It’s raining jobs in Indian IT. But there aren’t enough qualified people. So resignations are soaring in the $195-billion industry. Everyone’s poaching from each other. Techies with a few years of experience are holding multiple job offers.
They are being wooed with joining bonuses. Fintech firm BharatPe is offering BMW bikes to new joinees. There are others offering iPhones and flexi-working. Some companies are even paying Rs 1,000 to Rs 5,000 each to candidates to take their assessment tests, irrespective of whether the candidates eventually join these firms.
Recruitment firms are minting money. But they are also at their wits end. They are working overtime, and candidate negotiations have become a nightmare. By the time they make an offer, the candidate has received another better one. And then they have to go back to their client to see if they could up their offer.
Saravanan Balasundaram, founder and CEO of talent consultancy firm Han Digital, said they schedule more than 1,000 interviews a week, but in 40% of these cases, either the candidate does not show up, or internet connectivity issues result in the interview being cancelled or postponed. “Of the 600 interviews that happen, only about 75 join,” he said.
Siva Prasad Nanduri, VP and business head at IT staffing firm TeamLease Digital, said the talent demand from IT firms was 5,000 in the quarter ended April, but this jumped to 20,000 in the quarter ended June.
TCS, Infosys, HCL and Wipro together expect to hire 1 lakh people this fiscal year. Cognizant alone plans to hire 1 lakh experienced professionals and onboard 30,000 freshers this year, as also make 45,000 offers to campus recruits who would join the company next year. Global demand for digitisation, following the experiences of the pandemic, has resulted in a sharp pickup in business for IT firms.
Discussion about this post