SutraLite advertizes itself is as a startup friendly HR service. I got to know about them when i posted on hasgeek. They called me up explaining their service and how they use multiple sources (social media/job sites) to recruit relevant applicants and simplify hiring.After some thinking i took the Premium plan which after taxes costed around INR 13,235 .
In premium service i was assigned a agent who handled finding and scheduling of applicants . So every 3 days she used to send 3-4 resumes ( so about 25 – 30 / month ) , these resumes had keywords mentioned by me. My Profile was quite basic which was PHP with CI and Jquery ( 1-3 yr exp with 2 – 4 lk pkg ). And the applicants who’s resumes was forwarded did have all this in their resumes atleast.
So I went through a lot of resumes , and took telephonic interview with quite a few and then had offline interview with about 3 -4 people.The finding and scheduling was handled by Sutra Lite.
But i ended up hiring no one , and one month went by. So end of the day unlike normal HR it did not work out and money was gone. My interview questions were also quite basic also , so it was not like i was looking for Rockstars.
For ex none of the applicant knew about Cross Site scripting or what md5 actually is. Supposedly md5 encrypts passwords by almost all of them. In final interview i made them code a simple email validation using ajax. Yep i had low expectation , yet i could not find people who could get it right the first time ( actually only one got it working after spending hour ) . Supposedly 2 + yr in php and CI .
So i realized Sutralite was basically forwarding naukri type applications to me which i had experienced before when posting on naukri/monster , and nothing social / multiple sources like quoted on the site.
And using HR Services for startups is a Bad Idea. As the applications were least interested in the jobs they were doing or they were going to do. Also as the system is a monthly subscription system it might not work for you.
Other wise some other findings about applicants through such services –
- PHP Programmers are paid quite less , Avg salary of 2+ yr exp application was 13 k .
- Due to constant WP/Joomla they cannot think or do much beyond these two either.
- Work on frameworks like CI is very basic,not worth talking about.
- No one reads any blogs or keeps himself updated.
- Use Dreamweaver , never done any debugging / profiling or testing.
- Severely lacking database skills and no idea about scalability or security.
If hiring for a startup where every employee counts please avoid such services. They might work if looking for a lot of people for very small very defined taskings.
