Indian B-schools slowly getting pre-placement offers

The economy is moving very slowly towards recovery and it is clearly visible at management institutes as the pre-placement scenario is yet to gain pace.

It’s around end of July and by this time Indian B-schools start getting pre-placement offers (PPOs) or pre-placement interviews (PPIs) from companies. But till now there is no information regarding this.

The reason is clear the effects of global economic slowdown are visible as export-oriented sectors like IT companies- which are the major recruiters both for management and engineering schools are have yet to visit the B-schools, as for present they have frozen their hiring plans. According to analysts this year clearly there is going to be decline in the hiring of campus fresher and laterals (experienced hands) too

For instance at the Indian Institute of Management-Khozikode (IIM-K), this year companies have yet to visit the institute for placements informed the institute’s placement committee. Although one or two companies from here and there have showed their interest but nothing major has come up from the companies.

A member from IIM-K’s placement committee while expressing his views said, “Students are now interested in varied industry segments, ranging from the traditional corporate finance and investment banking roles to exploring avenues in media, entertainment and non-profit organizations”. In this situation salary is not the main consideration many students have resigned from high-paying jobs in order to make a safe career in a field and role of their choice.

At XLRI Jamsehdpur, this year students with positive mindset are carefully looking up at the opportunities which they would like to explore as things starting showing up. However last year was quite weak, this year students are looking for the opportunities in the banking and finance sector (treasury in addition to retail and commercial banking roles), sales and marketing roles in the FMCG sector and General Management roles in big multinationals.

Although companies like the usual recruiters in the fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) sector, finance and banking, and general management sector and niche consultants apart from the regular consulting firms have started approaching to XLRI Jamshedpur for hiring the students as a part of the Summer Internship Program scheduled to be held later this year. On the other hand students who have already done internship from established brands from the FMCG and general management sector are being offered PPOs.

Tushar Walwadikar, Secretary-Placement Committee, XLRI School of Business & Human Resources pointed out, “Given the fact that the batch size of the flagship programme has doubled, companies are showing renewed interest to create a brand on campus. Other sectors showing some interest are some boutique consulting firms and the banking and finance sector”.

Walwadikar explained, “Salary this year, as in the recently-concluded recruitments for the batch of 2009 would be more of a hygiene factor as students understand that this is not exactly the best of times and thus the focus this year would be to land the best profiles and choose the right career path so that they accelerate their career as the economy starts to get back to normalcy”.

While FMS Delhi, at present having a batch of 310 students so far has received 6 PPO/PPIs and few more are expected soon. The usual recruiters and big business houses like TAS, Coca Cola, among others and FMCG in particular besides banks are the sectors in which students are showing greater interest.

Professor Pankaj Chandra, Director IIMB IIM-B pointed out that this year is likely to be better for students’ placements of Indian Institute of Management Bangalore (IIM-B) in comparison to last year as the economy has slowly started showing signs of recovery. Likewise other IIMs, it also saw fewer financial and banking companies visiting campus for the placement this year. Moreover the number of jobs each company offered was also quite low.

Anwar Ali, director of IMT Ghaziabad, pointed out due to the current economic scenario, students are also keeping their options open and are ready to take up varied profiles in sectors like education, hospitality and PSUs. Only few companies from sectors like consultancy and manufacturing have approached IMT for recruitments to fulfill their current requirements. Ali added, “Going by the past trends, companies start approaching IMT with pre-placement offers around early September. This year we are expecting an official confirmation of the pre-placement offers around September”.

The economy is moving very slowly towards recovery and it is clearly visible at management institutes as the pre-placement scenario is yet to gain pace.

It’s around end of July and by this time Indian B-schools start getting pre-placement offers (PPOs) or pre-placement interviews (PPIs) from companies. But till now there is no information regarding this.

The reason is clear the effects of global economic slowdown are visible as export-oriented sectors like IT companies- which are the major recruiters both for management and engineering schools are have yet to visit the B-schools, as for present they have frozen their hiring plans. According to analysts this year clearly there is going to be decline in the hiring of campus fresher and laterals (experienced hands) too

For instance at the Indian Institute of Management-Khozikode (IIM-K), this year companies have yet to visit the institute for placements informed the institute’s placement committee. Although one or two companies from here and there have showed their interest but nothing major has come up from the companies.

