The waiting game: IT freshers suffer agony and desperation as top firms delay onboarding for a year

Fresher onboarding has been delayed by several companies such as Wipro, LTIMindtree, Mphasis, and others, albeit the first may be the most well-documented. And despite the passage of a year, some freshers continue to hope that the onboarding call may come, even if it may be for lack of any other option.

A slim chance

Ritesh, another fresher awaiting the call from Tech Mahindra for a year-and-a-half, says more than anything, it's the radio silence that’s unacceptable. He was part of the batch whose graduation was delayed due to the pandemic, putting him at a further disadvantage. Technically from the batch of 2021 and not 2022 — it's a matter of getting closure for Ritesh now. “Being such a big MNC, such behaviour from Tech Mahindra is unacceptable. There should at least be an update that the drive has been cancelled. There should be an official update so we don’t cling to hope anymore,” he says.

With onboarding delayed across several companies, freshers had banded together and formed Telegram groups — to coordinate, ask the company for information, get updates from each other and in general, foster a sense of community. Conversations on these groups initially used to be passionate with anger directed at the companies— sometimes by commenting en masse on LinkedIn posts of executives of the companies in question. Updates would come thick and fast, with every news report and every bit of hearsay being shared. However, after a year, the conversation in these groups has muted, and now there are largely requests for help with technical questions, and sometimes, referrals for other jobs.

Ravi, another fresher waiting for Wipro’s onboarding, grows increasingly agitated during the conversation and doesn’t have much hope that the call from Wipro will come. He has been making ends meet by working as a daily-wage labourer. Ravi even went through Wipro’s ‘Velocity’ upskilling program but even that hasn’t bettered his chances. He is now moving back to his village to work on his family’s land.

Loans and expectations start bearing down

Even as they wait, there is pressure from family as well as looming loan repayments. “I am getting calls from my bank every other day for loan repayment,” says Ravi.

“I have paid Rs 85,000 per year, for my engineering course. I took a loan for it, now I am getting calls from the bank asking me to start repaying the loan. There are 4 members in my family, my father is the only earning member. It is difficult to make ends meet with just one person earning,” he says.

Kumar, another graduate awaiting Wipro’s call, had taken a loan of Rs 1.5 lakh, which he hoped to pre-close. Instead, his repayments start in September, and he says the job has to come through by then, in order to start making the payments. Apart from the loans, those waiting for the onboarding call also have to deal with taunts from family as well as pressure from them for not having started their job yet.

“My college touted these top 5 companies to be the best. Instead, people hired by mid-sized companies have jobs. My family sees them and thinks it's because I don't have skills,” he says.

Dhwani, on the other hand, is also under pressure because of a large education loan. “Of course, I’m under pressure. I'm from a middle-class family. My parents had huge expectations of me but I failed to meet them. I have an education loan of nearly Rs 8 lakh. My family needs my support in these tough conditions. Instead of helping them financially, I have become a burden on them,” she says.

Paras, a counselling psychologist and co-founder of The Alternative Story, says that graduating and getting your first job is one of the big milestones that people of this generation look to achieve. “Graduating and getting the first job are markers of having come of age, and there’s a lot of hope riding on somebody's first job, especially if they come from the lower strata of society,” he says.

He adds that youngsters put in work and get an offer but when things don’t work out, it’s not just their confidence that’s impacted but it also takes away a sense of control. “You grew up believing that if you put in the work and follow the process, there would be results. When the results don't come, you question why you did any of this in the first place. It’s a loss of identity, it’s a major setback,” he adds.

The dream of a technical job

Kumar, Ravi, Ritesh, and Dhwani all say the same thing — non-technical roles are available but technical roles are what they want.

Ravi rues that no one is hiring freshers, even when they look out — whether it be startups or established companies. “I am not interested in non-technical roles. In tech roles, I am ready to work for any company even if they give a small salary. But there is no hiring whatsoever,” says Ravi.

Ritesh, in fact, took up a job at a BPO to help pay the bills after he drained his savings. At this stage, the BPO job pays more than what Tech Mahindra offered but for him, it's a question of the big picture career prospects. “I’ve done graduation with a technical degree I should get a job for a technical degree. I joined this company because I can’t sit idle. I need money for my expenses alone if nothing else,” he says. He also rues that the four years he spent studying engineering would be a waste.

“My course cost Rs 12 lakh. We've invested this amount so we can have a better future. All savings are gone,” he says.

Kumar, too, says that non-technical roles are available, even if it's at slightly lesser pay but he’s not taking them up as he wants a technical role.

But what about using such jobs as a stop-gap? He says Wipro is supposed to give a two-month heads-up prior to onboarding, but they are only informed a week in advance. “If I join another company now, I have a one-month notice period. I can't even get out quickly. I cannot quit that quickly and join officially.”

“I’m a phase 1 hire in Wipro. If I do say something and leave that previous company, I can get rejected at the background verification stage. It'll be a waste to have waited for this year when I could have taken a non-technical job. I’m too afraid to pick up anything else as it may lead to some cancellation when Wipro eventually comes through. If they actually give us a two-month heads up, I'd take a non-technical job, make some money, resign properly, and come and join,” Kumar says.

Upskill scramble

All four of them have been doing courses online to upskill — free or otherwise. Kumar took a machine learning course from Coursera, and even wrote to them and availed financial aid to be able to afford it. But it’s not enough.

