Global headhunters

In May, Amit Khurana quit his job as the executive vice-president and head, human capital at Yes Bank, to start Corporate Access along with his wife Bani Khurana, to offer a multitude of services such as HR consulting, executive search, recruitment process outsourcing, business process management services, family business advisory, SAP services, training and skill development, staffing, leadership strategy services, recruitment, enterprise IT services and diversity and inclusion.

What’s on offer

“We help with headhunting in sectors such as finance, sales, operations, marketing, technical, non-executive and board level,” says the 40-year-old. Keen to be an entrepreneur, Amit bided his time to gain enough experience in the corporate world (17 years) and took the plunge when he felt he was truly ready. He holds a bachelor’s in electronics and law, a management degree from Institute of Management Technology, Ghaziabad and also completed a human resources executive programme from University of Michigan, USA.

How it works

“The client gives us the mandate as to what kind of personnel they are looking for. We then start the recruitment process with the database and contacts I have collected over the years. We have also tied up with job search engines such as Naukri and Monster to source prospective employees for our clients,” explains Amit.

With Corporate Access, you can keep a tab on your requirement’s progress. Says Amit, “We have an online mechanism where you can view daily updates without having to get in touch with us directly. You can view the candidate hiring process like — how many CVs have been sourced, what are their credentials, how many were rejected/selected and the reasons for so and much more.”

While Corporate Access helps you with filling senior and middle management positions, Amit’s other venture Spicy Jobs, deals with junior management positions.

Points to improve

Having spent a considerable number of years being an HR consultant, Amit has a few observations for job hunters. “There is no doubt that quality talent is available but at the same time people lack basic and important skills such as good oral and written communication skills, out-of-the-box thinking, etc.”

Corporate Access so far assists 18 clients and gets into a commission-based partnership. “For example, if we fill up the position of a middle level manager, we ask for 10.33 per cent of his/her annual salary. Similarly, for a higher level designation filled by us, we insist on a 16.33 per cent commission,” says Amit. That said Amit doesn’t interfere with the terms posted by the client with regard to his/her future employees and merely tries to find the best match possible.

Hiccups

According to Amit, getting on board quality clients and equally talented employees makes up the mammoth part of his challenges. Amit has invested around `20 lakh in Corporate Access and with an inflow of `4 lakh per month, he expects to break even by October.

Corporate Access headquartered in Gurgaon has representative offices in Mumbai, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Kolkata, Chennai, London, New York, Chicago and Dubai. Amit has a team of 12, with one person operating in each office. His future plans include diversifying operations across all major cities in India and South Asia.

— shilpa.vasudevan@newindianexpress.com