A member from IIM-K’s placement committee while expressing his views said, “Students are now interested in varied industry segments, ranging from the traditional corporate finance and investment banking roles to exploring avenues in media, entertainment and non-profit organizations”. In this situation salary is not the main consideration many students have resigned from high-paying jobs in order to make a safe career in a field and role of their choice.

At XLRI Jamsehdpur, this year students with positive mindset are carefully looking up at the opportunities which they would like to explore as things starting showing up. However last year was quite weak, this year students are looking for the opportunities in the banking and finance sector (treasury in addition to retail and commercial banking roles), sales and marketing roles in the FMCG sector and General Management roles in big multinationals.

Although companies like the usual recruiters in the fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) sector, finance and banking, and general management sector and niche consultants apart from the regular consulting firms have started approaching to XLRI Jamshedpur for hiring the students as a part of the Summer Internship Program scheduled to be held later this year. On the other hand students who have already done internship from established brands from the FMCG and general management sector are being offered PPOs.

Tushar Walwadikar, Secretary-Placement Committee, XLRI School of Business & Human Resources pointed out, “Given the fact that the batch size of the flagship programme has doubled, companies are showing renewed interest to create a brand on campus. Other sectors showing some interest are some boutique consulting firms and the banking and finance sector”.

Walwadikar explained, “Salary this year, as in the recently-concluded recruitments for the batch of 2009 would be more of a hygiene factor as students understand that this is not exactly the best of times and thus the focus this year would be to land the best profiles and choose the right career path so that they accelerate their career as the economy starts to get back to normalcy”.

While FMS Delhi, at present having a batch of 310 students so far has received 6 PPO/PPIs and few more are expected soon. The usual recruiters and big business houses like TAS, Coca Cola, among others and FMCG in particular besides banks are the sectors in which students are showing greater interest.

Professor Pankaj Chandra, Director IIMB IIM-B pointed out that this year is likely to be better for students’ placements of Indian Institute of Management Bangalore (IIM-B) in comparison to last year as the economy has slowly started showing signs of recovery. Likewise other IIMs, it also saw fewer financial and banking companies visiting campus for the placement this year. Moreover the number of jobs each company offered was also quite low.

Anwar Ali, director of IMT Ghaziabad, pointed out due to the current economic scenario, students are also keeping their options open and are ready to take up varied profiles in sectors like education, hospitality and PSUs. Only few companies from sectors like consultancy and manufacturing have approached IMT for recruitments to fulfill their current requirements. Ali added, “Going by the past trends, companies start approaching IMT with pre-placement offers around early September. This year we are expecting an official confirmation of the pre-placement offers around September”.

Accenture failed to meet its hiring target in India

Due to global economic slowdown many companies had delayed the hiring process or could not meet their hiring target.

One of such multinational company Accenture, a consulting firm also could not meet its hiring target in India this year.

The company sources informed this year company had planned to increase its number of employees to 50,000 in India from 37,000 as of April 2008.

But it had failed to achieve full target by 10,000 heads, and could recruit only 3,000, in one year’s time. A company official informed, Accenture decided to go slow on recruitment process rather than laying off people due to slump.

Prithvi Shergill, lead human resources, Accenture India Delivery Centre, informed, “Our recruitment cycle is in line with business demand and our target is to have the right people for the demand we see”.

But he refused to reveal anything about why Accenture could not meet its hiring target. On the other hand firm is open to recruit more people on board whenever needed, both at entry level and domain knowledge level, he said.

An official spokesperson reported, “Managing supply and demand of resources remains a top priority in Accenture and we balance the skills of our workforce against client changing needs and we continue to recruit in skill areas where we need additional capacity to meet client demand”.

Accenture, provide training and human resources worldwide on which it invests up to $700 million a year, is making best possible use of investment in training model.

Simultaneously, the firm is looking for campus recruitments through tie-up with institutes such as XLRI, Indian School of Business, Hyderabad and others.

