Impact of crisis on jobs to be clear by September: Sanjay Modi

Sanjay Modi and Monster.com India are on an overdrive. In the coming months, he says Monster will announce a series of tie-ups that will help his company to broadbase operations. The “war of words” on who’s bigger in the e-recruitment space will end as players will become more transparent with their numbers. And yes, the job market in 2011 is not hampered and this far it does not show any semblance of a 2008-09, when downsizing and curtailment of hiring was the norm. Modi, managing director of Monster India/South East Asia and Middle East, spoke to Lison Joseph and Satish John in an
interview. Excerpts:

Is the slowdown affecting hiring yet?
Our employment index came out in July, so that hasn’t captured most of the events which have happened since. Our only reference point is our interaction with clients. We haven’t heard anything yet about a change in their plans, so hiring is going as planned. However, there is some caution creeping in. We would like to analyse that over the next 4-6 weeks once the dust settles down. So by September-end, we should be able to get a definitive view on the impact of the happenings in the US and Europe and on which sectors.

When did the crisis of 2008 hit India?
Normally it takes about 3 months before showing up in hiring data here primarily because you can’t withdraw overnight the hiring mandates that are already in the market.

Besides reduced hiring, in what other forms can the impact be?
Hiring will become more lateral than for freshers, because lateral hires can hit the ground running and add to business from day one unlike freshers who may need training. Another thing that happens is a relook at compensation. So it did not come down in absolute terms, it may even have gone up marginally but the mix changed — between fixed base pay and variable pay. The thinking behind it was, why can’t we make employees a part and parcel of company’s performance. I think this may be the trend going forward, including this time.

In terms of moving to a higher variable component, how much more headroom do organisations have?
Huge. As of now variable pay is more of a norm among top-level executives. But now we will see that moving down to other senior and mid levels and even among junior employees. How much variable pay depends on individual performance and how much on company performance will be a function of your seniority and the higher you move up a larger portion of the variable pay would be linked to company performance.

Where does MonsterIndia.com stand in relation to other e-recruitment sites such as Naukri ?
We hold a leadership position among e-recruitment sites. Different sites use different metrics to decide who is the No. 1. But we go by the recent-resume count. We get about 14-15,000 new resumes every day and we have been leading on that metric for the last 4-5 years. It is far more than any of our competitors. Overall we have about 30 million registered users and about 26.6 million resumes in our database.

But there is a lot of confusion on who’s bigger…
That’s because there is no credible financial dataon how big the market is. For example, InfoEdge, which is listed, gives ouit a total consolidated number. If you read the fineprint, anybody can get confused. There is no assessment on how big the online market is. Instead, there is a war of words. And that’s why I’ve never used the word we are the No. 1. We have always maintained that we are one of the largest.

Isn’t it easy to put an end to this confusion by making public your numbers?
Again it is a decision at the corporate level. In Europe, we don’t do that, though it happens to be the second-largest market,. We are there in 55 countries, so how do we do it? India is among our strategic markets.

How many clients do you have?
Approximately 22,000. And that base has been growing at approximately 20-22% annually. That is also reflective of the growth in e-recruitment overall in India. Plus the phenomenon of e-recruitment has moved from metros to Tier-2 cities. So I am very bullish.

Recently professional networking website LinkedIn blocked Monster’s application. Does that affect your prospects at a time when the whole world is moving towards networking sites?
We were surprised by LinkedIn’s decision. But we believe that the more open a network becomes, the more following it gets. However, we have launched an application for the Facebook platform called BeKnown and that has got a tremendous reception. Given the user base of Facebook, which is the largest social networking platform, I’m sure in times to come we will surpass LinkedIn’s overall user population.

Can you give us an idea of revenues accruing from India?
Sorry. I cannot do that, because we are a listed company in the US and we come out with one number in a consolidated manner.

India continues to be a database market as against the US or Europe, which are more of a job-listings market. For instance, can job postings form a major chunk of your revenues in the coming years?
It’s the Indian psyche. They don’t like to share or convey that they are looking for a change. The other thing is, if you are looking for a change aggressively you do not come under the quality bracket. If you are being chased by head hunters then you come under the quality bracket. But we see a lot of people open to putting up their database so that employers can give them a call. Things have been changing in the last 2-3 months.

Why is it that e-recruiters are not keen on catering to the blue collar?
Globally, blue-collar workforce is a huge business for us. We will also be using mobile phone technology to reach out to them. With vocational training gaining traction around the country, we may see startling results in five years time.