Even as overall hiring slows down, no dearth of jobs for senior execs: Rpt

Despite overall hiring seeing a slowdown in recent weeks, the job market for senior executives is still upbeat. At worst, the hiring at senior-level roles is flat as compared to the last quarter, according to a report in the Economic Times (ET). 

"Last year was a bumper year given the pent-up demand after Covid, but we are ahead of that. Business in the first six months of this financial year is up 25 per cent compared to the corresponding period last year," Navnit Singh, chairman and regional managing director of India, Korn Ferry, which follows a May-April cycle, told ET. 

The demand for CXOs has been relatively high in the industrial and manufacturing sectors, auto, chemicals, financial services, and energy firms. However, start-ups have pulled back to cut costs. 

Shiv Agrawal, MD of ABC Consultants, said that the September quarter was its second-best ever and the demand at the CXO, CXO-1 levels is robust. 

The demand from PE firms is also up with recession fears in the West and the need to digitise businesses pushing up the demand for CXOs.  

Some companies, however, are hiring in line with their expansion plans. 

"We are hiring COOs (chief operating officers) for all our businesses including one at the group level. We are also strengthening our commercial teams as also bolstering our projects team. There are some 10-15 live mandates at the CXO-1, -2 levels where we are looking to onboard leaders in the next 2-3 months as we focus on productivity, effectiveness, protecting margins and controlling costs," Madhu Srivastava, group chief HR officer of Vedanta, told ET.