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Internet-based job sites have forced HR recruitment firms to rework their strategies. By Rahul Sachitanand The contrast could not be more stark for code jocks used to lining up in their hundreds in the heat and dust at over-crowded job fairs and career marts. Instead, around 80 mid career techies spend a Saturday job-hunting in luxury, as they wait in the ballroom with free (soft) drinks and snacks, with soft music playing in the background. The event is not one of the numerous 'offsites' that tech firms hold for their employees, but a recruitment drive by Bangalore-based HR recruitment company TVA Infotech. This event, called Aspire Lounge, seeks to act as a meeting ground for people willing to consider a job change, but unwilling to go through the hassle of a job fair. "Many people may be open to a change but they will not apply openly or attend one of these fairs. This provides a more discreet platform for them to assess their options," says Gautam Sinha, CEO, TVA Infotech. While a hassle-free recruitment experience may sound wonderful to both sides, Sinha says this innovation also seeks to solve some very real world problems for companies. "IT firms typically hire just a 10th of the people they assess and they spend around Rs 15,000 on each candidate they interview. This means that for a large company (like Infosys, which gets a million applicants annually and hires 10,000-12,000 of them) there's a lot of wasteful expenditure," he explains. TVA's model of matching the requirements of employers with skill sets of potential employees should see success rate triple and ensure that no-shows by prospects is also reduced. Sinha says the company conducts its Aspire events once a week or fortnight and plans to build lounges in Bangalore, Chennai and Hyderabad to hold these events. "We want to invert the whole process of recruitment from one of quantity to one of quality. Once we have this 'reverse-flow' process in place, there's no reason it can't be extended beyond the IT industry too," he adds. While TVA may look to promote its new line of business, the fact remains that HR consultants and recruiters have had to re-invent themselves following the rapid growth of online job portals such as monster.com. "There's no doubt that these sites have changed the market. Today, the size of a candidate or resume database is quickly becoming redundant, since I can go to a Monster or Jobsahead and subscribe to a much larger group," says Sinha. However, K. Pandia Rajan, Chairman of Chennai-based staffing firm Ma Foi, says that internet job engines play a co-operative rather than a competitive role with staffing and recruitment market. "Even after getting an offer, around 35-40 per cent of prospects drop out, and even after accepting an offer a quarter don't take up a job," he claims. Ma Foi today gets around a third of its revenues (Rs 215 crore last year) from end-to-end recruitment initiatives, he says. "There's growing demand for providing the entire gamut of services, beginning with screening candidates (based on both technical capabilities and, importantly, soft skills) all the way to ensuring candidates actually agree on and take up a job," Rajan argues. The reach of the internet, however, is not all pervasive in the recruitment market, especially among executive search firms. "The database is not relevant to us and we operate almost exclusively using our own network of contacts," says Priya Chetty-Rajagopal, Vice President at Stanton Chase International. The firm's diversification has, therefore, been led less by the compulsions of internet economics and more by customer demand. "We are getting into newer consulting areas such as compensation, HR policies and benefit structure," says Rajagopal.
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