SkillRecruit, Transforming Organisations by Engaging Exceptional Talent
Established in 2012, Skilliantech India Pvt Ltd trading as SkillRecruit is a CMMI Level 3 company and is a member of NASSCOM. Skilliantech is founded in the United Kingdom around 17 years ago and in India more than 10 years ago. Skilliantech is now a global firm with offices in multiple geographies across the UK, EMEA and APAC regions. Our key officials with 100+ years of combined experience and about 500 employees are spread across the world.
SkillRecruit ensures that they provide focused attention and knowledge-based consulting engagement to staffing requirements around the world for both clients and professionals. Recently, their Founder and Managing Director Mr. Sudheer Devulapally has been awarded as one of the “Top 10 Leaders in Recruitment” for 2021 and Skilliantech India Pvt Ltd has been awarded the “Company of the year 2021”.
In a conversation with the CEO Review Magazine, Sudheer throws light on their eventful journey spanning almost two decades. He talks at length about their struggles, experiences, challenges, industry, goals, and more. Read below the interesting excerpts from the interview with him to know more about the company.
CEO REVIEW: What do you feel is the biggest strength of Skilliantech India Pvt Ltd right now?
Sudheer: Without any slightest doubt, our biggest strength is our team. Our family like culture has bonded us in a way that is not just inspiring but very effective at the same time. When a team like ours work together, the combined strength becomes more the sum of all our individual strengths. That’s what drives us ahead and enables us to look forward to every day’s work. It is our team we owe our success to. Their hard work and loyalty have brought us recognition in the field of recruitment as well as accolades from various clients.
CEO REVIEW: What are the short and long termgoals do you have for the Company?
Sudheer: The short and long-term goals of our company are not dissimilar, but it is just one. And that is, to keep everyone we are associated with happy. In our years of experience, we understood that if we can keep our team (we call them family members) happy, they will do all that they can, to keep our candidate Gods happy and in turn, they will do their best to keep our client Gods happy. And if the clients are happy, there’s no doubt that they will keep us happy by conferring repeat business, endowing great recommendations, and excellent reviews. That simple goal has helped us immensely to focus on our business and serve our clients and candidates year-after-year.
CEO REVIEW: What have been the biggest challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Sudheer: Offer-to-joining-ratio. That’s probably the biggest challenge most companies are facing right now, at least in India. We have successfully managed to overcome that challenge by deploying our own tried-and-tested unique ways and means. With those, we can boast offer-to-joining-ratiosthat are far better than industry average. That has definitely helped our clients save their precious time and indirectly helped us get more business. In the initial days, we faced challenges in attracting the right talent and raising funds. However, as the years went by, we are content that we have had some amazing people start their journey with us and most of them are still continuing. And raising funds for continuous growth is not an issue anymore, owing to our growing revenues.
CEO REVIEW: What does Skilliantech India Pvt Ltd hierarchy look like?
Sudheer: Our hierarchy is flat. All our employees are empowered enough to make their own decisions and thus, there is no need of much supervision. Everyone in our company can approach everyone else without having to go through any middle layers and without having to take any prior appointments. That’s the benefit of having small but connected team. It has been working wonders for us because we save a lot of time, and we avoid lost-in-translation kind of situations. Our employees too have been liking it very much mainly because they have the freedom to take initiatives, and everyone in the organization is approachable, including the senior leaders and management.
CEO REVIEW: If you could change one thing about the company, what would it be?
Sudheer: We keep seeking regular feedback and suggestions from our clients, employees, and associates. The one thing that we would like to change in our company is to implement those suggestions quicker and in their entirety. We should admit that we have missed on some of the important feedback earlier. We could have undeniably done better in learning from and implementing that feedback as quickly as possible. That’s why, we have now inducted more members in our Governance team, and we aim to improve in this area soon.
CEO REVIEW: What is Skilliantech India Pvt Ltd competitive advantage in the marketplace?
Sudheer: It is the Emotional Connection we build with everyone we associate with. That’s not only our competitive advantage but it’s the main differentiator which builds trust in the hearts and minds of our clients and associates alike. When that trust is built, it automatically paves the way to serve our clients and candidates more efficiently. As long as we can keep that emotional connection intact, we will have an edge.
CEO REVIEW: How has the Skilliantech India Pvt Ltd changed over the years?
