Campus hiring gets hit as companies cut down on recruitment.
By R. Chandrasekaran
CHENNAI: Gone are the days where IT graduates found jobs easily. The situation has changed, especially after Infosys made its plan clear that it will hire as and when needed. Now, the National Association of Software Service Companies (NASSCOM) warns that IT companies may cut down campus hiring.
NASSCOM’s view comes on the heels of IT companies recruiting lower number of graduates from colleges during campus hiring, compared to last year. The IT sector blame tough business conditions and uncertainty in discretionary spending as the cause.
There are also other reasons for the change in thinking of IT companies. Firstly, the number of newer opportunities for the existing talent has come down thereby forcing employees to retain their jobs, thus resulting in a significant drop in the number of employees quitting.
Another reason is that IT companies seem to come under the view that there is more number of IT graduates available now unlike before the recession struck in 2008–09. For instance, an estimated 1.3 million engineering graduates are expected to have come out from the colleges in the current year compared to 365K in 2005. The hiring was very strong in 2006-07 when IT companies recruited about 400K engineers. However, this came to half in the last year.
This effectively indicates the companies’ change in tactics in the hiring process. Now that uncertainty has become more and more loud, they seem to be not in a hurry to recruit people and are content in hiring just-in-time. This is exactly what Infosys is trying to do in the current fiscal year.
Though Tata Consultancy Services indicated that it will indulge in campus hiring, the recruitment through the colleges are expected to be lower than the last year. It will not be a surprise if they too join the thinking of Infosys.
Normally, 60 – 70 percent of the recruitment done by the IT companies were through campus hiring. This is expected to come down to approximately 40 percent. The possible higher number of engineering graduates finding placement difficult in the college campus hiring will also force educational institutions to find alternative methods to make their curriculum attractive.
NASSCOM president Som Mittal told a financial daily that non-engineering colleges will have to explore different ways to project themselves as attractive for recruiters, as IT companies prefer engineers. He also added that campus recruitment may be split during the periods September and March and May and July.
To contact the author, email to rchandrasekaran@americanbazaaronline.com