Shergill finds nothing much for concern regarding protectionist inclination being seen in the US.

He pointed out, “We do not see any direct implication on our clients, but we are watching that space. As we understand that better we will see what needs to be done. There is lost to talk but we still need to see how that translates”.

Shergill refused to comment on the hiring target this year, said, “We have never had a freeze on hiring. We have been recruiting right through and will continue to hire as per our client requirements.”

Ratio of Women employees increase in top Indian IT firms

In the recent times there has been increase in the ratio of women employees in India’s top IT companies like Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Infosys and Wipro Technologies. In FY09 TCS alone has recruited over 38,000 women as compared to 30,000 in the previous financial year. While Wipro employed around 16,810 in March 2009 compared to 16,300 in the previous year.

In TCS the ratio of women employees has gone up by 2%, while Infosys and Wipro women workforce has gone up by 1%. T.V. Mohandas Pai, Board Member and Director HR, Infosys told, “A higher enrolment of women in engineering colleges is reflecting in campus hiring and ultimately the IT workforce. Other factors driving the trend include work atmosphere and the economic and financial security”.

In Infosys the entry-level workforce is comprised of 40% of women, whereas the middle management workforce consists of 13% women and on the top management levels it constitutes to 8%.

TCS certifies the increase in the ratio of women workforce to its equal opportunity employment policies. According to Ajoy Mukherjee, Vice President and Head of Global HR, TCS, “We do not believe in the glass ceiling and 10 percent of our senior management includes women. In FY09 we launched a new initiative called DAWN (Diversity and Women’s Network) to encourage diversity and inclusion in the workforce, particularly for women.”

The Infosys, TCS and Cognizant have appointed woman as board members, whereas Wipro is yet to appoint woman as its board member. Mohandas Pai pointed out women’s have yet to make their position at the board level. He said, “This is my personal view but boards are largely male dominated. I do not see companies making special efforts for gender balance at this level.”

Some think that in the IT sector women have to face greater pressure than men in terms of layoff. But, according to Hema Subramaniam, CEO of Live Connections, a recruitment agency, in big companies employees get the equal opportunity to move to centers in other cities, but women especially the married ones with children usually do not accept such offers. She does not find any prototype of women discrimination in this.

Indian outsourcing trainees at Infoysys bear the heat of recession

India’s second-largest outsourcing company, Infosys Technologies, having US$4.6 billion in revenues and 104,000 employees, at last count training centre is coming up.

The centre will come up on 336-acre area having a capacity to train 14,000 people, is expected to be the largest dedicated corporate training centre in the world. It would be difficult for even global outsourcing competitors to set up the same on this scale in other offshore centers like Ireland, Russia or Vietnam.

However in spite of its magnificence, the campus has not been able to protect itself from the effects of the global recession.

Infosys’s has the extensive hiring hitting to 10,000 or more new hires during some quarters–it has no option but to hire fresh university graduates. After selection the candidates are not give an appointment letter and sent to their work desks, but they are sent to the training campus in Mysore, a three-hour drive from Infosys’ headquarters in Bangalore.

Infosys executives’ informed rigorous employee training provides the company a periphery over its competitors. Mohandas Pai, director of human resources at Infosys explained, “It helps us meet and exceed customer expectations while maintaining our competitive edge”.

Girish Vaidya, senior vice president and head of the Infosys Leadership Institute, pointed out, “When a global customer is experiencing different suppliers, our employees come out differently.”

At Mysore training center the first-time visitors might think they have walked into a corporate Disneyland. The campus has a geodesic dome-shaped three-cinema multiplex, a vast palm-tree-lined swimming pool, an eight-lane bowling alley, a floating restaurant and a huge gym. While the residential quarters are laid out in letter shapes that spell ‘Infosys’ from an aerial view.

One fascinated newly hired stated that his first visit to the campus was like “entering the gates of heaven”.

