You’ve heard the phrase “digital transformation” a million times. You know a little bit about “artificial intelligence.” You might even be familiar with “machine learning.”

But what does it all mean? How does it work? Who is responsible for leveraging it in the workplace?

As a hiring manager, it can be difficult to differentiate buzzwords from practical approaches to getting the job done—but it doesn’t have to be. To help you hire the best, most productive talent in the fields of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), here are some qualities and characteristics to look for in high-quality candidates.

1. Look for candidates from the top 5 colleges for AI in India.

According to Shiksha, a trusted repository of data for over 14,000 institutions and a registered database of more than 3.5 million students, “There are around 450 colleges that offer AI & Robotics, Machine Learning Courses in India.”

If you’re trying to figure out which schools are “the best,” let’s look at each college’s placement rating, which represents graduates who are employed in the careers they actually studied in college. This is important because it demonstrates that these schools have a proven history of producing desirable job candidates.

According to Shiksha, five colleges that have the highest placement rating in India are:

1. H. Raisoni College of Engineering and Management, Pune
2. SRM Ramapuram
3. Velammal Engineering College
4. Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham – Mysuru Campus
5. Bonam Venkata Chalamayya Institute of Technology and Science

To view other Indian colleges with high placement ratings, click here.

High-quality candidates from talent-producing colleges is an effective hiring strategy, but you also need tangible evidence of a practical, hands-on learning experience. That means you should look for certain things from candidates, such as patents, research papers, and participation in industry conferences.

2. Look for candidates who have experience with patents.

According to this article by Anant Kataria, an expert in IP, R&D, and entrepreneurial and business operations, there is an increase in patent filings in big data analytics and AI solutions across the country. In India, the most notable top patent assignees include:

• Samsung Electronics
• Tata Consultancy Services
• Oracle International
• Wipro

According to data from this report by Statista, other top patent-producing companies include Tencent, Baidu, and IBM.

What does this mean? If you can’t find many job candidates with their own patents, filter your search by companies that have proven to produce patents of their own. If a job candidate has experience at one of these companies, they may have worked closely on a project that has produced a patent (even if they have not produced their own), and this experience will set them apart from candidates who haven’t.

3. Look for candidates who have written research papers with relevant theses.

It’s one thing to look for candidates who have authored research papers, but when it comes to AI and ML, what research topics should you be looking for? The goal here is to identify a candidate who has written research papers that reflect the most relevant theses.

According to this report by Techsparks, popular thesis topics include:

• Machine Learning Algorithms
• Computer Vision
• Supervised Machine Learning
• Unsupervised Machine Learning
• Deep Learning
• Neural Networks
• Reinforcement Learning
• Predictive Learning
• Bayesian Network
• Data Mining

To differentiate the relevance of a thesis among research papers, look for candidates who have written about, worked with, (or, to a lesser degree, studied) these topics.

4. Conferences

You’re looking for a job candidate that goes above and beyond, right? To determine whether a potential employee is more committed to a career in AI or ML than their competitors, ask them if they’ve participated in any industry conferences.

According to neptune.ai, the top five top international AI & ML learning conferences are:

• ICML (Virtual)
• ML Conference (Munich, Germany; Virtual)
• Ai4 (Las Vegas, Nevada, USA)
• Data & Analytics Summit VIC (Melbourne, Australia)
• GOTOpia Chicago (Chicago, Illinois, USA)

To see other popular AI and ML conferences, click here.

If a job candidate has attended one of these conferences, that’s great! If they have presented at or actively participated in an exhibit, that’s even better.

Curious about tech and innovation conferences coming up in India in 2023? Check out this list of the top AI conferences to attend in-person in India in 2023 from Analytics India Magazine.

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The blog was written by Acara Senior Manager of Business Development Sayantan Biswas.