V Sridhar, chief of headhunting firm CRV Consultants, which has clients such as Yahoo, Hewlett Packard, Cisco Systems and Wipro on its books, told AFP there was a "mad scramble" for IT professionals.
"There are not many people out there to poach. India's IT engineers have a brand equity and there are a lot of companies setting up new business every day," Sridhar said.
On an average, about three to four so-called "dotcom" Internet-based companies are being set up daily in Bangalore, which is known as the Silicon Valley of India.
Of the 4,500 enterprises currently in business, more than 1,500 have some foreign element, with total foreign investment reaching US$2.14 billion in 1999.
"It is like a jigsaw puzzle. One has to match the client's expectations with the best available. One cannot get complacent in this business as you have to constantly search," Sridhar said.
A combination of higher salaries, employee stock options, cutting-edge technologies and better working environments are the baits that poachers use in the business.
"The bait of learning on the job is the best I ever give. And it works," Sridhar said.
Most software engineers, Web designers and creative consultants at top advertising agencies frequently receive what they describe as a "jackpot call" from unknown headhunters.
"My 'jackpot call' came out of the blue. And, it was my third call from a person who did not know me at all but was offering a job in an as yet to be set up dotcom firm," said Pavi Krishnan, creative consultant at Mudra Communications, one of India's leading advertising agencies.
"He said the chief of the company wanted to meet me within a few hours. He asked me for more contacts, which I gave, though he still insisted that I meet the managing director," Krishnan said.
At the city's downtown pubs, headhunters wait over pitchers of beer to ensnare software engineers who come out for a late night drink.
"We keep tabs of employee movement in the IT industry, to which we assign a specialist core team," said Santosh Joseph, principal consultant at Ma Foi Management Consultants, India's only headhunting agency to go public.
"The shelf-life of people in the IT industry is very low. We have to enable a quick response and the demand is high," Joseph said.
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