a professional or experienced in that area you can contribute as an expert. If you already write a blog and want to bring your content to a bigger audience this is an ideal opportunity.

3. Make your experience work for you

You have created numerous experiences in your life. Each one of these represents a chance to share one thing with someone who has never had that experience. You might think that your insider knowledge of something is only helpful to you – but I bet there are others who would love to have that knowledge too.

4. Highlight your skills to potential employers

Employers on BraveNewTalent such as Unilever, Tesco and Pinsent Masons are looking for their future talent, just as you are building your future. By posting on BraveNewTalent you can better attract their attention and start to prove that you are the best person for their next hire.

5. Attract a following

Who doesn’t want a following? You too could have your own school of fans who are learning every time you post.

6. Become a mentor

Being a mentor is special. You are helping someone develop and make a great future and career for themselves. Every successful person has had at least one mentor, if not several. And you learn a lot from mentoring others.

7. Become mentored

No mater how successful you already are, you can still benefit from mentoring. If you are just starting out, learning  from someone with more experience is often a key in your success. Following experts on BraveNewTalent can help you learn from those with more experience and set you on the right track.

8. Learn about other skills from other experts

You also have the potential to learn from others outside your field. Join a community you know nothing about and see how fast you learn. It’s great to be a beginner sometimes. Achieve your full potential – decide to be a lifelong learner.

Here’s some links to some great skill communities to get you started:

Leadership

Search Engine Optimisation

Journalism

Until next time – keep learning!

Not only does this event attract the world’s leading exponents of economic and business matters but also political leaders, influential celebrities and a handful of other public figures. So as Bill Gates pledged his millions to fighting aids and David Cameron discussed the political issues within the EU, another topic, of particular interest to us at BraveNewTalent, surfaced frequently throughout the week; the issue of the skills gap!

‘The skills gap’ is a term coined to explain the fact that those newly entering the world of employment do not possess the necessary skills required to fill the advertised vacancies. Essentially, the supply of talent is not meeting the demand of the markets. Furthermore, not enough is being done to provide the training and/or education necessary for applicants to acquire the skills that are needed.

Those who followed the World Economic Forum will have surely recognised that the predominant theme of the week was focused upon the unemployment, especially youth unemployment. Both are issues facing the world in the current disturbing economic climate. This ever-increasing and problematic issue was a prime focal point at Davos, the serene and luxurious location in Switzerland that has been home for the forum since its foundation in 1971, and was discussed in a number of sessions during the week. Highlights included a workshop looking at mobilising skills and revitalising education, a session focused on the gaps in the talent market and an ‘Ideas Lab’ focused on job and growth creation by addressing skill shortages.[1] Common to all of these sessions was the discussion regarding the “lost generation” – those unable to find jobs. The delegates at the World Economic Forum declared that prevention of this looming problem is one of the key aims that the world needs to address quickly.

The fact that it has become such a widely debated issue has undoubtedly been prompted by the somewhat depressing report published, just a week prior to the Forum, by the International Labour Organization. According to the report the world faces the daunting challenge of producing more than 600 million jobs within the next decade “…in order to generate sustainable growth and maintain social cohesion…”. Juan Samovia, the ILO’s Director-General, stated that more than 1.1 billion people are either currently unemployed or are living in poverty. It is clear that statistics like these have impacted greatly on those attending the WEF.[2]

The executive chairman of Google, Eric Schmit, argued on the other hand that there was not a ‘jobs crisis’ as such. But he went on to concede that (in relation to the skills gap) “…unemployment is predominantly the result of inadequate skills among the workforce, a problem that could be addressed with better education.”[3]

Klaus Schwab, the founder of the WEF, has also commented at Davos last week that capital is no longer the most significant resource in the world, now it is Talent; “the old model was Capitalism, the new model is Talentism”[4]. A report published by the WEF however, has reiterated the problem that talent isn’t achieving its full potential, mainly due to a lack of skills training and the consequential skills gap that has developed as a result.

The fact that this topic has been so prevalently debated can only mean good things for those, mainly young people, affected by its existence. With the help of BraveNewTalent, who look to help close this gap, perhaps in a few years time, looking back at Davos 2012 we will be writing about the improved situation with regard to unemployment… or at least the foundations are being laid to construct the bridge between talent and skills.
Lesley is a journalist and current community moderator for BraveNewTalent. If you like her style you can also see her writing about football here.