When freshers go to job fairs, they are asked tech stack-oriented questions. “If I sit for the interviews of 5 companies, one wants Java, another wants Python. When everyone is asking for different things it's very confusing to decide which one to study for. Every time there is an interview, I learn whatever I can for that interview because it'll take 2-2.5 months to learn it fully. It’s very shallow learning,” Kumar says.

“My career has had a break and I'm juggling substitute measures. I get asked why I have such a long break, so side-by-side I am doing some projects and I'm claiming that I was doing this instead to show that my time has been useful,” he adds.

Fear of being terminated

In most IT companies in question, freshers have to undergo training and assessment before they are deployed on billable projects. Given the gap between their graduation and the call for onboarding, any termination of employment for failing the assessment is a double blow in cases where candidates have remained unemployed for over 8 months. It’s a sword hanging over the heads of these graduates — especially as they see it happen to their peers and friends.

Wipro recently got flak for this practice, after it was revealed that the employment of 452 freshers had been terminated. In an interview with Moneycontrol last month, Chief Human Resources Officer Saurabh Govil said that assessments have been happening for years as people are away from actual work from the time they graduate till the time they are onboarded. “It is to help them get trained and again make an investment in them. I don't know why it's becoming an issue,” he said.

However, Kumar claims that these assessments have become harder, with fewer chances to clear them.

He’s now in a no-win situation — waiting for his chance to be onboarded and putting off other things but also terrified of losing the job even when he does get the opportunity.

This combination of unpredictable situations has a mental health impact that can’t be understated, says Paras, especially given there is no support system in this case where the onboarding is random.

“When a situation is both isolating as well as unpredictable, those are the kinds of situations that have the worst kind of mental health impacts. In times of uncertainty, when you don’t have even a modicum of control and the unpredictability is also there in full force, that is the worst kind of effect,” he says.

In some cases, it has led to depression and even thoughts of suicide. “I do have thoughts of attempting suicide at night when I go to sleep. Every night I wonder why I’m living this life if I’m even allowed to trouble my parents like this. What if I attempt suicide instead?” Dhwani says.

Queries sent to Infosys, Tech Mahindra and Wipro were unanswered.

What should companies do?

The delay in onboarding, lack of clarity on when it may be, as well as the assessments have caused a lot of angst among fresh graduates — whether it be Wipro, LTIMindtree, or any other IT major. Companies across the board have maintained that all offers they have made will be honoured, but no timelines have been offered.

This isn’t the first time it’s happened— HR experts say this scenario played out in 2009 (due to the financial crisis) and around the time of the dotcom bust in 2001 as well. In the case of the former too, onboarding was delayed by nearly a year, and assessments were put in place. However, the delay tends to have a cascading effect, where the next batch is also affected as hiring is down.

It happened to foundit (formerly Monster) CEO Sekhar Garisa too. “I had to wait for nine months for my onboarding but looking back now, it really hasn't changed my career trajectory at all," he says. "A small setback for a few months or a year won't change your career as long as you remain positive and focus on advancing your knowledge and skills. Use this time intentionally to develop your knowledge, skills, personality, and fitness. Once you're caught up in the career treadmill, you won't have this opportunity to upskill again,” he says.

Former Infosys HR head Nandita Gurjar says the impact on the individual remains the same, no matter how many are impacted.

She stresses that large IT companies must make a commitment, and can afford to do so.

“Large companies should really communicate when onboarding will happen. Large companies cannot say that I can't make a commitment, they can afford to have them unutilised on the bench. People's careers are on hold. The uncertainty of when it is going to happen is even more torturous than having the information that it will be delayed,” she says.

Talent solutions firm Diamondpick co-founder Sriram Rajagopal says the pressure is also more due to the placement schedule of colleges, which leads companies to hire a year in advance. The recruiting cycle must shift by six months, he adds.

The solution for this would potentially be to create a fungible entry-level common pool of talent at an industry level where companies can use them depending on the need, he says, rather than hiring and not being able to honour the commitments.

Advice for graduates

Gurjar and Rajagopal, as well as people in the education industry, stress only one thing: students need to upskill.

“Graduates of the 2022 batch can make good of the waiting period through upskilling certifications as entry-level job opportunities in emerging areas are still available. Recruiters who are delaying onboarding may also offer free certification programs to them and facilitate alternate job prospects. Students are advised to also be on the lookout for pooled recruitment drives and other direct recruitment happening on a real-time basis,” says S Vaidhyasubramaniam Vice-Chancellor, SASTRA University.

Gurjar also stresses that they should start reskilling, know at least two or three of the languages and learn newer skills.

“Spending time on learning, instead of believing that it's now the organisation's job to make sure that they give them work — I think is an attitude of the old. We have to start changing their attitude and saying that it’s my job to get myself utilised and not sit on the bench,” she says.

Rajagopal adds they have to work toward making their profile distinct and unique, so they can grab eyeballs.

“Upskill in relevant skills, make your profile unique and be competitive. Especially in the world of generative AI, the need for thousands of programmers is going to go away very soon. You’re going to have generative AI as an assistant to your programmer. IT services are going through a change. People have to be aware, pick up skills that are relevant, and be current,” he advises.