Campus hiring unchanged despite slowdown

The low number of recruitment by regular companies was “more than compensated” by new recruiters at Chennai-based Great Lakes Institute of Management.

Despite some turmoil in the industry, campus recruitment by companies in the tech arena is showing positive signs with major colleges and staffing firms witnessing an uptick in demand.

Talent solutions firm NLB Services noted that startups and IT companies are still actively involved in campus hiring to land the right candidates. The firm expects that fresh graduates via campus hiring will lie somewhere between 20,000 and 60,000 this year, a range that approximates that of the previous year.

Though there is a change in the strategy of recruiters, colleges such as Great Lakes Institute of Management, KL University, Guntur, GITAM University, a chain of educational institutions across Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Karnataka, and Manipal Institute of Technology (MIT) did not witness any impact on placement numbers.

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This year, employers are giving more importance to skills, which outweighs tier-1 college degrees this year as opposed to bulk hiring in the last two years, Sachin Alug, CEO of NLB Service, told Moneycontrol. Amid layoffs, Alug added that having transferable or portable skills is one of the factors employers will consider.

For instance, at MIT, there are fewer students being hired by the IT sector. On the flip side, the college also witnessed an increase in hiring from core non-IT companies.

Normally, MIT categorises the companies that visit the campus as core and non-core. The core is specific to the branch of the student's study. Non-core is otherwise. For instance, companies like Samsung, Ericsson will be core to the electronics and communication students, whereas BCG or McKinsey may not be core to them. Here, core non-IT companies include firms that are hiring techies but whose business does not depend on it, like, say, Tata Motors hiring for artificial intelligence and machine learning experts.

Besides, typically, the placement season starts when the student is in their seventh semester (August) and will go on till they graduate (July/August) next year. But there will be companies that will have requirements even after the stipulated time frame. MIT facilitates the placement process for unplaced students for at least two years even after they graduate.

“The general feedback from companies in the IT sector, particularly global players, is that the reduced intake will continue till the end of next year. The sector is waiting and watching the impact of the recession in various markets,” KV Sriram, professor, the department of humanities and management at MIT, told Moneycontrol.

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The low number of recruitment by regular companies was “more than compensated” by new recruiters at Chennai-based Great Lakes Institute of Management. This led the institute to reach 100 percent placement despite global headwinds.

The new recruiters include McKinsey, Mahindra & Mahindra, HSBC, Berger Paints, Fullerton, Gale Partners, Infosys Consulting, PwC, Barclays, Tata Motors, Aditya Birla Capital and Reliance Retail, among others.

“Compared to last year, companies are slightly cautious. Earlier, they used to hire aggressively but now they have become moderate.” said Balaji Mani, group director of corporate and career services at Great Lakes Institute of Management, Chennai.

IT freshers may hit some blows

Currently, campus hiring is limited to a specific period, typically between May and September, which is a crucial part of each company's recruitment process, observed Aditya Narayan Mishra, MD and CEO of CIEL HR Services. However, he anticipated that campus hiring will transition to a year-round process in response to changing business needs.

IT services companies like Wipro, Cognizant, Infosys, TCS, Tech Mahindra, Accenture and HCL Technologies are high-volume campus recruiters in India. As these sectors are mainly affected by the overall growth bump in the economy, freshers will face some blows, Mishra added.

“The average and highest CTCs (cost to companies) for all major business and engineering programmes have increased during the previous year,” said Rahul Veerwal, founder of campus recruiting platform GetWork.

However, he said the packages given out by bulk-hiring companies remained the same.

Other experts feel the scenario is expected to improve in the next few months for all sectors.

“The payout range might not see a big increase in most cases but the number of job openings for freshers stepping out of campus is obviously set to increase once the next financial year starts,” said RP Yadav, CMD of HR consulting firm Genius Consultants.