Coverstory pg[2]: The head-hunting firmament

The head-hunting firmament

A BT guide to poaching: a who's who, and what's what of the head-hunting firmament.

Head-hunters

Late June, and Egon Zehnder's earnings for the year are already 120 per cent the 1999 figure. Executive-search firms and placement consultants (terms preferred by the fraternity to poachers and head-hunters) are evidently on a roll. Hype apart, search firms are, perhaps, the best (and the most legitimate) way of poaching. Says Sanjiv Sachar of Egon Zehnder: ''Today, finding work isn't the challenge any more. It's execution. In the earlier mind-set, all good talent was confined to HLL, P&G, and Citibank. Today, it's all over the place.''

Search firms usually restrict their focus to senior-level positions. Their task involves understanding the company's needs-a process that translates into looking at the competencies and skill-sets required. Step 2 is to look for positions across companies that require similar competencies, studying the individuals peopling these positions closely, and moving in for the kill. Expectedly, this is a profession that requires a lot of groundwork. Agrees R. Suresh of Stanton Chase: ''Ninety per cent of the job is done by the time you approach the target.''

Reputed firms have a rule about not poaching from their clients. Indeed, some even select their clients on the basis of this rule. Explains Atul Vohra of Heidrick & Struggles, which maintains an academy of companies it can poach from: ''If Ford is our client, we won't do any work for gm worldwide. The idea is to keep gm as a scouting ground.''

Referrals

Put simply: bring your buddy. Primarily used in a mid-level context, this is a common practice in many software companies. Internationally, Sun hires 40 per cent of its manpower requirement through referrals. In India, Wipro hires 25 per cent. The sweetener? Employees get paid to do this-the going rate is around 5 per cent lower than what a head-hunter would make. At Wipro, this means anything between Rs 5,000 and Rs 50,000. At Hughes, between Rs 5,000 and Rs 15,000.

Referrals work. Early this year, Hughes held a contest titled Heads U Win where employees sent in as many resumés as they could. The prizes: Rs 15,000 for every resumé that resulted in a hire, and a loaded home pc and a flat-screen television for two lucky draws. In the two months for which the company ran the contest, it managed to hire 40 people.

Flexing the rolodex

Saurav Adhikari has been poached thrice in his career, each time by a friend. First, former colleague and friend Muktesh Pant, now Global Marketing Head, Reebok, pulled Adhikari out of HLL to join him in Pepsi; then, Abhey Yograj, another former colleague and CEO of Technova Consultants, enticed him to Tefal; and, finally, good friend Ajay Choudhury, Chairman, HCL Infosystems, pulled him in to HCL InfiNet. Says Adhikari, 41: ''You cannot underestimate the power of informal networks.''

Proactive hiring

Ravi Virmani of Noble & Hewitt calls it elevator hiring: companies picking up people as and when they come in touch with them. Virmani should know: he once head-hunted a senior manager who sat next to him on a Delhi-Chennai flight. Azim Premji met Arun Thyagarajan, now the Vice-Chairman of Wipro, at a Confederation of Indian Industry do first. Industry foray, social gatherings, alumni get-togethers-all are ideal venues to pick talent. For dot.coms, veecees play the additional role of head-hunters. Says Luis Miranda, 38, CFO, Chrysalis: ''In many cases we actively help our clients get the right talent.''

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