He pointed out the buildings have a Las Vegas-style look. The largest of them, a Greco-Roman edifice, have the capacity to train 9,500 individuals on any given day. One of the two Infosys global education centers on campus, the building dwelles one million square feet of training facilities, including 84 100-seater classrooms, three 200-seaters (named after Silicon Valley luminaries such as Moore, Chambers and Jobs), five examination rooms, an induction hall for 300 trainees, a library with 60,000 books, a cybercafé for 230 and a basement food court that can seat 1,700 diners.

Close by are magnificent buildings shaped like Origami art and sleek glass-and-steel structures evocative of Sand Hill Road in Silicon Valley. The countryside is immaculate. Students stroll down garden walkways and bicycle along the well-laid out paths.

Sharmila Ramamoorthy 21, one of the hired trainees from an engineering college, after graduating in electronics engineering said, “Many of my classmates dreamed of getting into Infosys”. Last year, around 500,000 had applied but less than 4 percent well able to pass the difficult entry test, which consisted maths, logic and analytical questions.

At times overseas visitors have wondered why Infosys has built up such a huge training infrastructure in a country which is full of skilled talent. However India’s higher education system can be outdated and out-of-sync with the hiring demands of multinational companies.

Arup Roy, a senior researcher at Gartner India, pointed out that Indian offshore outsourcing providers like Infosys and TCS conceit themselves in making employees ‘customer ready’ and use training as a key differentiator between themselves from the multinational players such as Accenture and IBM. “Training is definitely one of their levers,” he added.

Clearly the centerpiece training campus in Mysore, like Infosys’s vast corporate headquarters in Bangalore, has been designed to impress. Infosys just not make an impact on customers but also draw the best and brightest of talent. In recent years, there has been intense competition among companies for skilled engineers, raising salaries to dizzying levels and resulting in double-digit attrition rates.

Even though some of that competition has slowed down due to the current economic recession, one steady is that Infosys has to train its hires to not just write perfect code and design software for customers such as Boeing, Cisco Systems, General Motors and Wal-Mart but also turn them into savvy employees capable of holding their own in the global workplace.

“It is important that our employees come across as polished and poised because ours is an industry where each employee is just one step away from the end consumer,” points out Infosys’s Vaidya.

Trainees are given training to hold a conversation with international customers, conduct meetings and acquire social graces. “Besides domain knowledge, there is a whole different learning in eating with a fork and knife, wearing a tie and writing an official e-mail,” says Shamsul Afaq, a 23-year-old mechanical engineer who was hired by Infosys from his college campus outside Delhi.

Like Ramamoorthy and Afaq, Infosys hire most trainees straight from India’s engineering schools. They are in their twenties, attentive and enthusiastic. Not surprisingly, the college campus feel spreads to the training centre. Men and women are separated out in different blocks, weeknight curfew at the gates is 9.30pm, mobile phones are banned in classrooms and alcohol is a no-no on campus at all times.

India’s technology revolution has been power-driven mostly by its educated, opportunity-hungry middle class. For many trainees who come from self-effacing, even working-class backgrounds, an appointment letter from Infosys is a passport to prosperity and a future beyond what their parents could dream of.

At the training campus, fresh hires spend eight-hour days in the classroom learning to design software, work in teams and deal with foreign customers. Sundar K.S., group manager of the global education center, stated, “They learn that they cannot walk into a colleague’s office unannounced or call a customer on his mobile phone unless it is an absolute emergency.”

However global recession has made many outsourcing customers extremely cost and value-conscious. Keeping up with the demands of the market, the five-month Infosys training schedule has recently been increased to seven months. “Until now, each fresh hire was trained in one technology but versatility is key so we are now training them in multiple skills,” says Sundar.

The classrooms are high-tech, with software permitting the teacher to keep watch on the work of individual trainees on his console. In an effort to go green, many tasks such as self-assessment tests are automated and carried out digitally. Even attendance system is through biometrics, with each trainee pressing four fingers of both hands onto their computer screen.

Five aspects are covered in the training program: technology, quality standards, processes, IP and soft skills. The training modules replicate the Infosys production environment. Most of the learning is carried out through case studies. The campus has 500 ‘educators’, as the trainers are called. A dozen of them are PhDs.

