If you think you've cleared a campus interview by an IT firm and your career's made, you might be mistaken. You could be one among over 100,000 campus IT recruits hired last year to be put on "indefinite wait". Domestic and multinational IT companies are busy sending such bulk mails to candidates hired last year, who would have joined them in the April-June quarter.

"The industry is under stress due to the US recession and rupee appreciation. So we have taken a decision to stagger the induction of hundreds of our campus recruits. It makes financial and logical sense for us," said the head of training & hiring in a tier 1 tech firm who did not want to be named.

The wait for many could range from a quarter to a year, while for at least 30% it could be for ever. "That means, some may not even be called at all," said an industry source.

 

Information technology firms appear to have lost their appeal at the Indian Institutes of Technology. Campus recruitment figures by major Indian and foreign IT firms have dipped this year, raising further concerns of an industry slowdown.

Firms like IBM, HCL, Hughes Software and CSC opted out of placements this year and hiring by firms like India's largest IT services provider Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys and Wipro has dropped.

Confirming the trend, a placement official from IIT Roorkee said: "While many companies say they have a particular number in mind and would recruit likewise, our alumni network at these companies informs us that these IT giants are exercising restraint in recruiting trainees due to a slowdown."

Agreed a placement official from IIT Kanpur: "Like every year, the institute offered the regular number of students to these IT companies for placements but they did not pick as many students."

Recruitment by IT companies at IIT Kanpur has gone down from 130 students in 2007 to 72 in 2008. .... . .

Did you know that the best job for a fresher is in a startup? Well, it is.
Did you know that the best job for a growing professional or someone who loves challenges, is in a startup? Well, it is.

Proto.in is taking on new heights and I am quite proud of it, everyday that I get to work more on it and sit and disseminate some of the ground level issues that companies, teams and individuals are facing to make things happen. Efficiency is the name of the game in the valley and that is essentially what makes things click. Well, we are gonna have to work a little to get this machine well oiled and get to that point. But there is certainly pleasure and a privilege in laying the groundwork for it all to come through.
 

Bangalore, Dec 20 : The Infosys Technologies Ltd is on a hiring spree. For the ensuing fiscal year (FY 2008-09), it has made a whopping 18,000 job offers in about 1,000 colleges across the country to take its total headcount to over 100,000, a top company official said here Thursday.

'We have offered jobs to about 18,000 graduating engineers in campus interviews conducted in 1,000 engineering colleges across India during the first two quarters of this fiscal. The offer is by far the largest ever by an IT firm in the sub-continent,' Infosys board member T V Mohandas Pai told reporters here.

'To meet our growing demand for quality human capital, we plan to hire about 9,000 freshers in the third quarter (Oct-Dec) and 4,500 in the fourth quarter (Jan-March) of this fiscal (FY 2008),' he added.

It sounds like the proverbial pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. But unlike the proverbial one, the Engineering Services Outsourcing (ESO) pot is quite within the reach. A recent report Globalization of Engineering Services published by National Association of Software and Services Companies (Nasscom) and Booz Allen Hamilton predicts that India has the potential to garner around 25 per cent of the global ESO pie, worth around $50 billion by 2020.

The engineering services space is currently exploding, thanks to robust growth across Europe, Asia and the US. According to the report, the total engineering services market was worth $746 billion in 2004 and will touch $1,100 billion by 2020. Of this the outsourced component could be worth around $200 billion. Currently, the ESO market is worth around $15 billion with India garnering a healthy 12 per cent share.

Hi-tech/telecom (30 per cent), automotive (19 per cent) and aerospace (8 per cent) are the major verticals going by the sector wise spend. According to the report, in 2020, there would not be any major shifts in the vertical spends, with a slight increase in hi-tech/telecom spend. This is where India could make a killing.