Sharmin Hossain Sara
Talent Acquisition Specialist
Bangladesh Finance
Sharmin Hossain Sara is a dedicated Talent Acquisition Specialist with a passion for shaping the future of Bangladesh Finance. With a keen eye for identifying exceptional talent and a deep understanding of the financial industry’s unique needs, she is committed to connecting top-tier professionals with career opportunities that drive success and innovation. Her expertise in recruitment strategies and her ability to foster strong relationships make her an invaluable asset in building the exceptional teams that drive Bangladesh Finance forward.
Let’s learn about her journey.
The InCAP: Ms. Sharmin Hossain, please share your professional and academic peregrination for our readers!
Ms. Sharmin Hossain: Well, in my academic peregrination, the only motivator who paved the entire way to the ultimate self-expansion is my Father. So this cheerleader of my life guided me to shape myself as per my desires. After a successful secondary and higher secondary schooling chapter from Viqarunnisa Noon School & College, I started struggling for the best institution exposure in life and finally, I came out successfully from the University of Dhaka with a BBA from Management & an MBA from Human Resource Management.
During my university days, I did not miss to involve myself in various club activities, faculty engagements, photography, research assistance and also in tuition. Every particular activity helped me to create a hunger to be something in the future.
After the post-grad, I experienced some banking knowledge through an internship program in Bank Asia Limited. But that time Square Pharmaceuticals Limited picked me for their corporate HR and serving for 4 years I had to stop my journey with this giant leader only because of rearing my first child. Destiny played badly with me and the journey of my gap raised to 2.5 years due to Covid.
Yes then again I kick started my career with Bangladesh Finance having the role of Specialist-Talent Acquisition and my strategy to upstage myself will lead me to the ultimate platform where I want to be.
Can you describe your role as a Talent Acquisition Specialist at Bangladesh Finance and the types of positions you typically recruit for?
Well, the role of talent acquisition is simply not that of traditional recruitment and selection only. It’s the elaboration of every single accomplishment of manpower need assessment, sourcing or headhunting, criteria matching, assessment, hiring, onboarding and retaining. Even for the future need of manpower, this role takes a vital initiative to find the best fit for preparing a leadership pipeline.
Along with those, my role requires me to create & maintain a vast range of networking with every industry professional. This enormously helps me to find the best qualified one for my organization.
Moreover, employer branding is another section that I take care of and through branding, I communicate the company culture and positive image to the top talents.
Bangladesh Finance is a giant leader in financial industry and with the growing business, we feel the need of growing manpower requirements in the business team. So I keep my focus on hunting best market players in the financial sector and hiring them with the offerings of best possible compensation and benefits. Besides I hired talents for IT, Legal, Credit Risk Management, General Services, Internal Control & Compliance, Special Asset Management, Treasury, Structured Finance, Human Resource and also for Financial Administration departments.
As I also take care of the manpower needs of Bangladesh Finance Securities and Bangladesh Finance Capital, hiring traders, business development officers, analysts, and chief financial officer added a different experience & learning in my career.
Hiring is an investment and the outcome will hit in the long run. So I own the role of Talent Acquisition for a strategic feedback. I believe that the role I carry is a dynamic one as every time I face new candidates, stakeholders and new situations. It helps me to ensure both the self-branding and the company’s long-term achievement.
How do you source and attract top talent in a competitive job market, especially in the financial industry?
In the financial industry job market is phenomenally stretched and competition is too high for the talents to click on their preferred career. Similarly, employers feel like playing chess to find out the best fit for the company, especially for some key positions.
Now which employer doesn’t want to pick the best resources for their company? Yes in Bangladesh Finance we ensure it through some strategies which encompass some analytical decisions.
FIRSTLY, we ensure job description for every role and we keep the array of responsibilities, skills and experience wide. This enables more candidates to knock on the door of us and extend our chance of hiring the ideal fit from a vast candidate pool.
Then NEXT for sourcing we utilize the social media platforms, LinkedIn and Bd Jobs. We also encourage internal references and we have a Referral Program through which recommending a good profile will be rewarded from the company.
Good repute with the university clubs facilitates us with the best pool of fresh talents and accomplish our requirements for entry & management trainee positions.
And FURTHER, the most lucrative thing that confirms the talents to choose us is a handsome & competitive compensation and benefits package.
Moreover, we are carrying a brand value and this is a long-term investment for us to boost our visibility & to communicate our culture, value, and environment to the potential candidates who resonate with our organization’s ethos.
FINALLY, we rely on realistic job previews and this matrix helps the candidates to weld their knowledge about our company and the positions they are trying for. We blend our tactics with the challenges and construct a more durable recruitment effort to keep pace with the competitors.
Can you share your approach to conducting effective job interviews and assessing candidates’ suitability for roles at Bangladesh Finance?
