Latest news with #Xpheno
Time of India
15-07-2025
- Business
- Time of India
Hiring paradox AI both hurts and helps
Academy Empower your mind, elevate your skills Widespread use of AI-driven tools by candidates is creating problems for recruiters. But there are some plus points too. Until a couple of years ago, the biggest hurdle for a job seeker was to get past the application tracking system (ATS), a bot that is used for filtering applications, to get shortlisted for a desired position. This meant getting the error free resume with right keywords and the advent of generative artificial intelligence and proliferation of new age online tools, all of this can be done in a matter of minutes. This is great news for candidates, but not so much for recruiters, who are now dealing with a deluge of resumes for roles. While some companies are deploying AI tools, and stringent assessments for filtering candidates, smaller firms are looking at increasing the in-person interaction to hire the right Sharma, CEO, TeamLease Digital said that close to 25-30% of the resumes are now made using AI, compared to 8% last year, and the numbers are Karanth, cofounder, Xpheno, shared that as much as 50% of CVs are written by ChatGPT, matching with the job descriptions. He pointed out that as a result the firm is seeing 25% increase in the number of CVs they receive for any job Dongrie, Partner and Leader-Workforce Transformation, PwC India, said, 'ATS systems have been using technology to filter candidates even before the advent of widespread AI tools. With AI-enabled resume crafting, the fitment matching has become more accurate. This has led to an increase in the number of applicants immediately following a job posting.'An executive with a Bengaluru-based consulting firm told ET on the condition of anonymity that this has increased the time taken to hire people as shortlisted candidates after the initial filtering process has increased, requiring more human intervention, he also pointed out the need for predictive analytics and sophisticated tools based on historical data to hire candidates as Chemmankotil, Country Manager, Adecco India, said that apart from crafting polished resumes, candidates are also simulating interview responses making it challenging for recruiters to assess their capabilities, making traditional screening methods insufficient.'Recruiters now require deeper subject-matter expertise and more sophisticated tools to evaluate candidates effectively. To address this, many organisations have adopted AI-powered platforms capable of analyzing behavioral cues during virtual interviews, such as detecting lip-syncing or external prompting, to ensure the integrity of the hiring process. PWC's Dongrie said that for organisations with limited and smaller hiring volumes, the dependency for filtering candidates primarily is at in-person interview stage.'However, for organisations with high-volume hiring such as retail banking, insurance, pharma-sales, the focus has shifted towards implementing stringent assessments for filtering candidates prior to interviews. Focus is now more on technical assessments along with existing psychometric and behavioural profiling exercises,' he Karanth said that they are using AI to filter the top 50 out of 200 resumes received, and screen further depending on their pool till they reach 5-10 candidates. 'As of now, only guarding is through human intervention. You cannot depend on AI as of now in this regard because that might not lead to a fruitful outcome. For more senior roles, around 70-75% of the applications are through references,' he Bajaj, Fractal-Hiring, Lead Manager, said that they have evolved their hiring process to include technical assessments, case studies, and Proctored LIVE interviewing, which use AI to detect eye /hand the challenges of using AI in hiring still Sharma said that AI hallucination and bias are still concerns. 'The biggest challenge this poses is making sure that it doesn't have the same bias that a human recruiter would have,' she AI can cover the blind spots, it is getting harder to differentiate between an AI-generated video and a real video of a candidate. 'We need to make sure that our recruiters are skilled enough to identify this difference; otherwise, we would fall flat in the market. The only solution to this is the upgradation of data sets, proper and regular monitoring, and governance,' she said that while AI helps with productivity and improve recruitment processes, its inherent flaws makes it harder to rely on them completely. This includes concerns around bias and fairness and the need for platforms that can be integrated into current systems to make it efficient.
