“The day you stop learning is the day you start becoming irrelevant.”
That’s the mantra Anshul Bhargava lives by and encourages young professionals to embrace from day one. In this exclusive conversation with All Things Talent, Anshul Bhargava, SVP & Global Head – Talent Acquisition at Firstsource, spoke about the evolving dynamics of early talent hiring. He unpacked how Gen Z are reshaping expectations from employers, why a strong campus engagement strategy is crucial, and how Firstsource is shifting from a qualification-first to a potential-first mindset.
Q/ While looking for topics to discuss with you, I came across this compelling insight by the Compass Group. It says that employees who are more engaged in a workplace are more productive and feel less lonely, and are more drawn towards an organisation’s vision. I would like to know your thoughts on these findings, and with regards to FirstSource, where do you stand in creating such a culture for early talent?
Anshul: Good question! Each generation comes with a different idea of what work, engagement, and happiness look like. At Firstsource, that means designing employee experiences and benefits with intention. For example, where older employees may seek financial security and stability, Gen Z is looking for meaning, purpose, and social interaction from ESG involvement to vibrant social events.
The company actively tailors its approach. We have broken down our engagement strategies based on generational behaviours. Even something like a social gathering, what excites Gen Z is very different from what motivates someone nearing retirement.
Off-Campus Talent: A New Frontier
In another telling shift, Anshul notes how the traditional pride associated with campus placements has faded.
Firstsource is tapping into this trend with a greater focus on off-campus hiring, targeting candidates who may not have taken the conventional route but demonstrate agility, drive, and entrepreneurial energy. “We are going to IITs, IIMs, and private universities not just to recruit, but to support the idea of exploration and innovation,” Anshul explains.
Post-COVID Perspectives and AI-Driven Evolution
The pandemic marked a turning point. “COVID changed people at a psychological level,” Anshul reflects. “Work-life balance is now non-negotiable for many. Early talent wants defined hours, productivity within that time, and the freedom to enjoy life outside work.”
Anshul spoke at length about the shift the AI has brought in the way hiring happens now. “At least for me, I check how fast someone can learn. I used to ask only two questions:
- What have you learnt recently and,
- Tell me one learning from your favourite subject.
He adds, “To me, it opens the ethics and learnability scale of an individual. So, from the competency framework, we have moved into the skill framework. This is the change AI has brought because what you know today might (is going to) be obsolete tomorrow.”
Q/ You have often said, “The more you learn, the more you earn.” What lies ahead in terms of talent priorities? How are things shaping up over the next few years?
Anshul Bhargava: I believe cognitive skills and learnability are going to be key. If you focus on these, your domain skills will naturally improve. Whether you are studying math, healthcare, or banking, those are your domain areas, but your cognitive and learning abilities form the foundation. Gone are the days when a degree alone guaranteed employment. What lies ahead is a future of skill-based recruitment.
I’m not sure about the next five years, but over the next two, this shift will become very evident.
Q/ Tell us how Firstsource approaches skill-based hiring. How do you assess and hire talent beyond degrees?
Anshul: We look at hiring in two parts: campus and volume hiring. Campus hiring is mostly from B-schools and tech campuses, but 85% of our hiring is volume-based, especially for IT and operations roles.
When hiring freshers, domain expertise is limited, so we focus more on cognitive skills. How well candidates adapt to situations. We use the STAR interviewing methodology and have developed our framework to assess three types of skills: perishable, semi-durable, and durable.
Perishable skills are tied to specific domains. Durable skills like attitude, communication, and learnability form the foundation. For example, in healthcare, the specific technical knowledge is perishable, but your ability to learn, communicate, and adapt is durable.
We use an AI tool based on the STAR method and competency-based interviewing (CBI) to assess these traits. We’ve trained the AI to ask the right questions, and it’s now central to our hiring process.
Q/ We often talk about upskilling early talent. But what about reverse learning? Where do managers learn from fresh hires? Do you think leaders need to be trained to handle the new generation better?
Anshul: Absolutely. The word ‘unlearning’ is very big for Firstsource right now. Our CEO introduced the concept of “un-BPO,” which is essentially about unlearning 20–25 years of legacy thinking as we move into an AI-led future.
Agentic AI is here, and it is changing everything. So we must upskill and reskill constantly. That means unlearning and relearning are key if you want to grow in your career today, and that is true for organisations equally.
One major insight from them? Work-life balance. They don’t want to burn out like older generations, and they are vocal about it. From AI in recruitment to value stream mapping (VSM), many ideas we implemented came from our trainees. They helped reduce our hiring process from 9–10 hours to 45 minutes per candidate by identifying non-value-adding steps.
Q/ India has the world’s largest fresh talent pool, but employability remains a challenge. How do you bridge that gap?
Anshul: It’s a very real issue. NASSCOM reports that only 40–45% of graduates are employable, which means 60–65% are not, and that’s worrying. We approach this in two ways: traditional and modern. Traditionally, we do academic partnerships, training professors so they can better prepare students. The modern way is co-creating industry-relevant curricula with universities.
The government has also made internships longer from three to six months, which is a great move. But it must be done sincerely, not as a checkbox. Right now, we have 30+ interns working with us across departments, and they are gaining solid experience.
This kind of talent, those who come in with cognitive skills and absorb domain knowledge, becomes highly valuable.
Q/ Is there a better way to make industrial training or internships more impactful?
Anshul: Yes—make internships mandatory, meaningful, and performance-driven. Students should be paid, evaluated on KPIs, and mentored seriously. Some private universities already do this, and I help them evaluate internship outcomes.
If scaled nationally, this model cay n raise employability from 40–45% to at least 70%. There’s a demand-supply gap; we are hungry for good talent. We just need to bridge that gap effectively.
Another important area: communication skills. India has amazing raw talent, but many candidates miss out only because they can’t communicate in English, which remains the primary business language. Especially in customer-facing roles, this becomes a deal-breaker.
Q/ How is AI helping in making recruiter connections with the candidates more meaningful?
Anshul: AI has made evaluations more structured and consistent. Earlier, different recruiters would assess candidates differently. Now, AI handles the initial process with calibrated feedback. This gives candidates clarity on why they were selected or not. It is no longer just a ‘yes’ or ‘no.’ Our goal is to share this feedback more proactively and transparently. For recruiters, AI has removed the paperwork. They now have time to focus on meaningful conversations with candidates, learn new skills, and even contribute to content development for talent assessments. That’s real value-add.
I would like to summarise that the times we are living in are changing. The way we hire, the people we hire, are changing. Now, we are doing fixed-time resource hiring, contingent hiring, part-timer, gig workforce hiring, and lastly is agentic AI hiring. Even though we are creating bots, they are part of the workforce too. We now hire people for their cognitive skills.
That brings me back to what I always say: the more you learn, the more you earn. So keep learning!
