Ms. Sonal Pathak, Head Human Resources – Audi (India) at INLEAD

Yesterday, 23^rd Jan’14 Ms. Sonal Pathak, heading the HR Department at AUDI(INDIA) presented to students of INLEAD a presentation on “Corporate Expectations and Industry Orientation”. The session began with a brief introduction of Ms. Pathak which described her professional journey in various sectors which involved automobiles, hotels, entertainment and then how she went back to the hotel industry to research and then back to automobiles.

Ms. Pathak quoted that “We hire people for attitude & train them for skills”. She further added that, if your goal is to climb a tree who should you hire? Squirrel OR horse? In short to summarize that she said, passion never fails, the lack of basic passion fails.
Ms. Pathak quoted that “We hire people for attitude & train them for skills”. She further added that, if your goal is to climb a tree who should you hire? Squirrel OR horse? In short to summarize that she said, passion never fails, the lack of basic passion fails.

She discussed with the students on how there is demand and supply crunch for employable candidates and how the different stakeholders are in a state of mismatch. She further explained the mismatch by speaking about the 4 stakeholders. Few key points mentioned by her were, firstly the industry now does not have time to train the employees. Secondly, institutes do not have infrastructure and technologies to cater to industry needs. Thirdly, the environment is not symbolic for industry academia association. Fourthly, what problems hence faced by the students are that students are more inclined towards grades, the students are not aware of the various industry standards, students are not able to apply their academic knowledge.

Ms.Pathak talked about the need of the hour which emphasized that it was clearly that the candidates need to prepare for the required position from a skill perspective and not only from a knowledge perspective. She elaborated on this through an activity and divided the students into 3 groups in which the students played the part of a student, the educational institute and the prospective employer.

Coming further, the three most important facts which were discussed in the session are: 1) knowledge 2) skill 3) attitude

Such expert sessions from experts having experience in diverse field is part of the curriculum at INLEAD and we strive for the better in the future.

Keep watching this space for more…