The Hindu Business Line : Hiring moves beyond realm of IT, ITeS

For the recruitment industry in the country, 2007 was indeed a year of change. IT and ITeS, which ruled the recruitment charts for over a decade, had to make way to a whole host of other sectors: engineering, retail, banking, airline, hospitality, biotech and medical.

All service sectors became large employers of talent. “There was a holistic approach to recruitment this year, an all-round growth for the economy resulting in hiring in all sectors,” says Ms Nirupama V.G., Managing Director, Ad Astra Consultants, a Bangalore-based recruitment firm. She calls the year a turning point for the recruitment industry. “In our first year of operation, we have achieved 100 clients and 100 employees and will have seven offices by the end of the financial year,” says an upbeat Ms Nirupama.

Rupee ‘spook’

Mr Gautam Sinha, CEO, TVA Infotech, an IT recruitment firm, is not so gung ho about the hiring business in the country. “The rupee has put some spook in the minds of the people in the IT industry,” he says. There has been a dip of about 30 per cent in recruitment from August/September to the last quarter, according to him, but Sinha says that salaries have not yet been impacted.

Dr Pallab Bandyopadhyay, Chief People Officer, Cambridge Solutions, though satisfied with recruitment numbers, says getting the right person is still a challenge. But he does not rule out the impact of the appreciating rupee in terms of compensation and benefits. “We have to learn to become lean and smart organisations,” he says, adding that the focus for HR in the coming year will on expectations of employees in compensation.

Another change the country saw during the year was in the executive search business. So far, global recruitment firms in the country only received mandates from its partners abroad for executive search.

“This changed during the year and we are now exporting assignments to our partners,” says Mr K. Sudarshan, Managing Partner, EMA Partners International, a global executive search firm.

In the last one year, EMA has exported 14 referrals to its partners abroad for Indian companies hiring abroad. “Cross-border searches for Indian firms and India as a geography for search is becoming common now,” he says.

But all of them agree that the biggest challenge for India Inc will be on the supply side. “Getting the numbers is not the problem in a country of over one billion people, but it’s getting the right kind of people that is the challenge,” says Mr Sudarshan.

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