SUCCESS STORIES
CONSULTING & PROFESSIONAL SERVICES
RECRUITMENT DRIVES FOR UAE REGION HIRING OF BIG 4
- Managed the pan-India recruitment drive for the client as exclusive sourcing partner. Populus took care of the entire process, starting from venue identification, logistics, resume screening, interview process management, feedback communication and offer releases. The drive was a success with the client, populating 85% of its planned capacity; every 1 out of 2 candidates interviewed were made an offer; all candidates who were made an offer were on-boarded, making it a 100% success
- The client wanted to expand its corporate finance team swiftly, for an upcoming project and engaged Populus With thorough screening by our team, we put up candidates within short notice and managed to get them the best possible talent
- Some of the key functions within the client that we have successfully catered to include Audit, BFSI Consulting, Corporate Finance, FRM, BPS, Content Management, BCM & Forensic.
HIRING FOR KUWAIT BASED CONSULTING FIRM
-
Given our strong expertise in the risk domain, we started with open mandates in the FRM division. These were challenging assignments, given the dearth of professionals who would be willing to relocate to Kuwait. Populus' team of consultants sourced and counselled candidates on the many advantages of working with the client and a progressive move by working in that region. We managed close four positions within risk & compliance and are continually engaged in populating the team further.
- Our association with the client has grown further over these months and we have been working together to find suitable talent for roles within Risk, IT audit, Oracle EBS to name a few.
BFSI
BUILDING A RISK TECHNOLOGY & ANALYTICS ORGANIZATION
This US based global organization planned to set shop in India in late 2004 for a new age line of business that was just picking up momentum. The analytics, risk and credit bureau technology space had only a few really competent professionals with exposure to datawarehousing technology combined with domain expertise. Populus scanned through the ranks and files of organizations and picked up the creamy layer from the BFSI technology spectrum to lay a strong foundational team to drive the organizations vision. Populus still works as an intrinsic partner to the organization and has been responsible for placing more than 40% of their 300 plus recruits over the four years of association and has been ranked as the best vendor across all consecutive years.
UK-BASED RE-INSURANCE COMPANY
- Populus identified their Practice Head for Legal Services. This assignment that was given to us after a year of futile searches by other search firms and we managed to get them the perfect candidate within a couple of months.
- Worked closely with their management team to identify and source function heads for three critical functions within their business transformation group
- Providing them with research inputs as well as relevant professionals to ramp up their actuarial as well as catastrophe modelling teams.
RESEARCH & KNOWLEDGE SERVICES
SETTING UP THE TEAM FOR A LPO
Even before the current talk of "LPOs' in India, law firms in the US would 'outsource' paralegal work, including Accounting and IT-support related work.
The LPO was set up in late 2004, with a plan to start operations in February 2005. Populus was given an 'exclusive' mandate to hire the entire start-up team of 5 members, as they envisaged. In a dedicated exercise spanning over 4 days, Populus managed to line up 75 candidates, interviewed over 2 days. The LPO hired 15.
One of the 15 members hired by the LPO was VP-Technology. 10 candidates were hired for 'drafting and vetting' contracts, while the others, relatively younger with 1-2 years of experience, were hired for 'legal research'.
The law professionals were hired from a researched list of top law firms and the 'Alumni' from all the top law schools. Distinctly, Indian law professionals are divided into two categories. To put it simply, one that wants to attend court and litigation, and another that is willing to explore non-litigation careers. For high-end processes like 'drafting and vetting', LPOs continue to look for 'high-calibre' law professionals, with strong written and spoken communication skills, impeccable academics and experience from strong corporate legal teams and the top law firms. This lot comes at higher costs, given the immense surge in demand for them. There is no calculable pattern in their salaries.
THE LPO's mandate to us was 'We will never stop hiring. All deserving candidates have a place at the LPO, at any time.' This helped us to dedicate an exclusive team for the firm, which was reciprocated with the firm only hiring candidates from Populus. This arrangement lasts to this day.
Till date, we have hired over 200 professionals for the firm, including all their business and functional heads, almost all of their Contract, Litigation and DR teams, their IPR team. In late-2005, we conducted a 'satisfaction survey' among employees, recommending HR practices and new initiatives to train, retain and grow all their employees. It won't be an exaggeration to claim that the firm's entire recruitment and hiring policy has been guided by Populus.
Populus has a six-member team that is only dedicated to hiring lawyers. Populus, certainly, has the largest proprietary database of law professionals in the country, with utmost understanding the firm business. With our planned office in the ME, and sourcing partners in Singapore, we will soon aim to be a noted name in the legal domain beyond India too.
From Contract 'drafting and vetting', which is perceived as relatively 'high-end' legal outsourced work, the firm gradually acquired additional businesses from its largely Fortune-listed client base, even in lesser (so called) 'value' processes like Document Review and Litigation Support. Many believed that bulk of the litigation costs in the US is for the primary levels of Document Review. Outsourcing that work to India cuts costs immensely for top law firms and corporations in the US. The 'mass work' or 'work for the masses' (giving reference to Forrester Research' prediction that India will have 79000 jobs by 2015) was estimated to be coming from Document Review and Litigation Support.
Very soon, the firm started their IPR / Patents team. This meant, hiring top engineers from the Regional Engineering Colleges and the IITs. We will not elaborate on this business line, given that Deloitte is looking at only the legal processes. The firm remains, without much dispute, the largest LPO business in the country.
