Following reports of more than 2,000 freshers from the 2022 batch receiving their final offer letters from Infosys, around 700 campus hires are still waiting for their joining dates, according to people impacted by the delay who spoke to Moneycontrol.
The said roles are for System Engineers (SE) and Digital Specialist Engineers (DSE), who say they have sat for two pre-training sessions, with the latest one being in August. Of this, about 500 are for SE roles from the 2022 batch while around 200 are DSE candidates from the 2023 batch.
These DSE candidates were hired after clearing the advanced “HackWithInfy” competition in 2022, during their third year of the four-year engineering degree.
India’s second-largest software exporter sent offer letters back in 2022 but did not on-board the candidates after the IT industry faced a slump. This phenomenon, however, is an industry-wide issue. Fears of a looming recession in IT companies' major markets and the absence of discretionary spending led companies to pause hiring, leading to a multi-decadal decline in headcount.
On September 3, Infosys sent letters with joining dates to approximately 1,000 freshers from 2022 campus hires, just a day after it issued similar number of letters, according to the Pune-based employee union Nascent Information Technology Employees Senate (NITES).
“People who have received joining dates till now are mostly those who have completed their pre-training in July 2024,” said one of the candidates mentioned above. “Why are we being made to sit for these assessments again and again when we have successfully run the codes earlier and passed the exams?”
For context, candidates were asked to appear for a test that had two coding tests and about 25 multiple-choice questions after completion of pre-training assessments in July, people aware of the matter said. Some candidates allege ad hoc selection criteria for certain freshers who have been issued offer letters so far, claiming many haven’t even attended assessment after completing the pre-training sessions.
Moneycontrol has reached out to Infosys for a comment and the story will be updated as and when the company responds. In July, the Bengaluru-based company stated that a small portion of the earlier hires were pending.
The issue began when the company reached out to candidates, who were issued offer letters in 2022, a couple of months ago. Since then, candidates have complained that multiple rounds of pre-training sessions and assessments have made them apprehensive about the whole process of hiring.
They question why, despite receiving offer letters in 2022 and completing assessments as recently as August, they are being asked to go through the process repeatedly.
Fate of DSE candidates
Freshers who have received offer letters till now are mostly candidates for the SE roles and that too from the batch that passed out in 2022. However, around 200 DSE candidates from the 2023 batch now fear that they might not receive offer letters at all.
“SE candidates made noise which added pressure to the company to take action but since we are less in number when compared to the 2022 batch, we think our issue might be brushed aside,” said one of the candidates.
“Will they hire two SE candidates in place of one DSE candidate and leave us behind?” asked another 2023 batch fresher. While the salary of a SE commanded Rs 3.6 lakh per annum, the position of DSE fetched Rs 6.5 lakh per annum, according to the people mentioned above.
To be sure, about 100 out of 300 selected candidates have received offer letters from the DSE pool, people aware of the matter said.
Some of the DSE candidates that Moneycontrol spoke with said they have been informed that an assessment will be held offline. However, details such as date and location are yet to be communicated.
Recently, Infosys CEO Salil Parekh indicated that offers given to freshers would be honoured by the company and followed with joining, although there has been some change in dates. "Every offer that we have given, that offer will be someone who will join the company. We changed some dates but beyond that everyone will join Infosys and there is no change in that approach," Parekh had said.
Pune-based IT employee union NITES had earlier filed a request to the Ministry of Labour & Employment to investigate the company for the “exploitation and unprofessional treatment” of 2,000 engineering graduates, who were selected for SE and DSE roles during the 2022-23 recruitment drive.
Infosys had hired over 50,000 freshers in financial year 2022-23 from campuses, which plunged to nearly 11,900 college graduates in FY23-24, CEO and MD Salil Parekh, said in the company’s annual report released on June 3.
This came at a time when the company posted its first-ever full-year headcount decline in over two decades.
Also read: Infosys’ full-year headcount declines for the first time in 23 years, net addition drops by 25,994
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