India Inc in no rush to fill up top positions

Companies in India continue to hire top talent, but the mad rush to recruit has abated in the country’s white-collar job market. A shift in focus to the global macroeconomic uncertainty and risk of recession in the US, as well as a growing unease about leading domestic economic indicators such as inflation, liquidity management and the broader interest-rate trajectory, is leading to a visible reduction in hiring velocity, according to about half a dozen search consultants ET spoke to.

Companies are prolonging the hiring cycle time, delaying decision-making, being pickier and looking at more candidates for a single position than they did in the last one year that saw a high-pitch hiring action, said head hunters and search consultants such as Longhouse Consulting, Ciel HR services, Michael Page and Xpheno.

Executive search firms said there was a 20-40% drop in overall pace of action across hiring stages in the last couple of months even as new mandates continued to come in. “A moderation of hiring action across key talent sectors is underway with a visible reduction in hiring velocity over the last 6 to 8 weeks. While hiring volume continues to be topped up, the progression of candidates down the hiring funnel has notably slowed down,” said Anil Ethanur, cofounder, Xpheno.

The reduction in the pace of hiring is primarily due to increased turnaround times for hiring responses, process updates, decisions and paperwork till the closure of a candidature.

“The velocity reduction overall translates to up to a one-third reduction in closures on certain functions and roles, in comparison to the closure rates 6-8 weeks ago,” said Ethanur.

Search firms like Longhouse Consulting said “open-ended” mandates had increased to 50-60% from 10-20% earlier. Usually in open-ended mandates companies scout the market for talent and hire only if they really like a candidate or if they find someone very good at the right price.