Sources
http://www.ghanabusinessnews.com/2012/01/15/collaboration-in-talent-mobility-is-key-to-job-creation-wef/
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/world/2012-01/18/c_122603698.htm
http://efareport.wordpress.com/2012/01/24/at-davos-the-skills-gap-is-on-the-guest-list/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/27/eric-schmidt-davos_n_1237142.html

References
[1] http://efareport.wordpress.com/2012/01/24/at-davos-the-skills-gap-is-on-the-guest-list/
[2] ibid
[3] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/27/eric-schmidt-davos_n_1237142.html
[4] http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/world/2012-01/18/c_122603698.htm

On 6 January BraveNewTalent organized the first event of the in the “Talent Series” – a conversation about Talent and Technology focusing on the Future of Talent in India. About 40 people attended from organizations as varied as KPMG, Amazon, SAP, Hewlett Packard, Genpact, Intel, Oracle and Nike.

Dheeraj Prasad (BraveNewTalent India MD) welcomed everyone and introduced the panel:

Pratik Kumar, VP-HR of Wipro and President, Wipro Infrastructure Engineering, Madan Padaki, CEO of Erudient, a Manipal Group Company, Krishna Prasad, Chief Experience Officer of Dentsu and Lucian Tarnowski, CEO of BraveNewTalent.

Lucian started by explaining that the Talent Series is about the conversation of talent and technology and that it is quite appropriate that it’s happening first in India. India is ground zero for talent. One in four of the world’s workforce in the future will be Indian. Lucian shared how his vision of the Talent Series is modeled like the Renaissance Salon, since we are going through a major shift and second renaissance like the time of the Medicis. Introducing BraveNewTalent, Lucian said that we connect Employers, Employment and Education. The model of talent communities is not something new to India. The origin of communities for learning started in India – and in the new virtual world, India can leapfrog the bricks and mortar model of education to education delivered via the cloud by employers.

Madan Padaki showed a video that questioned the concept of “employability”. In the video Ramesh (an 18 year old from a village, without any skills or education) was taught in seven months to write and speak in English and is now employed and manages a team currently in a rural BPO firm. Madan therefore asserted his hypothesis is there is nothing called employability, and everybody is employable. Madan stressed that we have to change the lens with which we see talent and skills and the current model of certifying learning is dead. Social and informal learning is the future. Technology will be so embedded in learning, that there will be no such thing as ‘technology based learning’ – it will simply be learning, according to Madan.

Pratik shared that technology leads to “Empowerment” in employees where earlier learning and access to information was linked to where people were in the hierarchy. Now it has liberated organization and people from that, knowledge is now available to everyone. It leads to ‘boundarylessness’ – interactions, mentoring, and learning from people across structures and companies. It enables employees to rally and make their point of view heard. The other big factor is Personalization – technology gives us the ability to personalize information and content to an employees needs and interest. This will become more and more important going forward.

Krishna shared that online is growing, access is becoming easier for users and the availability of content is increasing.

Ferose VR (MD of SAP Labs, where the Talent Series was held) shared that the traditional methods of learning are no longer relevant, and at SAP Labs they are getting rid of them. Most traditional forms learning delivers exposure but does not deliver experiences. So, for example, communications training is done by doing theater workshops. That is how the employees gain experience, by actually doing it.

Ferose stated that there is a difference between being intelligent and being interesting. Today’s world needs people who are interesting. For real innovation to happen there has to be an intersection of science and humanities. SAP Labs is therefore exposing people (like engineers) to art, literature, humanities – to foster innovation and creativity.

Lucian asked the panel what they felt the role of employers is in bridging the skills gap in India.

Pratik answered that there are several things that can be done in the precincts of the organizations, but it is an inefficient use of time. It is not the job of organizations to create campuses to upskill people. But unless the government, HRD ministry and the AICTE step up, they will have to, as the inability to get the right kind of talent impacts the future of organizations. It cannot be the job of one organization. Organizations are dissipating their energies doing this individually. They need to collaborate together and form a platform for doing this.

Within the organization we have to liberate the process of learning, asserted Pratik. The line between who you are personally and who are you professionally are getting blurred. The intermingling needs to be seamless. Wipro allowed its employees to bring their own devices to work to enable them to learn on their preferred device.

Madan added that as long as you don’t change what you measure you will never change what people learning. One of the things they did at Merittrac was they pulled out a “long term” team and told them you don’t have any quarterly targets or short term numbers, only focus on the future and they are doing some great work.

