Job scene brightens a year after senior-level hiring went down 20% from the boom of 2007-08.

Last November, when Infosys BPO’s Chief Executive Officer & Managing Director, Amitabh Chaudhry, put in his papers to join HDFC Standard Life Insurance, he was among the first to give an indication that hiring at senior levels was picking up. Towards the end of January this year, Syntel BPO head Keshav Murugesh announced his resignation to join another BPO, WNS, adding weight to this line of thinking.

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Sonal Agrawal, CEO of Accord Group India, corroborates: "Senior-level hiring is definitely picking up, especially in sectors like industrial services, finance, pharma, as well as media and entertainment, although the exuberance of 2007 has been dampened. The sectors that are slower on hiring are telecom and technology."

The people movement at senior levels across sectors are proof of the pudding. For instance, early this month, some senior PricewaterhouseCoopers executives reportedly quit to join rival firms. Vdopia, a leading online and mobile video monetisation player, got a new vice-president, Debadutta Upadhyaya, for its Indian operations in 2010. Neel Chowdhury also quit during the same period as vice-president of CNBC Network18 to join Obopay as vice-president and chief marketing officer.

"Senior-level hiring in the media industry, too, is picking up and professionals can expect a 15 per cent hike in salary structure in 2010. In 2009, there was a freeze on hiring senior positions and hardly any change in salaries," notes Sanjay Das, senior vice-president at Media Guru.

Changes have started taking place. Loveleen Raina, who headed the Unitech Wireless business for Leo Burnett, Delhi, recently put in her papers to join McCann Erickson, Mumbai, as vice-president and GM this month. Anuraag A Fulay quit BBH India to join Pritish Nandy Communications as VP, marketing & business development.

Kaushal Sampat, COO, Dun & Bradstreet, attributes the movement at senior levels to the recovery in India "which has been quicker than anticipated". "Most companies have started work on differed projects for which they would require key people at the helm. Senior-level hirings will, therefore, pick up in 2010, compared with 2009," he explains. Sampat adds that in 2009, CEOs and COOs of companies were reluctant to change, while "in a recovering economy, the transition is easier".
 

Ashok Mukherjee, head of HR at TCS, opines that it's the small and medium IT companies, rather than the major ones, that are likely to invest in hiring senior people who could grow their businesses. Pradeep Bahirwani, VP-talent acquisition at Wipro Technologies, concurs that "for specific senior roles, the movement is always slow and in 2010, too, we do not foresee much movement for big IT companies".

For most large IT companies, salaries of senior personnel were unchanged in 2009 and are likely to remain so in 2010, with minimum increment as a retention policy. Moreover, given that the salaries of a large chunk of professionals have been linked to variable pay in 2009, senior-level professionals are more cautious now about the positions they take up, notes Agrawal. For instance, in the mutual fund industry, the variable component for chief information officers ranges between 75 per cent and 150 per cent, while for chief operating officers, it ranges between 40 per cent and 80 per cent. Variable component depends on fund performance and organisational performance. In the face of the economic downturn, most asset management companies (AMCs) refrained from bonus payouts in 2008-09 and had to freeze recruitments. Some large-sized AMCs made modest bonus payments or increments to its top performers to retain and motivate key talent.

Meanwhile, cross-border hiring of senior executives — especially between China and India — is likely to increase. This will especially speed up in the automotive segment, as many Chinese automotive companies are looking at setting up base in India, while many Indian companies are looking at opening offices in China. “There is a lot of demand for foreign nationals in India, especially in sectors like retail, airports and infrastructure,” says Krishnan. One reason is that foreign nationals in developed countries bring with them expertise in specific sectors like retail and infrastructure.

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