India IT services companies heighten candidate scrutiny, take longer to close mandates, ETHRWorld

India’s IT services talent landscape continues to present a bleak picture for the next two quarters ending September 2024 with mandate fulfilment or conversion ratio at an all-time low of about 25%, a sharp decline from the pre-pandemic period (FY20) fulfilment ratio of 48-52%.

Staffing firms said though demand has started reviving, especially for niche areas such as Artificial Intelligence and cyber security, the hiring process has become more rigorous, with companies investing more time and effort in candidate selection.

Data from Teamlease Digital suggests that despite the improvement in demand by 50% compared to Q4FY23, the fulfilment ratio is at 25-27% due to increased scrutiny by employers.

“There is far more scrutiny, multiple rounds of interviews and much longer time taken to close a position,” said Sunil C, chief executive officer, TeamLease Digital.

Candidate intent to switch jobs was all-time high of 70-80% during the post-pandemic peak hiring period of 2021-22, he said. “That was a candidate-driven market and a golden period for candidates as there was a talent war among the employers to pick the talent available in the market to meet post-pandemic digitisation demand needs.”

“Now, although the demand started flowing in across the…