Top Story: Telecommuting, she constructed a Rs 2.5 crore turnover enlistment firm roping in marquee clients

Shweta Jain Sanyal started her recruitment firm, Connections, in 2009 from Kolkata with a small sum of Rs 25,000. “I started alone and worked from home with a desktop computer and a mobile phone,” says Shweta, who had about three years of prior work experience in the field of recruitment with stints at Times Jobs in Hyderabad and Adecco in Kolkata

Shweta, now based in Bengaluru, started with just two clients, Coca-Cola and Emerson, a manufacturing company, and built a team of work-from-home women employees and slowly built the business. Now, I work with a team of 11 full-time employees, and 18 freelancers, she says. Shweta, 42, was raised in a middle-class family in the small city of Hazaribagh in Jharkhand, about 90 km from the state capital Ranchi. I did my MBA after marriage through distance education while having a job and taking care of my family, says Shweta, sharing her inspiring entrepreneurial journey with The Weekend Leader.

I shifted to Mumbai after marriage and worked for about six months at Citi Corp as a customer care executive. Likewise, I joined a small HR and recruitment consultancy in Mumbai in 2006. Not only that, but I worked there for about six months before my husband got a job in Hyderabad, and we had to leave Mumbai. In Hyderabad, I worked at Times Jobs as a recruiter. My job was to recruit employees for the organization.

In 2007, we shifted to Kolkata, where I joined Adecco, a global recruitment firm. In 2008, I quit my job and decided to start my own recruitment firm. I spoke to a couple of clients with whom I was in touch and asked them if they would support me if I started my own company. They assured to support me that I would be able to meet their requirements and deliver top-quality CVs. I started with Rs 25,000 and used the amount to subscribe to the Naukri database of jobseekers. I believed in the concept of ‘work from anywhere since I opened the company in 2009. Furthermore, I strongly believe that in our job one doesn’t need to come to the office every day, and they can do their tasks from anywhere.

Long before the pandemic, when the ‘work from anywhere concept was nowhere close to usual, I envisioned a platform that could open up the doors to new possibilities for all those women and mothers who wanted a career while staying at home, with flexible working hours so that they could take care of their child or play the role of a caregiver to a family member. Now, I work with a team of 11 full-time employees, and 18 freelancers.

As far as our business model is concerned, we don’t take money from job seekers. We charge the client depending upon the position of the recruit, which varies from one month's salary for a junior position to 10%, 12%, or 18% of the annual CTC for senior positions. I personally screen the senior profiles before sending them to the client, and sometimes I connect with them over a Zoom call. Initially, clients were skeptical about the ‘work from anywhere model without any office.

Some clients even wanted to check our office set-up before giving us business. However, I was able to get some big manufacturing and FMCG clients and with each year the business scaled greater heights in terms of turnover and the number of employees. Today, Connections works with multiple marquee clients from FMCG, FMCD, and manufacturing sectors, banking and financial institutions, and new-age startups.