Campus hiring becomes a hotspot for companies meeting their diversity goals

Further, a 2022 report by the World Economic Forum revealed that less than one in five leadership roles in the energy sector are held by women, calling it the “worst industry” for women in leadership.

In an attempt to change the past, energy giant Tata Power has been consistently hiring 30 percent of female talent from colleges over the last decade. During the boom times, the firm boasted of over 600 campus hires and during times of industry slowdown it tried to get 30-40 campus hires on board. These concerted efforts have helped the firm enhance its gender ratio from 6.85 percent to the current 14.6 percent, with aspirations to touch 20 percent by FY2.

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Wherever motorcycle manufacturer TVS Motor hired from campus, the HR teams looked to have 50 percent of women candidates. And in the last four years, the firm has averaged between 33 and 40 percent.

“This is an opportunity I think we have missed utilising. But the profile of talent is also changing—there are lots of women available in the program management, data and analytics space,” said R Anandakrishnan, President of HR and IT at TVS Motor.

Tata Steel has a ‘Women of mettle’ programme where it identifies young potential candidates, in the second year of their engineering degree, through a contest. It gives the company 1,300-1,400 CVs of women every year from engineering colleges for manufacturing. Around 50 of them make it to the competitions and eventually 10 of them get selected every year.

Avtar Group, which tracks diversity efforts of organisations and helps meet their goals, said there are over 1,000 campuses that are women-only—about 30 percent of the total number of colleges where there is an exclusive availability of women talent pool.

This gives an advantage to companies in finding and hiring female talent. “Campus hiring is the traditional and effective method for companies to recruit fresh talent from universities and colleges,” said Saundarya Rajesh, founder and president of Avtar Group.

BFSI sector not behind

Among other goals, US-based BFSI (banking, financial services and insurance) major Citigroup has also set a target to hire 50 percent women among the overall new hires by 2025.

“One of the things we've implemented over time, and we were once again the first in the market to go with that level of clarity, was the representation goals we established. We looked at those two representation goals, from a gender perspective and equally from an ethnicity perspective. What we've been doing is achieving the goals we have set for ourselves,” said Juan Manuel Cerda, MD and global head of talent acquisition and people insights at Citigroup.

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Without divulging current diversity numbers, investment banking company UBS said it has seen positive outcomes from the efforts but the journey will continue to evolve. Currently, the goal is to have 50 percent female graduates in India.

“Globally, our target is to equalise the employee gender ratio. And one of the ways to achieve that is through an increased percentage of female talent hired from colleges, thereby building a pipeline of potential women leaders for the organisation,” said Jyothi Menon, head of HR and head of HR service delivery at UBS India.

Tech sector maintains its pace

A 2022 report by the World Bank highlighted that women make up nearly 43 percent of the total graduates in science, technology, engineering and mathematics in India. This makes it easier for HR departments in IT companies to hire female freshers.

Companies in IT such as IBM and Tata Technologies have laid clear emphasis on promoting junior candidates. “What has changed over time is women are much more confident about taking on expanded roles and getting into senior or managerial roles,” said Prachi Rastogi, diversity and inclusion leader, Asia-Pacific, at IBM.

However, she highlighted that due to systemic biases, women put their careers on the back burner. “It's really important to start training their tender minds right in the beginning so that they don't fall out when tough situations happen,” she said.

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As far as IT is concerned, Pawan Bhageria, president of global HR, IT, administration and education at Tata Technologies, observed that attracting female employees is easy. “A lot of girls are doing MCA, computer science and various kinds of computer training,” he said.

A year and a half ago, the gender ratio at the company was around 14 percent of female employees, which it wants to take to at least 25 percent, to begin with.

Persisting challenges

Colleges such as the Manipal Institute of Technology in Karnataka predict an increase in diversity hiring in coming years. However, companies say some challenges remain.

According to Himal Tewari, CHRO of Tata Power, gender stereotypes continue to be a significant roadblock to women's career advancement, shaping managerial behaviour and occupational expectations that reinforce patriarchal norms.

“Nevertheless, the narrative is slowly changing as women are gaining better access to education and pursuing higher education,” he added.

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Further, companies look to governments for support. For instance, Tata Steel is restricted to employing women in three shifts as there are no night shifts allowed for women in Jharkhand, a major area of operations.

“Just last month we got permission in Kalinganagar in Odisha. Once it changes, we'll have more bandwidth to take women,” said Atrayee Sanyal, vice president of HR management at Tata Steel.

With changing availability of female talent in various sectors such as manufacturing, electronics and heavy industries, HR leaders feel the gender ratio in most traditional industries is set to change. However, women themselves have to change their outlook and challenge internal biases in the form of imposter syndrome.

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“A lot that women have to also do to make a dent here, which is believing in yourself to take risks. As Henry Ford said: ‘Whether you think you can, or you think you can't — you're right’,” IBM’s Rastogi said.