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Anjali Prayag

Bangalore, Feb. 1 In a recent recruitment drive for graduate engineers by Life Insurance Corporation of India, over 850 engineers applied for 40 posts.

A sea change from this time last year when the bluest of blue-chip companies saw engineers make a beeline for jobs in the software sector.

The insurance giant will soon start recruitment process for Class I officers and expects about 3.5 lakh people to apply for 1,000 positions. Last year, the applicant number stood at 2 lakh.

Ms D. Vijayalakshmi, Executive Director, Personnel, LIC of India, says the slowdown has turned the country’s employable pool in PSUs’ favour.

Mr D. Jagdish Babu, Deputy General Manager & Circle Development Officer, State Bank of India, says despite a recessionary market, the bank’s hiring tempo has not come down at all. But the bank is definitely seeing a change in the calibre of talent, “with more and more people from the private sector (mainly IT) applying for the jobs”.

The hiring process for the current year (ending March ’09) is still on and the bank has recruited 30,000 people across all levels. About 24 lakh candidates applied for the jobs. “In the coming year, we plan to recruit at least 25,000 people and we expect the number of applicants to go up by almost 10-15 per cent,” he says.

Assessment firm MeritTrac Services, which has handled PSU hiring recruitment in the past, finds that recruitment has intensified in the sector.

“The company is now selecting three in 100 people compared to one in 100 five years ago,” says Mr Madan Padaki, Director of the firm.

MeritTrac is currently working with a large oil PSU and a BFSI public sector giant for assessments and application processing. The company is also an assessment partner for the Government of Gujarat and the Indian Institute of Banking and Finance.

“There is a perceptible change in public opinion about careers in PSUs and this is not just because of the recession,” explains Mr Padaki.

These companies also have turned more HR-savvy and have brought in employee-friendly measures like training and learning opportunities that have made them attractive destinations for job seekers.

More Stories on : PSU | Human Resources

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