In the heydays of his business, placement consultant Pravin V Shastri used to send out 60 resumes daily to his customers, large Indian outsourcing firms as well as multinationals with outsourced operations in India.

He had dedicated staff allocated to his biggest customers. His business ran like an assembly-line operation, as Shastri himself described. Company recruiters sent out their requirement list to him each Monday. By the end of the week, he had candidates matched, vetted and lined up for interviews.

These days PV Shastri Associates’ business is languishing. “Work is at a dismal low,” Shastri said, revealing that his hiring has fallen to a third or less of last year. His biggest customers who wanted 60 candidates’ resumes now barely need five, even that only to “backfill vacancies”, or fill critical positions.

Ironically, the man who specialises in hiring is finding himself part of the firing squad. Because of the industry downturn, Shastri has laid off 20 of his 30 employees, a process he says he found painful. His own employee count is now down to 10. He has shut down two offices in Pune and Bangalore, and is left with a single office just off Mahatma Gandhi Road in downtown Bangalore.

The slowing business has left Shastri plenty of time for his gruelling daily fitness regime consisting of a five-kilometer run and 75 push-ups. In the absence of conference calls from customers or other pressing work, Shastri has ample time to socialise every evening.

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