Time of India
08-07-2025
- Business
- Time of India
X decries India's censorship; Indian electronic cos ditch China
X decries India's censorship; Indian electronic cos ditch China Also in the letter: India blocks (then unblocks) Reuters on X Driving the news: The catch? X's response: The legal backdrop: X is already in the Karnataka High Court, fighting previous blocking orders, which it says lack transparency. The court heard the matter today and listed it for the next hearing on July 11. It has also moved to challenge Rule 3(1)(d) of the IT Rules, which grants the government sweeping takedown powers. India's electronics makers break up with China What's happening? Who's moving: Amber Enterprises: Rs 4,000 crore bet, including a Rs 3,000 crore JV with Korea Circuit for advanced PCBs and chip substrates. Dixon: Inking deals with Korean and Taiwanese partners but keeping the China door ajar. Optiemus & Epack Durable: Sourcing displays, PCBs and sound tech from non-Chinese firms. Big picture: Big picture: Sponsor ETtech Top 5 & Morning Dispatch! Why it matters: The opportunity: Reach a highly engaged audience of decision-makers. Boost your brand's visibility among the tech-savvy community. Custom sponsorship options to align with your brand's goals. What's next: Startups fuel hiring rebound, 80,000 new tech jobs expected in FY26, data shows Numbers game: Fresh data from staffing firm Xpheno shows startups hired 1.6 lakh individuals in FY25, including 1 lakh attrition backfills and 60,000 net additions – up from 1.2 lakh in FY24. For FY26, Xpheno expects 80,000 net new jobs, taking the total headcount to 6.7 lakh. TeamLease reported a similar uptick, with roles such as DevOps, product managers, and full-stack developers in high demand. Setting context: Expert take: AI gets smarter but needs smarter humans What's changing: Big money: The global data annotation market is projected to triple from $6.5 billion (2025) to around $20 billion (2030). India's share is set to jump from $80M (2023) to approximately $500M by 2030, with a workforce of 70,000 workers today, up from 20,000 in 2022. Key players: Turing: Calls annotation 'Olympiad-level problem-solving.' Macgence: Builds culturally specific data sets. Appen: Tackles tough STEM tasks; has 50K Indian contributors. Indika AI: Has seen 5x revenue growth, with 70,000 freelancers on call. Power move: Bill Gates no longer among world's top 10 billionaires; Elon Musk still on top What's happening: Why the drop? Who's on top? Plot twist: Elon Musk's X said India blocked over 2,300 accounts, including the official handles of the global news agency Reuters. This and more in today's ETtech Top 5.■ Startup hiring rebounds■ Why AI needs humans■ Gates slips billionaire ranksIndia briefly ordered X (formerly Twitter) to block 2,355 accounts , including @Reuters, before rapidly backtracking after public July 3, the Ministry of Electronics and IT instructed X to block these accounts under Section 69A of the IT Act. The order gave X only one hour to comply without explanation and directed that the blocks remain in place 'until further notice.'Following criticism, the Reuters handles (@Reuters and @ReutersWorld) were restored the same day. The ministry claimed it hadn't ordered the blocks, blaming X for the unnecessary delay in unblocking the government's order carried serious consequences. X faced criminal liability for non-compliance and had no room to challenge the directive, even as it was told to act without cause. The company said it is 'deeply concerned' by rising press censorship in India. It is exploring legal actions but pointed out that, unlike individual users, it cannot directly contest these orders under Indian law. X urged affected users to seek legal electronics players, such as Dixon, Amber, PG Electroplast, Micromax's Bhagwati, Epack Durable, and Optiemus, are shifting their focus away from China and teaming up with South Korean, Taiwanese, and Japanese firms government's Rs 22,919 crore components manufacturing scheme shuts applications this month. But thanks to Press Note 3 (post-2020 border tensions), Chinese investments need multiple clearances, making them slow, messy, and Indian government aims to increase local value addition (currently around 20%) and reduce dependence on China. To this end, it seeks to attract investments worth Rs 59,530 crore and create 91,600 jobs. Over 100 applications are already Top 5 and Morning Dispatch are must-reads for India's tech and business leaders, including startup founders, investors, policy makers, industry insiders and Reach out to us at spotlightpartner@ to explore sponsorship startup scene is bouncing back on the hiring front. After a muted couple of years, FY25 added 60,000 new jobs, pushing the total startup workforce to 5.9 hit a low in FY21 (Covid-era) with just 50,000 new additions. Then came the tech boom of FY22, with 2.1 lakh hires, followed by the funding freeze and the brutal mass layoffs of FY24.'A recovering IT services sector and startups sector, the fiscal ahead will see higher talent action next fiscal year. Headcount growth is likely to be driven by startups in quick commerce, eRetail, marketplaces, fintech (payments & remittances, lending & credit) and F&B retail,' Prasadh MS, head of workforce research at Xpheno, told AI models evolve, they're hungry for more complex, human-curated data. That's where India's growing army of data annotators steps in—doing far more than tagging cat now means fixing code, reviewing reports, and auditing financial statements. It's all part of training next-gen AI snapped up 49% of Scale AI at a $14.3B valuation, showing that data quality now rivals compute in the AI arms cofounder Bill Gates has slipped out of the world's top 10 richest people, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires net worth has plunged nearly 30% from over $175 billion to $124 billion, pushing him down to 12th it's not a market crash or dodgy bets. Bloomberg simply updated how it calculates Gates' fortune, giving more weight to his philanthropic surprises there. Elon Musk remains at the top with a net worth of $346 billion. Mark Zuckerberg holds firm in second with $253 billion, edging out the newly-married Jeff Bezos, who's now fourth at $244 Ballmer, Gates' former aide and ex-Microsoft boss, has leapfrogged him. Ballmer now sits pretty at number five, powered by his booming 4% stake in Microsoft.
