Experienced professionals line up for startup firms

Bangalore: It's a win-win situation for both software engineers and startup companies. While startup companies are looking to hire experienced and skilled professionals, software engineers are making a beeline to join startups. Given the current economic situation in the country and the subsequently low recruitment and layoffs by established companies, a large pool of professionals is available in the market. So what attracts these professionals to startup companies?

Srikanth M, a software engineer at Vensys Software Solutions and previous employee of Wipro says, "Currently there are a lot of job opportunities in startup companies. Also at a startup company it is a totally different experience as you get to learn a lot more." Ashok Babu Gopireddy, also a software engineer, currently unemployed agrees. "The work will be more challenging in a startup, the scope to learn being larger. It will be a new experience altogether and you will get to develop your skills from the beginning", says Gopireddy.

Startup companies find it beneficial to hire these professionals, for various reasons. Experience is certainly a major advantage. Prashant Honnavar, the HR head at Nextbit Computing, a company that develops intellectual property and solutions for data enabled consumer electronics and handheld devices, says, "It is beneficial to the startup company if it hires people with experience of two to five years. Due to the slowdown, a lot of experienced workers are available these days and it makes sense to take advantage of the situation and hire these professionals."

The other reason given by companies to hire experienced workers is, to cut down on training costs. Kumar Ritesh, CEO of GSEC1, a company that provides innovative solutions for the entertainment industry says, "When you hire freshers, you have to spend on training. This is not only costly, but also time consuming. Thus we prefer the experienced pool of professionals."

More and more professionals are thus looking at startups for a new experience and as a learning platform. The fact that startups are keen to hire them makes it an added advantage for these professionals. In a startup, an employee gets an all-round experience, from engineering to management. Also it will take less time to climb up the ladder.

Consultancy firms feel that there is a strong motivation for professionals to move into startups in the current scenario. Srikrishna S Murthy, founding member of Longhouse Consulting, which is at present doing a study on 'the process that startups go through, while hiring senior professionals' says, "There are very few professionals who don't want to consider a startup now. One of the reasons is that, whereas growth in a MNC can be stagnant, it has better scope in a startup. However the shift is mainly of tier two and tier three employees. This can largely be attributed to the current layoffs."

The question is what is software industry body Nasscom doing to ensure that startups get the right talent? The answer is: not much. An official of Nasscom promoted India Innovation Fund says, "At this point of time, we aren't doing anything specific to ensure the right talent for startups, as we feel that there are more pressing needs like funding and mentoring that need to be addressed. Besides getting the right talent for startups is something that market forces are now taking care of and dosnt need intervention."