Young talents who plan to make a career in the biotech industry should have expertise in soft skills along with technical capabilities. These are the key parameters for assessment in the hiring strategies of the companies, according to some leading human resource experts.

In a session on "Human Resource Development: Shaping India's talent pool through specialization," at the Bangalore Bio 2006 prominent CEOs and HR experts said that it was difficult to find the right candidates if they are not able to bring out their hidden talents.

It remains a challenge to identify the right candidates. HR looks at technical quality and people skills as the key criteria for hiring. In this regard training qualified entrants is the next biggest challenge.

Initiating the debate, Nobby Nazareth, CEO, Leader Prospects India Pvt. Ltd. stated "Most of the time, the candidates are not able to manage simple interviews, which is an opportunity lost for the student and the company as well. To bridge this gap, industry and academia should work in close collaboration, build and focus beyond syllabi."

According to Gautam Nadig, director, Metahelix Lifesciences Pvt Ltd, science education needs to be looked afresh as good infrastructure alone will not guarantee great scientists. It is critical to focus on a course content and faculty. "It is difficult to get doctorates and specialized skilled persons. However, what motivates these scientists to join small firms is that their ability to solve difficult scientific problems or due to ownership of enterprise, networking, money and responsibility," he said.

Dr. Anil Paul Kariath, president, training, Biozeen which is India's first Knowledge Process Outsourcing (KPO) called for a closer interaction between industry and academia to assess right type of manpower in order to solve the problem of quality manpower with quantity manpower. A poor assessment of the situation for biotech jobs among the student fraternity has led to the academia drifting from need to train them on industry requirements and students not able to choose career path which if neglected could lead to hamper growth in the long run," he added.