Leaders

Fulfilling a dream needs a lot of hard work and determination. Striving to make her dream come true, Shabna Baig states how she started her own company and grew by delivering candidates to big brands.

What Inspired You To Embark On The Entrepreneurial Venture And How Has Been Your Journey So Far?

Enzyne is my brother’s brainchild who believes that I can “do something”. Our initial thought was to open a food joint for my interest in cooking but the plan changed eventually when I completed my MBA in HR.I founded Enzyne HR Solutions in 2013 and was completely equipped with its requirement. Though I had a child to look after then, the passion and excitement made me work hard and research for my new venture. I started with one employee and a 350sq feet office in Kochi with zero clients. I had no clue how to reach out to clients and kick start the business. All that I had was an undying determination to work hard and the unwillingness to give up. My first client was from Dubai who wanted to reach some other vendor in Kochi but fortunately, we got the call. We took the project and promised them to provide the best candidates. But soon realized that we don’t have one. It was then when I opted for Shine.com for candidates and started on the very next day. I managed to place a candidate at Kochi then for them and that client stayed with us for more than 4 years until I started focussing on IT recruitment. This was how Enzyne was born!

Later, our alliance with a Mumbai-based HR start-up Quesx helped us to grow faster and stronger. Quesx is an aggregator and played as an intermediary between companies and recruitment agencies. What attracted me to the idea was to spend lesser time and money on business development. They keep adding clients to the list and we focus entirely on providing quality candidates. Our alliance grew firmer when ABC Consultants joined hands with Quesx. All these have shaped up Enzyne in terms of excelling in the quality of service.

“Once you have identified your area of interest, you just need to have the determination to stay on”

Enzyne today serves clients across Pan India such as DE Shaw, Arcesium, Goldman Sachs, Applied Materials, Amadeus, Software AG, and many more. We also had funded start-ups like Pepperfry, Zapr Media Labs, Azuga Telematics, etc.

Tell Us How Enzyne Hr Is Unique From Other Players In The Hr Market.

I wanted to design Enzyne’s work uniquely. Some clients couldn’t afford Mettl and similar platforms. We, therefore,give them a brief report of the candidate’s Psychometric Tests along with the resume for Non-IT recruitments. This gives Enyne that extra mileage and clients are assured of the quality of the candidates we send. I tell my clients “Please don’t expect a big line of candidates for the interview from Enzyne, but the one or two I send would be worth your time spent for the interview”. Because I believe quality matters more than quantity.

We also have video interviews in our service which make us different. We were closely associated with Talview during our budding stage and I still cherish those discussions on how video interviews would be the next big thing in the recruitment space.

Tell Us About The Various Services That Enzyne Provides. Elaborate On The Challenges You Face And How You Overcome Those.

Enzyne mainly caters to the IT industry and focuses on mid-level to senior-level hiring. The majority of our clients are from product companies and funded startups in the e-commerce industry. Sales/Research/ IT roles are our major forte. We provide frequent training to our staff to keep them updated with the changing industry scenario.

One of the main challenges I faced was the lack of funds to take Enzyne to the next level. I approached many major banks and Kerala Financial Corporation (KFC) for financial support but was turned down. I attended a couple of funding sessions too but the results were the same. But I couldn’t see myself losing and used to tell myself “Hang on Girl…You came this far. You got this!”.

Another challenge was the huge pricing of databases and very limited vendors in this space.The exorbitant charges of the Naukri database and the non-availability of any alternate solution was a challenge. Though we had tried different databases, the pool of resumes was unmatchable with Naukri. Recently, I am in conversation with a start-up, Hirewand, which has a wonderful platform for resume parsing services. I am hopeful to get quality resumes from them at reasonable prices very soon.

How Do You Define Your Success As A Woman Entrepreneur? Kindly Throw Some Light On The Future Roadmap Of Upstream.

Every woman who wants to start their venture should follow their passion. Once you have identified your area of interest, you just need to have the determination to stay on. The path to success is never an easy one, but learning makes your life a memorable one. You grow when you learn. You might make mistakes during the journey, but do not give up!

We are always open to the changing scenarios and demands of the industry. COVID-19 has badly affected the recruitment industry and like any other player, we are also looking forward to what the changing work environment demands in terms of recruitment. I am sure the future would be equally challenging as the journey so far.