The Hindu Business Line : IT cos keep engg students guessing

Bangalore, Aug 2 The global economic meltdown has touched Indian engineering campuses. Students in Bangalore and Chennai, who walked home last year with offer letters from large Indian IT companies, are now clutching on to hope that their date of joining would be announced soon.

Mr Vaidyanathan (name changed) says he has an offer letter from a leading Chennai-based software services firm, but has just been informed by the company that his date of joining has been deferred to October. “They have asked me to log into the company Web site everyday to look for an announcement for the joining date.”

Similarly, students in Bangalore too have been kept on hold till April 2009. Placement sources at Bangalore-based RV College of Engineering told Business Line that “two companies have deferred joining time for our students”, but refused to divulge details of the tech company.

Mr Rishi Das, CEO, Campus-Connect, an organisation that helps engineering colleges build relationships with tech firms, confirms that several “large companies have informed students that their joining date has been postponed to April-May next year.” “Recruitment for 2009, the process for which starts in July-August this year, too has slowed down by almost 40 per cent. There is definitely cautious hiring among the biggies like Infosys and Wipro,” he says.

‘honoured offers’

Responding to a query on this, Mr T. Sridhar, Chief People Officer, Cognizant, however, said that recruits to whom they made offers a year ago have started joining the company in the June-July time-frame this year and “will continue to join us in batches, as always”. “We have always honoured all campus offers irrespective of the market conditions, and this year is no different.”

“Recruitment in IITs too would be down by almost 20-25 per cent this year. Investment banks are some of the biggest recruiters there and as they are affected by the slowdown, they would definitely lie low this year,” says Mr Das.

More Stories on : Employment | Human Resources | Education

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page

Stories in this Section
IT cos keep engg students guessing

No 3G auction for CDMA players

India Inc has lower profit cushion to service debt

Weekly News Round-up

Quality norms for onion exports tightened

LIC’s first premium falls 12% in Q1

Market swings hit MFs hard

New chiefs for 4 PSBs