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IT’s back again: A campus recruitment

T. E. Raja Simhan

Chennai, Nov. 16 After staying away from campus recruitments through this academic year, information technology companies are all set to go to colleges to recruit.

But job offers for now are going to be restricted to those passing out this year.

This follows the commitment that the software companies gave the academic institutions, through their apex body Nasscom, that they would recruit engineering students only in December in their final, or the eighth, semester and not earlier.

With the global economic slowdown not quite yet over and a backlog of students from earlier batches yet to join their rolls, companies have found it logical not to recruit students in the third year or in the first semester of the fourth year, as was the usual practice in the IT boom years. For this year, the process has begun in a small way with companies such as Hewlett Packard’s Research and Development Labs, National Instruments and Texas Instruments recruiting students from campuses. These students will join the rolls of the companies in fiscal 2010-11, said sources.

Campus placement will start in full swing from the first week of December when software companies will visit the colleges. The placement will go on till end January, according to placement officers of various colleges. Companies are yet to finalise their campus placement numbers, they say. Infosys took in a total of, including college graduates, about 13,600 in the 2008-09 while about 18,000 are expected to join its rolls this fiscal. Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) had made about 24,885 offers to campus recruits who will join through 2009-10.

In a recent interaction with the investment community, Mr Gordon Coburn, Chief Financial and Operating Officer, Cognizant Technology Solutions, said that in the third quarter ended September 2009, the company accelerated both lateral hiring and intake of college graduates. “(For)…college graduates we accelerated to finish out the 2008 class as well as intake of the 2009 class. In a couple of weeks we’ll be on campus starting to recruit for the 2010 class. We have a good pipeline and we are bringing the people on sooner than expected,” he said.

Big recruiters such as TCS, Cognizant, Infosys, iNautix and iGate have confirmed their visit from the second week of December, said Mr G. K. Rajesh, Placement Officer, Thyagaraja College of Engineering, Madurai. The college has already placed 25 engineering graduates with top multinational R&D companies. “We have started training our students for placements,” he said. Last year, 753 students were recruited from the college. This year too it is going to be a similar number. Other than software companies, companies such as the TVS group and Titan visit the college, he said.

According to Mr B. T. Maran, Placement Officer at SRM University, Chennai, this year around 130 companies are expected to visit its campus for recruitment, which will start from December 15 and go on till January end.

While the dates have not been set, top 25-30 companies have conveyed their interest in recruitment, he said. Last year, 1,240 of its students were placed with various companies, and this year too the number would be the same. Prof Pullabhotla, Director, Placement, Vellore Institute of Technology, said: “There are positive signs with all the top companies talking to us for recruiting our students. However, the exact numbers and dates have not been finalised,” he said.

Placement officers feel the salary level may not increase or drop compared with last year. But, one official felt that companies may not offer a reduced salary as they do not want to lose students.

Competition is hotting up between TCS and Cognizant for being the first to get a shot at recruitment in various colleges of Tamil Nadu. “It is a tough fight between the two,” said an official.

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