Industry Odisha Bureau, Oct 31: AI now handles resumes and initial interviews, forcing firms to rethink traditional billing.
India’s recruitment firms are rewriting their playbook as AI automates routine hiring work. Tools now source resumes, check backgrounds, match skills and run initial interview rounds. Many firms are now shifting toward senior hiring and re-evaluating their traditional billing model.
Quess Corp, among India’s top three staffing firms, offers a clear signal. It has rebranded its key IT staffing vertical as IT Solutions. Kapil Joshi, CEO of Quess IT Solutions, shared the company’s January–September demand data. Compared with last year, demand for staff with up to four years’ experience fell 22%. Demand for the 4–10 year band rose 14%. Those with over a decade of experience saw a 40% jump. These are company figures, and client budgets may also shape them.
The sector spans gig hiring, staffing, permanent placements and executive search. Many firms operate across all four. Exposure to AI varies sharply across them.
Mass recruitment feels AI’s impact most sharply. Skill matching there is basic, and candidates face only two or three rounds. If AI handles sourcing, scheduling and first-round tests, little remains for HR firms. CXO searches differ, often stretching for months across seven or eight rounds. Trust between candidate, headhunter and client still drives these deals. AI may assist with research, but judgement remains human.
New startups want to automate the whole hiring cycle. Bengaluru-based RazorSwift ranks resumes, contacts candidates and conducts live, contextual AI interviews. Founder and CEO Aravind Sridharan estimates 60% of a recruiter’s work is administrative. RazorSwift charges ₹75,000 to ₹3 lakh a month, depending on client size. A 30-minute AI interview costs ₹500–650, while an hour costs ₹1,000. Six companies, including recruitment firms, signed on within six months of launch.
Speed gains also have limits. Kamal Karanth, co-founder of Xpheno, says recruiters now work faster and at greater scale. Yet clients still take time to decide, so hiring cycles remain unchanged. A quicker shortlist does not guarantee a quicker appointment.
Billing is the bigger worry. Clients may demand lower fees once fewer agents handle sourcing. Aditya Narayan Mishra, MD and CEO of CIEL HR Services, expects change within months. He argues pricing reflects value, and AI now does much of the work. Firms typically charge flat fees for volume hiring or a share of annual pay.
Karanth disagrees. Xpheno built its own AI tool, Vector, to source and shortlist candidates. He says Vector was costly, so its fee holds near 12.5% with AI costs built in. His own team shows the shift: ten recruiters who once served two clients now serve five.
That gain may not mean higher profits or fewer jobs. Recruiters are moving from manual sourcing toward advice, assessment and client relationships. The real test is no longer how fast firms find candidates. It is how clearly they prove value when AI does much of the hiring.
