Rakesh Guneta

Why this persona fits the audience

Leads a 260-person BPO's hiring operation in Mumbai, with recurring intake for customer support and back-office roles. His team uses Zoho Recruit, email templates, and phone banks to process large applicant batches each week.

• Age: 50
• Location: Mumbai, India
• Occupation: HR manager, BPO
• Income: ₹28 lakh
• Education: MBA, human resources
• Company size: 260 employees (his hiring team), 2,500+ overall BPO staff
• Years in role: 12

“‘Every week, 3,000 resumes come in. Every week, 2,950 people disappear. And I’m the guy who has to explain why to the floor manager.’”

Rakesh Guneta, 50, has spent 12 years perfecting the art of hiring at scale. His Mumbai BPO recruits 800 customer service reps annually—a revolving door of applicants he tracks via Zoho Recruit and color-coded spreadsheets. His mornings begin with badminton in Powai, a ritual he’s kept since his 30s. At work, he worships at the altar of throughput, where ‘slow and steady’ is a cardinal sin. His team’s 30-second verification checklist is his personal manifesto; any deviation earns a scowl. He once spent 6 months negotiating with IT for better WiFi—only to find they’d already upgraded. His biggest frustration? Interview scheduling. Though tools exist, he’s burned by past software failures (a ‘cloud-based logbook’ lost 120 candidate records in 2021). Home is a 3BHK in Powai, where his wife manages finances but he secretly cross-checks. His daughter’s law school fees are straining their education fund, and his 21-year-old son’s coding side gigs give him ‘no job security’ anxiety. His neo-nephrosis diagnosis (from 2019) is ‘controlled’ according to doctors, though his wife still monitors his salt intake. He values predictability—his team’s 10 AM coffee breaks are sacrosanct. His latest project? Training a successor. ‘I’m 50. I don’t want to be the guy who dies at his desk,’ he says. Though his badminton league rivals claim his backhand is ‘still stuck in 2005’, his disciplined approach has kept his attrition rates 10% below industry average. He’s proud of that. And his color-coded spreadsheets. Mostly the spreadsheets.

Background & daily life

A day in their life

6:00 AM: Wakes up to his wife's chai, reviews stock market on TV. 6:45 AM: Badminton match; complains about 'young players with weak backhands'. 7:45 AM: Metrobuddi for Powai. 8:30 AM: Arrives at office, checks Zoho Recruit dashboard (sighs at talent pool). 9:00 AM: Standup meeting (‘Rakesh, we lost 14 candidates yesterday!’). 10:00 AM: Mandatory coffee break (rules: no work talk). 11:00 AM: Reviews rejected candidates (scolds recruiters for missing checkboxes). 12:30 PM: Lunch with QA team (mutton curry day). 1:30 PM: Video call with senior leadership (WiFi fails; mutters Marathi obscenities). 3:00 PM: Phone bank oversight (yells at trainees about ‘human touch’). 5:00 PM: Approves 200 interview invites (most ignored). 6:15 PM: Calls elderly parents in Pune. 7:00 PM: Badminton practice. 8:30 PM: Dinner with family, Marathi film on Sony Marathi. 10:30 PM: Tracks expenses in Google Sheet, rails about ‘today’s overpriced cab fares’. 11:00 PM: Sleeps.

Lifestyle

Rakesh's 7 AM starts with a badminton match at Powai Gymkhana before work. His wife manages their household finances, but he monitors expenses via a shared Google Sheet. He eats lunch at office cafeterias (prefers spicy mutton curry on Thursdays). His evenings involve badminton league practice or family gatherings, often watching Marathi films on weekends. His 24-year-old daughter is pursuing law while his 21-year-old son works as a junior developer. He cancels gym sessions for financial news debates with his wife. Family trips are planned 6 months in advance, with budgets meticulously tracked. His biggest splurge is the annual family trip to Lonavala during Ganesh Chaturthi.

Work life

Rakesh's 9 AM-6 PM involves reviewing hiring reports, coaching recruiters, and meeting senior leadership. His team handles 500-800 applications weekly using Zoho Recruit, but manual phone screening is their bottleneck. He prizes discipline—his team's 10 AM coffee break is non-negotiable. Recent decisions include rejecting a WhatsApp-based recruitment tool (too chaotic) and pushing for better internet bandwidth. His biggest frustration is when recruiters skip his standard 5-point verification checklist. He prefers emails with bullet points (never paragraphs) and hates last-minute interview reschedules. His team's KPIs are all about speed and consistency, not quality.

Relationships

Rakesh’s extended family includes his retired industrialist father and homemaker mother. His close-knit network includes Powai Badminton League teammates and college HR batchmates. His wife, a school principal, handles most family decisions, though he secretly tracks expenses. His daughter considers him 'old-school' while his son admires his discipline. His BPO colleagues tease him but respect his no-nonsense approach. He defers to his wife’s judgment on big purchases but discreetly cross-checks prices. His childhood friends, now business owners, occasionally consult him about hiring challenges.

How they decide

Methodical. He researches for weeks (comparing 3-4 options in detailed notes), then suddenly makes a decision he won't revisit. Prefers verbal confirmations over emails (says 'a handshake means more than a PDF'). Punches spreadsheets for data before trusting intuition. Hates surprises—once planned a vacation 8 months in advance and cancelled when his boss mentioned a potential client visit.

How they sound

Speaks in clipped sentences, pauses between thoughts. Uses phrases like 'as per my understanding' and 'in my professional opinion'. Avoids slang (though swears in Marathi when stressed). Adds 'you see' after explanations. Uses 'aap' politely with seniors. Recites figures from memory but double-checks manuals. Hates 'creative' recruitment buzzwords (says 'we hire people, not ‘talent’').