Khatabook Case Study
On the Look(Out) for Khatabook
Identifying the Design Rockstar for a leading Fintech start-up
Swati Khanna
VP of Human Capital, Sequoia Capital
“Working with Talhive has been a game-changer for our portfolio company, Khatabook. After struggling to find a Head of Design for 2 years, Talhive closed the position with an exceptional candidate. Not only that, but Talhive has also become a trusted partner in our hiring process and now works with Sequoia to find top talent for our portfolio companies. ”
The Story
Khatabook is the world’s fastest-growing SaaS company with a mission to empower MSMEs with digital solutions by building utility solutions for the nation’s 6.3 crore MSME sector. It has become India’s leading business management app for MSMEs, with support in 13 languages & 50M+ downloads in a remarkably short time.
Khatabook was on the lookout for their Head of Design for nearly a year until their investors recommended working with Talhive.
The Challenge
The job had been open for more than a year, so numerous applicants had previously been approached by recruitment agencies. Additionally, it can be challenging to find the ideal people on job portals because often, top leaders wait until they absolutely must to hunt for change. Moreover, setting up interviews was arduous because of their tight schedules and long working hours, in addition to coordinating the discussion of the candidates.
Role Opened for a long time.
The job had been open for more than a year, so numerous applicants had previously been approached by various recruitment agencies & the internal HR Team.
Limited Talent Pool
It can be challenging to find the ideal people on job portals because often, top leaders wait until they absolutely must hunt for change.
Longer Interview TAT
Scheduling for interviews was arduous because of the Leadership availability at Khatabook, coordinating the candidates and their notice period of 90-120 days.
Talhive’s Solution
Talhive took this up as a challenge and committed to closing the offer in 3 months. We assigned the role to our specialist, who has curated the top 100 designers in India.
Here’s Talhive’s approach in brief :
Extensive Market mapping exercise in understanding and reaching the untapped design talent available.
An Exploratory call with the founders was introduced as an icebreaker between the leadership team and the candidates. Executive search always has a select few candidate funnel; we added an interview layer to reduce dropouts and provide the career roadmap to the candidates.
Designed and implemented a bespoke recruitment & talent management process to keep candidates engaged. This included a process with multiple touchpoints with Team at Talhive to successfully manage and onboard the candidate.
The Results
Talhive shared a total of 6 Design Head Candidates, out of which 1 candidate was interviewed for two months and successfully offered, achieving the TAT. Our selected candidate had to complete a 6-month long notice to join Khatabook, which our talent engagement process successfully achieved.