Headhunters' New Robes ; the Job Market Sports a New, Busy Look As More and More Mom-and-Pop Headhunting Shops Go Professional to Face the Challenge of Debuting Multinationals

Summary

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Bangalore-based Kris Lakshmikanth, 55, is a 20-year recruitment industry veteran. Through the dotcom boom, past the dotcom bust, he has lived the heady days of big salaries and seen the painful periods of mass lay-offs. But nothing could have prepared him for the current mayhem in the recruitment industry. No longer does his name open doors. Suddenly his company's size and strength, and not his name, holds the key. Vying with multinational companies, Lakshmikanth is now mastering the art of making presentations to international clients overseas and is helping them conduct virtual interviews of candidates. All for a good reason-the billing rate of his firm, Head Hunters India (HHI), has shot up from 20 per cent of the candidate's annual salary to 33.5 per cent for a top-level placement.

Dominated so far by single-city mom-and-pop agencies (there are over 20,000 recruitment agencies in the country, 3,000 in Bangalore alone), the industry is beginning to witness consolidation, countrywide roll-outs and multinational tie-ups. In the last two years, at least four leading global recruitment firms-Kelly Services, Vedior, Adecco and Manpower-have entered India on their own or through joint ventures. In tune with the times, Lakshmikanth's HHI aims to expand into eight cities, from the present two, by end-2006.

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Headhunters' New Robes ; the Job Market Sports a New, Busy Look As More and More Mom-and-Pop Headhunting Shops Go Professional to Face the Challenge of Debuting Multinationals

An unprecedented economic growth has led to a scramble among firms in different sectors to milk the opportunity. While the leaders, both domestic and multinational, are looking at consolidating their positions, scores of...

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