Desperate to find software engineers in India, recruitment agencies are forced to apply the concept of “Speed Dating” to their hiring processes.
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| Source: AFP |
Gautam Sinha, CEO of TVA Infotech, one of the 300 recruitment firms based in Bangalore, has even rented a 20,000-seat indoor basketball arena to facilitate meetings between client companies and candidates. Holding their resumes, candidates line up to wait for their interviews.
“It’s like speed dating. In the past, we had six months to hire someone; now we only have six weeks,” Sinha revealed. Four hundred candidates attended the event, and 80 found jobs, ranging from engineering positions with networking giant Cisco to specialists at SAP, the largest enterprise software company in the world.
“This is the first time we’ve implemented this approach, and it’s clearly yielding results,” Sinha said excitedly.
Such job fairs are flourishing across Asia, where job seekers come to submit applications and undergo initial interviews. However, the difference here is the urgent need of businesses to “fill vacancies,” with many candidates receiving job offers on the spot.
Despite initial success, recruitment companies remain concerned that their “matchmaking” services may soon face challenges due to a decline in the number of qualified candidates.
According to data from the National Association of Software and Service Companies (NASSCOM) in India, the country’s outsourcing industry currently employs 700,000 workers and is projected to grow by 40% over the next five years, with revenues expected to reach $5.1 billion this year.
However, by 2012, the five-year-old industry is expected to lack up to 262,000 professionals, as graduates are missing the necessary skills to meet employer demands.
The “Speed Train” War
The competition for the best IT talent is just as fierce. “Today, everything revolves around three words: speed, speed, and speed,” said B.R. Sheaker, CEO of Mind Group, a recruitment firm with clients including Wipro, Google, Yahoo, and Amazon.
As soon as a candidate’s resume lands in Mind Group’s inbox, it is sorted and sent to relevant companies within seconds. The need for quick action arises because candidates often apply to multiple recruitment firms simultaneously. To avoid losing business, companies like Mind Group must book flights for potential candidates to reach interview locations and arrange hotel accommodations (essentially a form of isolation) before the interview.
“If we don’t act quickly, they will accept another offer right away. That means losing an opportunity. Our clients always have very concise demands: 100 people within two weeks, which is a tremendous pressure on us,” Sheaker said.
In order to stand out in the crowded recruitment landscape, firms like Infosys and TVA have launched special websites to attract resumes and conduct interviews in five-star hotels. “Today’s candidates are like ripe fruit, very easy to pick and very likely to spoil if placed in an unsuitable environment,” Sinha noted.
The Recruitment Frenzy
Enticed by a pool of talented engineers willing to work for just one-seventh of what their counterparts in the U.S. earn, major technology companies are rushing to outsource to India.
Recently, Dell announced plans to double its workforce in India to nearly 20,000 employees within the next three years. Meanwhile, technology services company LogicaCMG will hire around 1,000 employees. In addition to Dell, giants like Cisco, IBM, and Accenture have publicly expressed intentions to significantly expand their workforce in India.
For each hired employee, recruitment firms will receive between 50,000 rupees ($1,111) and 150,000 rupees ($3,333). However, in the future, as sourcing talent becomes more challenging due to a lack of qualified candidates, recruitment firms will likely also have to take on the role of “training” candidates for specific jobs.
“We have to find every way to attract candidates: setting up kiosks in markets, bookstores where young people hang out. We’ve even implemented an SMS service for sourcing candidates and receiving resumes. It’s reached the point where recruitment professionals must become friendly and savvy salespeople,” Sheaker remarked.
Destiny
