Slow tech hiring leaves engineering talent in a quandary

India’s engineering talent is in a quandary as campuses struggle to get companies to hire them. This is particularly true for campuses that are part of the mass recruitment of the IT services industry, as well as the elite institutes.

First the good part: Bulk hirers that represent the Indian IT services sector are back at campuses to recruit from the graduating class of 2024. But these companies are not hiring with the same frenzy as they did a few years back.

Companies that have hit the campuses to hire include some of India’s largest IT services players Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Accenture, IBM, HCLTech and Cognizant. Wipro is yet to visit campuses. While Infosys has started the process, it has not shared any numbers with campuses on its hiring target.

Some of the campuses that confirmed the presence of the above firms include Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT), Anna University, Manipal Institute of Technology (MIT) and others who did not wish to be identified.

Among those who have finished their process of placements at VIT are TCS, Accenture, IBM, and HCLTech. Cognizant’s placement process is underway at the institute. While these companies are visiting campuses to recruit from the batch of 2024, typically this process begins in August-September of the preceding year in a normal cycle.

“This year the companies are coming to hire students in March-April to join in July-August. Companies want to spend less, as many have to spend on the training of these freshers, many are looking for students who have done additional certification,” said a faculty member on condition of anonymity.

TCS, for instance, has given offer letters to over 900 students at VIT. It has three categories of hiring — Prime, Digital and Ninja. TCS hired 103 in the Prime category with a salary of Rs 9 lakh per annum (LPA), 546 in the Digital category with Rs 7 LPA and 314 in the Ninja category with Rs 3.6 LPA.

The second highest is Accenture with 181 hires for a salary of Rs 12 LPA, followed by IBM hiring 95 with a salary of Rs 4.5 LPA and 10 with a salary of Rs 9 LPA. HCLTech gave offer letters to 24 students of VIT with a salary of Rs 8.5 LPA.

MIT also confirmed that TCS and Infosys have visited the campuses. However they declined to share the actual number of offers these firms have given students.

Muted campus placements
But some campuses have not seen much activity for the batch of 2024. “We have TCS at campus but they have taken very few students this year, compared to last year. For each of the three categories they hire, they have taken only 1-2 students. Last year they gave offers to over 70 students,” said a senior faculty at NIT Rourkela.

The macro uncertainty and over-hiring in the previous years is also hitting premier institutes as well. Earlier in the year, reports stated that the IIMs have seen a drop in companies participating in placements.

Premier technology institute Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Bombay also reported that the number of companies that visited this year for placements is lower than last year. Over 300 companies have visited till date this year, compared to an average of 340 companies that visited in the past two years.

“We have 1,308 students placed to date out of 1,973 students who participated in the placement season of 2023-24. Therefore, 33.7 per cent of students remained unplaced. However, the placement season is still ongoing and ends on June 30th 2024,” said Sameer Jadhav, professor-in-charge of placements, IIT Bombay. This also has meant that there has been a marginal drop in the median salaries compared to last year.

He also clarified that the fall in the number of companies is because of reduced hiring in the non-core IT/software sector, reflecting a global trend. Jadhav pointed out that this is not the first time this is happening. “In the placement season of 2020-21 our number of students placed was significantly lower than the current year due to the Covid-19 pandemic,” he said.

“Many of the IT firms have said that they may visit the campuses later in the year. But many still have to onboard students who passed out in 2023,” said a faculty of an engineering college on condition of anonymity.

Core sector dominance
The bad news: Engineering campuses have confirmed that while the number of students hired from campus has dropped, the process of hiring has become stringent as well. Companies now require more than just academic marks; they seek students with internship experience or extra certification courses.

Jadhav of IIT Bombay noted that in a typical year the IT sector would hire 30 per cent of the students. But this year, it has been predominantly the core sector companies that have been recruiting students.

“Companies are focussing on skill-based hiring. They give more weightage to those students who have done certifications like AWS, Salesforce, Oracle, Microsoft etc,” said V Samuel Rajkumar, director, career development centre, VIT Vellore.

Another faculty of a large engineering institute from southern India said that psychometric tests, which would be part of the test much later in the process, have now become part of the aptitude test. “Earlier, if companies were fine with 60 per cent, now they want students who are in the 70 per cent range. One of the reasons for this could also be because the 2024 batch was the one that had to undergo online teaching for two years,” he said. Business Standard