Time of India
08-07-2025
- Business
- Time of India
Startups are cautiously hiring again; 80,000 new tech jobs expected in FY26, data shows
Academy Empower your mind, elevate your skills With the funding winter easing, hiring by Indian startups improved in financial year 2025, with 60,000 net new employee additions. This took the total startup workforce to 5.9 lakh at the end of the fiscal year, according to Xpheno data In total, 1.6 lakh individuals were hired, accounting for both net growth and one lakh attrition-linked backfills. This is a healthy increase from the 1.2 lakh employees added in FY24, though it is yet to reach the 1.8 lakh additions observed in to Xpheno , tech hiring may return to its pre-downturn highs in FY26. The firm expects 80,000 net additions, taking the total tech workforce from 5.9 lakh at the close of FY25 to 6.7 lakh by the end of FY26.A report by TeamLease shows similar optimism in the startup and tech sector. The ecosystem is showing signs of a cautious recovery after the funding reset, with a net employment change (NEC) of +6.9% for the first half of FY26, the company's Employment Outlook Report is down from +8.9% in the second half of FY24-25 the report observed. About 69% of employers in this area will expand their workforce, driven by advancements in AI-driven product scaling, growth marketing, and cloud-native engineering, the report said. However, about 12% are expecting reductions due to cost discipline, while 19% expect no TeamLease report added that roles such as DevOps, product manager, and full-stack developer are in demand, especially in B2C, D2C, and platform-first showed that the tech startups cohort in India has moved from 2.5 lakh to 3.6 lakh in white-collar talent size and registered a collective 7.1 gross hiring count from FY21 to led to a cautious FY21 for startups, with only 50,000 net hires. However, FY22 saw a massive bounceback, with 2.1 lakh net additions, translating to 800-900 hires per working day, primarily due to hyper-hiring in the tech sector. While FY23 started strong, hiring slowed in the second half as the funding winter set was a high-impact year as uncertain macros drove mass layoffs across the sector, with net additions dropping to the same levels as during the pandemic.
Mint
26-06-2025
- Business
- Mint
In a slowing job market, this is what could get you that tech job at a higher salary
Gift this article Mumbai/New Delhi: If you have 'AI engineering' in your résumé, your odds of getting hired—despite the ongoing slowdown in India's top IT services firms—are significantly higher, and so is the pay. This holds true even for non-tech roles, or when companies are hiring more for optics than necessity, simply to showcase AI capabilities in their workforce. Mumbai/New Delhi: If you have 'AI engineering' in your résumé, your odds of getting hired—despite the ongoing slowdown in India's top IT services firms—are significantly higher, and so is the pay. This holds true even for non-tech roles, or when companies are hiring more for optics than necessity, simply to showcase AI capabilities in their workforce. Data analysed by Mint from three staffing research and analysis firms—Careernet, Naukri and Xpheno—showed this singular leaning towards artificial intelligence or AI in enterprises' hunt for the right candidate. Having 'AI engineering' and related skills such as generative AI on profiles can increase the chances of getting a job by 20-80%. Salaries can also be expected to be higher by up to 13% in specific technology roles, and a whopping 64% in non-tech roles. The trend holds firm even at global big tech companies, which are ramping up efforts to dominate AI in the decades to come. At Google, over 40% of 475 open roles in India are linked to AI. In Microsoft, 60% of its 228 open roles in India are about AI, data from their respective websites showed. Recruiters and AI observers are not surprised, even if the rapidly growing technology is still at a nascent stage in the country. Also Read | Why India is so far behind in the fight for AI supremacy 'In niche areas, demand for AI skills is up 70-80%, while in generic skills, the mandate is up 40-50%," said Satish Manne, partner at staffing consultant Xpheno. 'The projects that companies are working on requiring AI are up by 20-25%, but their dependence and reliance on the external market is driving them to hire resources with AI knowledge—thereby shooting up the demand for AI." Take Himanshu Kohli, a 35-year-old mid-career engineer with a Big Tech firm in Seattle, US. According to Kohli, 'there is only demand for AI engineers, that too at a higher level", in the US—a big ground of jobs for Indian tech graduates migrating abroad. 