Staffio HR: The Most Preferred Brand Talent Partner for Start-ups

Staffio| Mr. HS Sandesh
Mr. HS Sandesh, Founder, Staffio Hr

Every year the Indian market is witness to over hundreds of start-ups being registered. Of these, many fail in the first year itself. Of those that fail, almost 23% do so because of an inadequate team and the failure of finding the right talent.

Founded in the year 2016, Staffio Hr Consultants Private Limited address this key determiner of success for startups.

Staffio Founder, Mr. HS Sandesh shares how.

Kindly brief us about the company and its initial journey.

Staffio HR is a Brand Talent Partner. We partner with early stage & funded startups helping them onboard powerful talents. Our strategies & execution mechanisms involving talent attraction & sourcing methodologies ensure we screen out the noise and deliver top of the line talents.

Over the years, technology has literally changed every facet of our lives. Recruitment has been the way it is from decades. Recruiters spend days & months searching for talents, hiring managers run helter-skelter to attract right fitment candidates to their teams and even after investing so much money, time & resources we either have huge drops (candidates accepting offer but not joining) Or a major culture clash (Candidates join but down the line, manager realize they were a wrong fit). Solving these issues requires more than just technology. It’s a perfect blend of both Tech and Human Intervention

To solve these pain points, we analyzed & researched companies, candidates and stakeholders on the pain points of recruitment. We spent months talking to candidates both active & passive job seekers. We collated the data. Add to this – I have been on both sides of the table and just know how painful recruitment can be for both stakeholders (Hiring companies & Candidates)

Armed with Experiential learning & Data, I went to the drawing room to figure things out. I laid out a plan and initially it seemed fine. But it had its own challenges and drawbacks. Since the Indian recruitment market is highly fragmented with intense competition and availability of huge talent pools there was no easy road ahead

Today we are one of the most preferred Recruitment Firms for early stage and funded startups. They have seen the results and hey who wants to stop when their happiness quotient is just increasing each day

Brief us about your professional journey in the Company? What was the inspiration behind joining this Industry?

For any startup to thrive, their core team plays an important role, especially founders and their partners. In my case, it’s been my wife Siri who stood by me throughout & continue to do so. This part of my journey is truly inspiring. And not to forget, hiring & building a great team is what that matters

Working with Startups is a high risk. Many of our past clients have gone bust and we had to write off our billings. This is a tricky situation since we are answerable to candidates. But again we believe it’s a risk worth pursuing. We not only help companies hire the brightest but be a part of their growth story.

A product/service is only as good as its team and services part of the business is mostly difficult since its intangible and there is no touch or feel to it. We signed up every client who came our way. We executed search mandates without much homework. This proved costly to us. We did a lot of mistakes. A LOT!

It took us sometime until we realized that we are no different from thousands of recruitment firms out there. No USP, No differentiators, No Value Adds. We paused and started working backwards. We had to give our model a complete overhaul and it wasn’t easy. We wanted to be a value add and an impact creator, we aimed to be our client’s trusted talent advisors.

We started vetting all our potential clients. We receive massive referrals and inbound enquiries from companies for recruitment support but we turn them down such companies who are not in sync with what we believe in. We evaluate every potential client on various parameters like their Facebook reviews, Google reviews, Glassdoor reviews, LinkedIn activities and so on.

Why? Simply because we go to market as our client’s ambassadors. We market & sell their vision to candidates in the hiring market. We nourish & nurture candidate relationships. This can only happen when we believe in the product or service our client offers

Tell us about the solutions/services that the company offers.

Recruitment is our forte. We know the Indian recruitment landscape damn well. We deliver high class services in Permanent Recruitment & Executive Search. We handled both Technology & Non technology mandates. We have mastered the art & science of effective recruitment. We know how to get the passive talents talking.

Please share the latest technology that the company is utilizing to offer better services.

We use a plethora of tech stacks to enable our human search specialists do more in less time. This also has translated to x3 productivity. We love innovative tech stacks and are an early adopters of RecTech (Recruitment Tech) tools.

I personally scour the internet for new age tools. I constantly check Product Hunt, G2 Crowd, Capterra and similar sites to know what’s new in the market. I then research on each product and check the fitment. It’s a time consuming and arduous process but worth the time.

For example, I experimented & trialed with 27 CRMs to find the one that works for us. I researched and thoroughly analyzed 30+ ATS’s before opting for one. I do this for every tech stack. This ensures we have the best in class tools empowering us to help our clients hire Faster, Better

We use a multitude of tech stacks – CRM, ATS, AI enabled Video Interviewing Tools, An exclusive client portal. We are always a step ahead when it comes to RecTech tools.

Given the new normal, the role of HR and related HR solutions is expected to change as remote work will become more mainstream. How do you think it will affect the HR Solutions industry and how is your company prepared to handle it?

HR for long has been considered a cost centre. Few consider HR to be in the forefront of a company’s success. But yes, things are changing, we are seeing a lot of companies inviting HR’s to the boardroom.

Going remote is the best thing that could have happened. But now, no excuses since the advance in technology ensures authenticity, transparency & credibility. Deploying the right tech stacks ensure a seamless and smooth WFH culture. This also reduces a lot of revenue leakages.

HR’s should now see things beyond walls. They should in-fact think like there is no box. The current situation requires constant engagement amongst distributed teams/employees. This should be taken as an opportunity to do things differently. There are many successful firms who have a complete distributed teams from a long time.

We are working remote from 3+ years. Every day we learn something new. Every day we face a new challenge. We are accustomed to navigating through thick & thin. This is what makes us unique and trust worthy. If you have faced a problem then I’m most certainly sure we have a solution for that

What can we expect of the company in future?

We are changing lives, one hire at a time. We are empowering companies to select and hire top of the line talents. We are ensuring that our candidates are thoroughly briefed and coached at every step of their interview process. We are getting better at what we do. We are now a trusted recruitment partner to hundreds of companies.

But we are still young and got a long way to go. We operate everyday as our first day.

We have ambitious and exciting plans in the pipeline. We are working on something unique to the recruitment market. Well, it’s still a work in progress though. As we always say – More work & less talk will push us further beyond boundaries.