Sudheer: Over the years, we have always changed for better, despite small setbacks. We have bettered our relationships with our clients, candidates, and employees. That has helped us increase not only our revenues but our clients’ satisfaction levels year-on-year. Due to the nature of work (which can entirely be carried out from home), we have been able to provide opportunities to talented individuals from smaller towns and villages across India. And we are delighted that they have proved themselves, exceeded their targets and are indeed helping our organization progress.
CEO REVIEW: What is the dynamics of Skilliantech India Pvt Ltd with Pandemic?
Sudheer: Whilst we had more than half of our team working from home even before the Pandemic hit, and with our processes& systems built to automatically expand; we didn’t have to change any of our internal dynamics due to the Pandemic. Our people have truly been working more effectively in the last couple of years. Due to the Pandemic, because most of the organizations across the globe have been outsourcing work to India, there is an increased demand from our clients too. And we are happy to corroborate that our teams have been working relentlessly to not only meet those demands but to surpass our clients’ expectations.
CEO REVIEW: If you could change one thing in the Skilliantech India Pvt Ltd, what would it be?
Sudheer: We were naïve in making some wrong hiring decisions and in implementing tools and systems later than we should have. Due to the incorrect hiring we did, we not only have lost money, more important than that, we have lost valuable time, which can never be recovered. Same thing has happened because we have delayed implementing very useful systems. We realized our mistakes and made the hiring process more stringent. Also, we have latterly implemented systems to help us work more efficiently avoiding a lot of manual tasks.
CEO REVIEW: When it comes to the organization, what are you most proud of?
Sudheer: The way our team treats and interacts with everyone in our day-to-day business. We are most of proud of that because that’s the reason why everyone interacting with us is happy. We are also proud to be a CMMI Level accredited organization. There are not many organizations in our industry with that accreditation and we are grateful for that. We also are proud to be an active member of NASSCOM and to be awarded the “Company of the year 2021” by Entrepreneur Insights.
CEO REVIEW: How do you encourage creative thinking within your organization?
Sudheer: Every day is different for us and every conversation we make is different. We definitely need to be creative every time because it’s people we deal with, and they are diverse. So, creative thinking comes to us naturally and we develop it with regular training programs and group discussions. Our Learning & Development team, Digital Marketing team and Innovation team come up with regular programs, posts and ideas which encourage creative thinking not only within our organization but for everyone who follows us on social media and other platforms.
CEO REVIEW: Where do the great ideas come from in your organization?
Sudheer: Everyone. We get great ideas from our junior & senior team members and the management alike, all the time. As we have strategically recruited people from varied backgrounds in our team, they contribute greatly to the diversity, offering ideas from their erstwhile domains. Many a times, we get ideas from the feedback of our clients and candidates too. Those subtle hints we get during our conversations with them sometimes lead to great ideas which, when implemented can produce delightful results.
CEO REVIEW: Which is most important to your organization—mission, core values or vision?
Sudheer: Our core values that are based on our family culture are more important to us. Those are what help us achieve our mission and vision. Our core values revolve around respect, understanding, empathy, responsiveness, and connection. We treat everyone with equal respect. We understand their concerns thoroughly and we are compassionate by delivering immediate responses. We are always emotionally connected to them and are available to them any time of the day or night. That’s why we could gather tens of thousands of followers on social media and hundreds of five-star ratings on the review platforms.
CEO REVIEW: How do you or other leaders in your organization communicate the core values?
Sudheer: The work we do reflects our core values. We emphasis on the importance of our core values in every group call, and during all our calls with our clients and candidates. Also, it’s not just the leaders who communicate our core values to the team members. It’s the team members who remind us more often about them and how following them have been working wonders for us, by describing their success stories with our clients and candidates.
CEO REVIEW: What has helped you get to where you are [influential/effective/in the forefront] and what advice would you have for others who want to set off in a similar direction?
Sudheer: Treating people the way they want to be treated. That’s what has really helped us to get where we are now, to build great associations and to expand our business. The best advice we can give everyone in our filed (recruitment / people business) specifically is to treat everyone how you would like to be treated. Treat everyone with respect, without any prejudice or preconceived notions. Don’t hold back on apologizing when you are wrong and don’t wait to express your gratitude. You can restore a lot of damaged relationships (whether with clients, colleagues, or candidates) by saying Sorry and Thank you in time. Evade your ego and be an active listener. That will help you build great relationships and thus great businesses.
Website: www.skillrecruit.com