'There is demand, but for sharper skills; no one is currently recruiting for roles that are capable of being taken care of by AI itself, such as basic coding," Kohli said. Kashyap Kompella, AI author, analyst and founding consultant of tech research firm RPA2AI, said that companies are 'willing to pay hefty premiums for candidates who hold Ph.D degrees in applied AI, or have proven themselves in AI applications roles. There are also engineers who go through basic upskilling, and would finding uptake in various roles". This is increasingly explaining the salary disparity as well. Data shared with Mint by job portal Naukri showed that the pay gap between 'with' and 'without' AI skills is 13%. In non-tech roles, this gap goes up to 64%. The agency further added 39% growth is observed in the number of AI mandates between May 2023 and May 2025. And the share of AI jobs in all jobs has grown from 3.87% to 5.67% in the same period. Even as AI jobs increase on the basis of real demand, a fear of missing the bandwagon is also at play. According to a senior recruitment manager at one of the top four IT services firms, who spoke on condition of anonymity, 'there is a sense of panic among clients that if a service integrator does not have enough AI engineers, they are behind the curve". 'It's not always necessary that an 'AI engineer' does something drastically different from a typical software development executive with five to eight years of experience, but there is a clear need for firms to label roles keeping AI in mind—considerably so for the optics in question," the manager said. Kompella agreed, but said that instead of such masking of roles coming under AI, 'such a thing can be beneficial for India as building up scale in AI services is more attainable than foundational research roles. But only core AI roles will fetch a premium in the long run". Xpheno's Manne added that among industries leading this surge are banking and financial services, healthcare, and communications and media. Here, executives too are upskilling at scale in the hope of not facing the axe, and drawing better packages in the long run. 'Profiles with four to 10 years of experience are seeing a surge in AI skills, having worked in relevant projects before," he said. Topics You May Be Interested In
India Today
25-06-2025
- Business
- India Today
AI quietly taking away low-value jobs: Are you at risk?
As more and more companies implement artificial intelligence (AI) at the enterprise level, it is changing how they approach hiring of talent. 'India is a growing economy, so new jobs are being created. However, the number of jobs being lost due to AI is much higher than the ones created,' says Aditya Narayan Mishra, MD and CEO of HR services firm CIEL transition underway is that most of the new jobs being created are highly skilled, such as of data scientists, cloud engineers and full-stack developers, because AI models are increasingly replacing low-value, repetitive roles that don't require cognitive Kale, chief revenue and growth officer at jobs platform Foundit, shares, 'In 2022, less than 10 per cent of software engineering roles required knowledge of AI or machine learning (ML). Fast forward to 2025 and that number has more than doubled to 23 per cent, with AI/ML expectations becoming a part of mainstream development.'As a result, says Kale, the job market is becoming polarised—between those who work with AI and those whose roles can be replaced by it. Job-seekers will now have to become AI-literate—whether they're in design, analysis, marketing or operations. 'Businesses will not hire in volume, will instead hire for skills, with a clear bias toward tech-integrated, future-proof capabilities,' he adds. Kamal Karanth, co-founder of Xpheno, a specialist staffing firm, puts this into perspective. He says that since Robotic Process Automation (RPA) became mainstream a decade ago, lower-spectrum roles—those that are rule-based, objective, repeatable and transferable—have been increasingly threat of AI replacing human role-holders is high and imminent in these lower-spectrum functions. The demand for entry-level talent in such low-complexity roles will gradually decline as Agentic AI tools and processes (AI systems capable of autonomous action with minimal human intervention) mature,' he instance, roles such as of test engineers, application testers, QA testers, software test engineers, and QA engineers—who account for more than a third (36 per cent-40 per cent) of the total talent pool in the IT sector's testing and QA/QC functions—fall into this category. These are likely to become highly replaceable roles as AI matures in the near contrast, middle-spectrum roles that require a mix of rule-based actions and intuitive, mid-level cognitive processing face a longer-term threat of full automation. AI's current maturity curve in terms of precision and consistency is still developing. However, talent in this layer can benefit from AI by using it to enhance speed and the higher end of the spectrum, roles that demand advanced cognitive skills have a long way to go before they can challenge or disrupt this talent tier. Here, AI will serve more as an assistant than a replacement, helping workers operate more efficiently, but posing little threat of displacing next 10 years in the world of work will be a time of massive transition, much like during the Industrial Revolution when the onset of automation led to widespread unemployment,' predicts Mishra. 'With AI, many lower-level jobs are already disappearing, and this impact is only going to grow with time.'Subscribe to India Today Magazine- Ends
