It is not a secret that each manager views human capital as means and opportunity for developing his business. Not everyone perceives human resource to be the recipe for success and prosperity of his organization. A team of professional and qualified experts represents the most valuable asset of any organization owing to which the organization achieves its goals and maintains leadership positions at the market. A sound recruitment process is surely one of the important tools in building an efficient team. 

We requested Mrs. Jamilya Imankulova, El Group Consulting Founder and Managing Partner, a professional recruiter, HR consultant and labor market expert, to tell us in details about unique features of the recruitment process. For reference use, El Group Consulting is known at the Kyrgyz market as the first and the only company specializing in the provision of effective human resource management solutions. They include such services as search and recruitment of highly professional personnel, HR consulting and conduct of analytical labor market and remuneration surveys.

AmCham (AC) Magazine Journalist: Mrs. Imankulova, recruitment is one of key areas in your business. Since 2003 El Group recruits highly qualified experts, middle and top managers for lead companies in Kyrgyzstan and Central Asia. Would you please tell our readers about existing peculiarities of personnel recruitment process in Kyrgyzstan?

When speaking of human resource recruitment process in Kyrgyzstan, firstly, I would like to highlight positive perspectives that exist at the recruitment service market. During the past years we observe an increased confidence in services and understanding of the recruitment process by users. Seven years ago when our company started its first steps in the human resource management consulting, there were few people who knew and believed that it is possible to find, select and develop efficient and result-oriented employees with the help of professionals. 

Today, we have successful and competent company managers and owners as our clients. They understand perfectly well the value of human capital, clearly set goals and objectives to service providers and willing to pay for professional and high quality services. In the past we, mainly, had large companies with international capital as our clients. Today the orders from Kyrgyz companies represent a considerable share in the El Group portfolio.

AC: Mrs. Imankulova, in your opinion, why do clients mainly address your company for personnel recruitment services?

In the first place, every manager tends to optimize its numerous resources and, when possible, delegates tasks to professionals to solve and produce positive results. I will point out some key reasons why clients address El Group. Firstly, outsourcing of such task gives an opportunity for the company to save time and financial costs (both indirect and direct) that it will incur while searching for an eligible candidate. Secondly, El Group consultants have a comprehensive database and professional contacts that enable to propose only professional candidates with strong credentials. Thirdly, we guarantee high quality work, individual approach and support to our candidates and clients. This also increases the efficiency of the expert’s “settling down” in the company. Currently, the recruitment market is actively developing in Central Asia. In spite of the increase in the number of active applicants the quality of experts required by our Clients does not always meet their high requirements. 

According to the results of the personnel consulting market breakdown, over 50% of participating companies, at least, once used recruitment services for the past one or two years.

AC: It will be interesting for readers of our magazine to learn about professional secrets that you and your team have in order to find and motivate successful managers and experts to transfer to the new company.

The secret of El Group team is simple and is reflected in the principles of our work and values that we adhere to. In the first place, we apply individual approach, high quality service standards and professional ethics of consultants. Recruitment of highly professional personnel represents a sophisticated and comprehensive system of actions aimed to meet the needs of our clients whether he is an employer, or a prospective candidate. When we commence the search process we carefully analyze the vacancy. We define the nature and main requirements to the candidate, his professional and personal qualities, learn about the company’s activities and its corporate culture that defines the communication style in the Client’s company. 

All of this helps us in better understanding of the Client’s requirements that may not always be expressed orally; understand organization’s culture and spirit. All of this helps us to find and recommend the candidate (who best meets the client’s requirements) and the organization where, in our opinion, the employer and the candidate will establish the very same “contact”. This shows the positive output of the work performed by us and I call it “chemistry”.

AC: Do you use exclusive search, namely executive search and headhunting techniques? Are they used at the recruitment market in Kyrgyzstan?

Yes, we use exclusive search and headhunting techniques.Moreover, my team of recruiters specializes in this area. In the course of implementing projects related to the recruitment of highly qualified experts and managers with necessary expertise, skills and experience, we use both effective models of searching and evaluating qualified experts tested by our team and exclusive search and headhunting techniques. We search for top managers by using exclusive search techniques and headhunting that is not limited to searching for an eligible candidate and includes a set of activities on labor market survey, “localization” of lead professionals, their remuneration and motivation to change the place of their work and so forth. In my view in case of shortage of highly qualified workforce, the mix of these techniques proves to be successful in implementing projects aimed at searching for middle and top managers as well as experts with rare professions at the Kyrgyz and Central Asian markets. El Group consulting team repeatedly proved their efficiency confirmed by our success stories and numerous positive feedback from our clients that represent leading Kyrgyz and international businesses and not-for-profit organizations with headquarters in Kazakhstan, Russian and USA.

AC: To summarize our interview what would you recommend our readers in searching for key personnel?

I would like to share results of my 10-year practical experience in implementing projects on recruitment of middle and top managers, highly qualified experts to make search and recruitment process more effective for AmCham magazine readers. Irrespective of the fact whether you need to select or replace an expert, or solve staff turnover problem on a mass basis, it is necessary to approach the recruitment process in a comprehensive manner. In the first place, it is necessary to determine the true cause and goal of searching for the candidate. It is very likely that hiring of a new expert is not a solution to the existing problem in the organization.  Secondly, more clearly define requirements to the candidate, prepare job descriptions and define key terms of reference for the future expert. In your opinion, what goals and objectives the candidate should achieve, and what professional and personal qualities he/she should have. Thirdly, define search channels and target group i.e. how and where you will search for the eligible expert as well as develop interview procedure and integration of the new expert into your company. I think these are the key steps that will increase efficiency of your work and chance of finding the “right” expert.

If you decide to entrust this process to the professionals with their advanced technologies and professional contacts, individual approach to each Client then El Group Consulting team will help you to reduce considerable time, financial and human resources of your organization related to the recruitment process. El Group experts will be always happy to answer your questions and provide consultations about peculiarities of the labor market and recruitment of highly professional experts and managers at the Kyrgyz market and in Central Asian countries.

Business Partnership

№ 2, 2010