Service Area: Talent Acquisition and Staffing

Client Description : A large Global Outsourcing company having presence all across the world.

The Challenge : MintBiz’s focus SBU for this client is the Engineering and Embedded Systems SBU. The main challenged in hiring people who are required for such businesses is again the availability of the ‘right skill at the right price’.

An Instance

The client wanted to hire experienced people with Systems Engineering expertise, in the Railway Domain. The requirements have been in the market for long and the availability of the resources was a problem. Job Boards fail in fulfilling such requirements since almost all the people who are available on the Job Boards would have been contacted already. MintBiz took up this challenge and worked without tested sourcing methodology. We identified the passive candidates in the market, made them aware of such an opportunity; even took the client’s help in explaining the vision of the SBU from a long term perspective. In one month’s time we closed 5 senior level technology positions which were open for more than 6 months. Needless to say, we are the number one ‘Go to’ staffing company for many of the Engineering companies.

Service Area: Talent Acquisition and Staffing

Client Description

One of the largest IT Consulting companies having presence all across the world. Talent Acquisition is an integral part of the company’s strategy. MintBiz has been awarded a year-long contract to hire FTEs in to various project requirements of the company.

Project Challenge

The client has an efficient Talent Acquisition arm, and most of the demand is met internally by this department. The requirements which MintBiz works on are the ones which were not fulfilled by the internal talent acquisition team. MintBiz’s hiring expertise is put to test in such cases since the talent pool may not be much in the new technologies.

An Instance

The client wanted to hire employees with ‘Oracle Retek’ skills and called in for a planning meeting. The details of the requirement were discussed and more than 5 staffing companies participated to help the client meet its hiring goals in this technology space.

Altogether 120 resumes were received by the client from all vendors. The client had selected 8 prospective employees from this 120 after their screening and interview processes.

In the above example, MintBiz had provided only 6 resumes which formed a part of the 120 resumes. But when the client offered 8 candidates, 4 of them were from the resumes sourced by MintBiz. This example goes on to prove the efficiency of our processes and the rigor with which we screen the candidates. We believe time is precious and do not want to waste it; neither ours nor the client’s.

As the economy recovers, the job market situation is improving across the world. The unemployment rates are falling every month as new markets are opening up. Specifically on the technology market front, a recent article in USA Today suggested that the Tech Jobs boom will be like it was in 1999.  About 150,000 jobs are expected to be added this year alone. Technology companies like Google, Facebook, Microsoft and others are expected to aggressively grow and add more employees this year. An upsurge in wireless, computing and energy markets will also result in an upsurge in other related industries as well. There is going to a similar upsurge in the jobs market in India. The Indian IT industry is expected to add over 225,000 jobs in 2011. An additional 8 million people will get employment indirectly from the IT sector in India.

The IT Industry is gearing up to grow aggressively in India. Many companies have already announced their hiring plans this year to handle the current and future business needs. The forecast made by NASSCOM and other agencies about the growing demand for talent in India looks real. However, once companies plan to aggressively grow, they are faced with a new set of challenges on the Talent and Attrition front. It becomes important for the HR teams in various corporations to not only focus on attracting new talent but also ensuring they do not lose their employees to their competitors. As organizations are preparing a Recruitment Strategy to meet the Manpower Plans for the year, they will also need to devise a HR Strategy to retain their experience professionals. While companies will add many employees from colleges across India, demand for experienced professionals will be equally high. The HR and Recruiting Teams across multiple organizations have an exciting year ahead of them. It is not just the teams in these organizations but also Recruiting, HR Consulting and Training partners will have a task cut out for them.

As the demand for talent grows, recruiting firms will find it difficult to identify and source talent for multiple clients. With everyone trying to attract and source active jobseekers, sooner than later, recruiting firms will run short of avenues to find talent. From the available pool of professionals, several companies and recruiting firms will target the same individual for multiple opportunities. There are bound to be mismatches both on the job and talent front when everyone is scrambling to fulfill the demand. Also, there would be a lot on DNJs (Did-Not-Join) with a lot of people not turning up at work after being made the offer on the day of their joining. It is a free world and individuals have the choice to pick and choose the best opportunity based on their current need. Predictability and certainty on the numbers in the recruitment pipe will constantly keep going South. This is a major worry for organizations as they need to quickly ramp-up and have teams ready to start on their next big client engagement. The management and project teams have an uphill task when there is no predictability on the talent front in an organization. Remember we are just coming out of a recession and organizations have minimized their bench strength to cut and maintain low costs. You cannot really blame the HR and Recruiting teams in such a scenario where attracting and retaining talent is their biggest challenge with competitors vying for these individuals. Organizations need to be innovative in identifying and selecting talent – finding a perfect match.

We at Mint understand the pains of growing in a competitive environment. Our team has the experience of working with medium and large enterprises both in the times of boom and recession. We put great emphasis on finding the RIGHT match both in terms of talent and opportunity. As a Partner, we help clients hire RIGHT individuals – motivated and qualified – by using specific, client-centric sourcing strategies. As a Talent Advisor, we help individuals find the RIGHT opportunity to fulfill their career aspirations by identifying the best places to work.