Bangladesh Finance is the employer where we maintain zero unfairness for better hiring decisions. So to ensure employment here candidates have to go through a rigorous assessment process.
Yes, we are also very demanding in our CV sorting phase having the benchmarks of a standard in educational background, experience, skill sets and also in extracurricular involvements. With a good chunk of candidates, we run a structured face-to-face interview that involves HR, the concerned department and HR committee as interviewers.
Conducting compelling interviews and assessing candidate fit is definitely a challenging one. Through the behavioral and case interview process we get insights from the candidates about what skills & experiences they have and how they act and take decisions for solving problems. In addition to technical and functional skills, having the impression of a candidate’s cultural fit is really important to assess suitability.
Then again, we prefer candidates to spend their words for any kind of query and we express employee value proposition (EVP) to make them hungrier for the job in Bangladesh Finance.
Yes, sometimes through the short phases of interview process, it is not possible to hire the best fit, but Bangladesh Finance has the magic to turn a good one to the market’s best one.
All we believe in is- HIRE & INSPIRE.
What strategies do you use to build and maintain a strong talent pipeline for both current and future hiring needs?
Here in Bangladesh Finance we always go for the best talents and in the talent market we find an atmosphere where there is always a brutal battle for the best talents who have the prowess of strategic & technological agility. Our continuous need for a steadfast workforce that can continue our business development against all odds has steered us to have a strong talent pipeline.
We felt for the requisite to have a talent pipeline when we failed to retain the head of a department and that time that role was taken by the second man of the team. The feel for the talent pipeline become more robust when we have found that the department was absolutely on its track and doing noticeably good.
Yes right after that we proposed to construct a ready pool that we would nurture to manage the roles in future we might need for.
Now where we are and what is our strategy?
Our strategy first hits the current talents and to fight the unexpected transitions of any role we prepare a list of a little chunk of talents in the organization and start to fence them in close observation. We take views about their career aspirations, struggling areas, constraints they face, development needs and of course demote their performance gap. We make them visualize the future of the organization and disclose what they need to boost up their potential.
This is mainly a strategy of succession planning which covers the expected & unexpected turnovers for both the leadership & non-leadership roles.
Then again our strategy targets our talent hiring process where we have a clear articulation of hiring those talents who are not just regular or typical hiring, rather they have the perfect personas that fit the vacant roles. And investing on those potential hires provides feedback in the long run.
Then again after selecting the gold winner through our process we emphasis on the silver winners and prepare a talent pipeline for further need. Those talents are already evaluated and can be a good deal for any uncertain or sudden turnover.
Another way we follow is through employment opportunities from our flagship internship program. Through Bangladesh Finance Internship Program (BFIP) we assort potential fresh graduates as intern for 3 months or more and then we groom them as per our planned future need. Even this talent pipeline from intern’s batch can also meet our current need as we hire those interns through a very standard and rigorous assessment.
How do you ensure a positive candidate experience throughout the recruitment process at Bangladesh Finance?
Positive candidate experience widespread buzzwords but are very infrequent in real-life practice.
Well, where we are now today is only because we always prioritized our stakeholders and being a service provider we are very much cordial with our clients. Our affability is in everywhere and our candidates are not out of it.
Very simple hacks we follow to deal with the candidate’s feel about our company once they experience our hiring process. I maintain a simple flowchart which may be simplest in look but deepest in nature.
A good candidate experience comes from building efficient systems in place that improve hiring speed, listening to your candidates, and implementing their feedback.
Ms. Sharmin Hossain, please say something to the readers!
Don’t jump so high in career. Play slowly and achieve the peak with the utmost knowledge so that no one can make any doubt about your success and achievements.
Quick Chat With Sharmin Hossain Sara
The most outstanding achievement of your life as of now:
Living life without harming others and growing with the career without oiling others. Yah till now the greatest one to share.
The greatest philosopher in your view:
Philosophy is not my thing.
Your Icon:
My Father
Name the most influential books you have read:
The holy QURAN.
Your greatest fear:
The double-faced people in corporate.
Best piece of advice you’ve received:
Never trust anyone in corporate!
You in only three words:
Stubborn, Straightforward and Logical.
Skill Set
- Hard Skills: Project management, Event management, writing skill, Technical skills(MS office, canva, adobe light room)
- Soft Skills: Public speaking & communication, Problem solving, Team work, Leadership, High adaptability, Agile and Quick leaner.
Prayer For The Human Civilization:
Human life is definitely a race and don think that you can go high stepping on others shoulder and letting others down. It’s your destiny which you can only achieve through your eligibility and hard work. Other than that what you have is mirage. It will banish one day.
The InCAP: Thank you, Ms. Sharmin Hossain Sara! It’s a glittering conversation with you!
Ms. Sharmin Hossain Sara: My pleasure! Wish you all the best! Thank you.
To read more about Professional’s stories, Please Click Here!