Lucian then asked the panel about their thoughts about technology and its use in the recruiting space.

Madan shared an example where they put out a simulation game of a college fest to MBA students to simulate a business problem. Every click when they play the game gives great level of data and analytics as to how they think. The future model would be to get students to play multiplayer games and give different companies different analytics as they want to focus on different set of behaviours from the same simulation.

Pratik shared that the true impact of technology would be in productivity gains in the recruitment process. Wipro has tried out many initiatives to figure out how to get applicants to match to openings and is experimenting currently in using predictive analytics at an experimental level.

Lucian’s next question was that in the age of social media, what the panel thought of companies models of controlling the message and what is the future of corporate communications?

Krishna shared that although digital brought on- to-one messaging, its importance is more than communication and advertising. It’s 70% about insights. There is so much data out there that you need to have an eye for what you want. The lines between Marketing and PR and who controls communications is blurring. Social touches every aspect of the organization and consumers lives. Often it is outsourced to a third party which does not understand the brand and this will have a negative effect on the employer brand.

Lucian stated that the candidates are ahead of the employers and organizations have to get on to the train that is quickly leaving the station. In 2012 we will see social recruiting become mainstream. Talent is now more important than capital, so the Chief Talent Officer has to be more important than the Chief Financial Officer.

There was then an interactive question and answer session between the audience and the panel. We will post the link to the video online as soon as it is ready.

Whatever it is, we are pretty sure that your talents are unique to you. And you probably have some hidden skill you can do which no one else you know can. The problem is, when you are asked: ‘What are you good at?’, the mind sometimes goes blank. Mine does anyway. I question myself. Oh no! Am I good at anything? What do I love doing? What do other people know me for?

But then I realised. This is the wrong question. How about asking yourself: What skills could I teach to others? What can I share?

You could be the star in this area. You could be the leader here.

So this week, instead of a straightforward blog post, we are asking you to tell us: What are you good at? What skill could you share?

(And if enough of you comment, I’ll even tell you what my hidden talent is. Guesses also welcome!)

So go on… what skill will you share?

Held in Bangalore, India at SAP’s HQ, a panel of illustrious speakers join an incredible guestlist of business leaders alongside out own Gautam Ghosh, Dheeraj Prasad and Lucian Tarnowski.

If you couldn’t be there yourself, you can watch live on Ustream or follow all the action on the CoveritLive event: Click Here (opens pop up window so you can view the event.)

You can also contribute yourself to the event by using (and following) the hashtag on Twitter – #TalentSeries

More information on the line up is below.

Meet the Panel

Krishna Prasad Chief Experience Officer/Head of Digital – Dentsu
Krishna’s job is to turn insights into innovations that result in meaningful engagements for consumers, aligning client business goals with customer needs by driving value and relevance – especially where product development blurs with marketing, creativity becomes inseparable from technology, and brand and business strategy converge.

Pratik Kumar Executive VP-HR, Wipro & President, Wipro Infrastructure Engineering
Pratik has been associated with Wipro for the last 19 years and is a member of Wipro’s senior leadership team, closely associated with Wipro’s growth over the years, and played a significant role in shaping it into a strong global player. As a professional for over 22 years, Pratik has experience in a variety of areas. Pratik currently leads the Human Resources function for Wipro.Since July 2010 Pratik has assumed leadership of Wipro Infrastructure Engineering business as President, Wipro Infrastructure Engineering. In addition, Pratik continues to lead the Human Resources function for Wipro. Pratik is also a member of the Corporate Executive Council of Wipro.

Madan Padaki CEO, Erudient, a Manipal Group company
An active speaker at many forums, specifically on topics pertaining to Assessments, Talent Pools and Employability Enhancement, he is the author of several articles on HR and Employability which have been published in leading publications in India. He serves on the Governing Council of DOEACC (Ministry of IT, Govt. of India) to evaluate IT education in India. He is an active member of NASSCOM, CII, TiE etc.

Moderated by Lucian Tarnowski CEO – BraveNewTalent
Lucian (27) is the Founder of BraveNewTalent, the career social network helping talent and employers connect and build relationships leading to employment. Lucian has been honoured as Europe’s youngest Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum. He is winner of the Global Enterprising Young Brit of 2009 and was named as one of Britain’s rising business stars.