The process of receiving the technical services of an IT Consultant towards the fulfillment of a project goal is generally termed as Contingency / Contract staffing. There are many advantages of using contract / contingency staffing. Given below are the advantages in an increasing order of importance.

5. More fire power :

Even though it was not in the plan, in reality many IT projects require more efforts to meet a deadline. The schedule slippage could have happened due to various factors, but when the scheduled delivery date has to be met, there may be a need for more hands.

Contingency staffing is a perfect way to add more people faster to a particular project so that the work is delivered in time.

4. Project Flexibility :

Moving people around projects as to a full time employee may be difficult in some Organizations due to various HR and legal processes one has to follow. When it comes to being flexible, contingent workers can be moved between projects and departments with out much of a hassle, since the person is hired as a consultant to fix problem. And the more variety of experience the contingent staff gets, the better for him since his experience is enriched.

3. Total Cost of Ownership :

As is evident, most of the company’s benefits are not available for the contingent staff since they are taken on a short term basis and their services are renewed at preset intervals. This brings down the total cost of ownership of the staff vis-a-vis the productivity he brings on the table.

2. Niche Skills :

Contingent IT Staff mostly have niche skills which are not easily available inside a company. In fact, the plethora of technologies which come up in the IT field leaves it difficult for an Organization to have people skilled in all technologies. Hence when it comes to on boarding staff to deliver niche skill projects, contingent staff become handy.

The hourly or monthly rates of such consultants are usually high while compared to a full time staff since they have to provide for their own benefits, insurances and social security investments. And to be employable at short notice, and to be able to afford benefits on your own, the skill level possessed by the IT Contingent Staff has to be superlative. This also requires the consultant to undergo trainings from time to time, which adds to his rate.

1. Agility and Speed to hire :

Its had to come across an IT project manager who hasn’t experienced the need for a niche skilled person to join his team ‘As of Yesterday’. When it comes to re-allocating or even hiring a new employee to a project it takes more time.

The top advantage in using contingency staff in the IT industry is the agility and the speed at which they can be hired for a project. Especially when it comes to product iterations, speed to market is the rule of the game in the industry, which requires faster turn around times, which inturn requires people working on the project ‘as of yesterday’ !

Not very long ago, people complained about the best and brightest Indians leaving for opportunities outside India. There have been several debates on the topic of Brain Drain in various forums across India.

Why did people leave? What was their motivation? Have things changed drastically from then to now? Not just these but several other questions come to one’s mind when you think about it. It was not just one but many reasons why Indians went overseas. There were a lot of reasons and it varied for everyone who left India. The most common among them were: Education and Professional Development opportunities, better quality of life, better infrastructure and facilities and last but not the least better compensation.

In the last few years we see a lot of the Indians coming back home to India – A Reverse Brain Drain.

What has changed so drastically over the last few years that Indians want to come back home? A recent study suggests that a lot of returning Indians said there was a growing demand for their skills and that India provides them better career opportunities. Among other reasons include social/ family factors, better education and emotional growth for their children, better quality of life for returning to India. Many of them believe India provides them an opportunity to quickly move up the organization chart. Also, the factors like Professional Recognition, Morale and the Compensation with reference to the cost-of-living was favorable at home. A very few of them (specifically returning from the US) indicated the new Visa laws as one factor for considering to return to India. Majority of them believe that they are doing better in India than overseas.

If you take a close look at the strides made by India in the recent past one will be astonished by these facts. India is rated as one of the fastest growing economies in the World. The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is growing at about 8-8.5%. India is also one of the most attractive investment destinations across the globe. The UNCTAD World Investment Report (WIR) 2010, in its analysis of the global trends and sustained growth of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) inflows, has reported India to be the second most attractive location for FDI for 2010-2012. With so many global companies setting up their businesses in India there is a dearth of experienced talent in various sectors. The demand does not rest with only jobs in the technology sector but in other sectors like shipping, construction, health care, bio-technology, specialty marketing and aerospace. Most of the jobs in these sectors are up for grabs for highly qualified and experienced professionals and Indians working in companies outside India are finding this as a very attractive option to move back.

The Indian IT-BPO sector continues to be the fastest growing segment of the industry and is estimated to have aggregated revenues of US$ 88.1 billion in FY2011, with the IT software and services industry accounting for US$76.1 billion of revenues, according to NASSCOM. This accounts for about 6% of India’s GDP. This is one sector that attracts many of the Returning Indians. It is expected that about 2.26 lakh employees will be added to the Indian IT Industry this year.

We at Mint Biz, specialize in identifying exciting opportunities across multiple Industries and Service Practices. With our team’s personal experience of working and living outside India, we understand the issues and concerns of Returning Indians and Expatriates. We provide insights and advice on the business environment, cultural aspects, compensation & benefits, taxation, relocation et al.