Post elections, IT companies are expecting greater certainty and a more promising environment for growth. As a result, headhunters are seeing rising number of search mandates for senior IT talent to be closed in the next few quarters, their executives told ET.
“We are seeing green shoots after almost two years of lull in searches. Tier-2 companies are looking for C-suite talent. Even the tier-1 set of IT firms have opened searches in a decent way. Many are even looking at candidates from the diversity and inclusion lens,” said Ratna Gupta, senior partner at ABC Consultants, an executive search and talent advisory firm. Gupta said that there are at least 20 search mandates with ABC for senior tech talent compared to none about a year ago.
In response to ET’s query, Ayaskant Sarangi, CHRO, Mphasis said in an emailed response, “Across geographies, capabilities, and domains, we continuously look for senior talent both internally and externally whose expertise aligns seamlessly with our vision, ensuring a well-knit team for growth. We have recently bolstered our Europe business, Insurance vertical, and AI business through external leadership hires.”
Citing a recent example of an executive at vice-president position at one of the leading IT services firms who was hired by another leading IT services firm (both are listed at the Indian stock exchanges), a search firm executive told ET, “There are many more similar movements taking place.”
Earlier, conversations were taking place regarding hiring but now companies are springing into action to close mandates, the experts said.According to Puneet Malhotra, partner – Global Technology & Services, Asia Pacific at Heidrick & Struggles, a leading executive search firm, there is demand for tech talent by Indian IT companies for the North America region. “We currently are working on a significant number of search mandates for the US alone. These are mostly CXO-1 level roles.”Pranshu Upadhyay, regional director at Michael Page India, said there is an uptick of 26% YoY in senior leadership hiring in the tech ecosystem. This includes roles like CTO, CEO, sales, product, design, and engineering heads.
“The demand is being generated at the back of emerging stories in tech and companies realising that this is a good time to pick up key talent from the market and engage them. We are seeing large IT/ ITES organisations opening up global search mandates in new geographies,” said Upadhyay.