The beginning of the recession has brought on pay freezes and job cuts across the industry and Infosys has been touched, too. That increases the pressures at the training campus even more intense. Trainees sit back for hours after class studying code and completing projects and group assignments. Very rarely the trainees can be spotted doing floating in the pool or throwing the ball in the bowling alley on weeknights.

To mark off successfully, every ‘fresher’, as the college hires are called, have to pass comprehensive exams at the end of each weekly module. Modules grading is done US school-style and toppers can score a maximum of a 5.0 GPA. About 5 percent of the hires don’t make it through the training.

Over the years, Infosys has been up grading its training model. For its employees it runs an on-going retraining program where about 80,000 employees get certified every year. During the recession, the model has full-grown to accommodate higher numbers of ‘benched’ employees. “When the upturn happens, we will be ready with completely re-skilled employees,” said Vaidya.

Having lunch in the afternoon at the lunch table at the floating restaurant, trainees Ramamoorthy and Afaq are a portrait of poise and polish. Both have finished their training batch with impressive 5.0 GPA’s and are waiting for allocation to different business units. They said they are so eager to get started.

Indian job market begin showing signs of recovery

The effect of global slowdown in economy was clearly visible on the job market after October 2008 when companies started recession and new recruitments were totally stopped. But now as the economy is improving so is the situation likely to improve in the job market. Now few of the big IT companies are planning to visit campuses for hiring. Even the summer placement commitments were not taken into consideration. According to human resources experts the days when summer recruitments were not honored might be over. The same views were expressed by most of the HR professionals and consultants DNA Money contacted.

According to Kris Lakshmikanth, founder CEO & MD at The Headhunters India, “Next quarter, we should be able see visible hiring across sectors.”

Lakshmikanth stated, “The time between a person applying and getting the offer was usually in the range of a couple of months and sometimes as short as 15 days. However, after October 2008, it had increased to 6-9 months and no decision was taken whether to recruit a person despite the person getting short-listed. Now, the time gap has reduced to three months and we are seeing offers are being given to individuals at the general manager and above levels,”

Some companies are lifting the freeze on campus hiring for the junior level staff.

Rajiv Phadke, executive director-HR & corporate communications at
Angel Broking, informed, “Salaries in our industry are firming up, though not significant enough. As there is buoyancy in the (capital) market, broking firms have started hiring. Our recruitment drive is on and we have hired 1,100 people recently, mostly from the sales side at the lower level. Some managerial hiring at the senior level too has been happening as we are planning our expansion.”

When asked about the hikes being offered in the stock brokerage industry are Phadke replies, “If some companies are in a desperate need to hire, then they are even willing to pay a premium. It may even run to 40-100% hike at junior level, depending on how soon the company wants the talent.”

Lakshmikanth of Headhunters India says, “Top level executives got a 6-7% overall hike in calendar year 2009, as against 12-14% in 2008. It should go up. We have heard about some country heads getting 2.5 times hike while shifting to another firm.”

He added, “Job losses and salary cuts have stabilized, but salary growth is not happening”.

Lakshmikanth, pointed out a lot of American and European companies are developing their set ups in India, especially in the defence, nuclear and aerospace sectors. Thus these new companies are hiring.

The Bangalore-based consultant stated, “Textile, software, office equipment, computers etc firms are discussing a 10% hike to employees in the October-December quarter to restore the salary cut that they had executed. There is confidence now as against six months ago”.

Although the situation will not be the same as was in the buoyant days.

E Balaji, CEO and director, Ma foi Management Consultants, informed, “Certainly, sentiments are improved, but they are not back to normal levels. Companies are just adopting a wait and watch strategy. Companies are no longer talking about retrenchment. But they have not started hiring large number of people. Some positions that remained vacant for a long time have been filled up.”

However companies are still hiring directly (without intermediaries like HR consultants) in order to save costs.

Lakshmikanth informed that recently, a Bangalore-based IT firm advertised in the newspaper directly for an interview call. “Though they asked for fresher, about 5,000 candidates both fresh and with one year experience turned up for the interview from all over the south.”

In Budget the corporate taxes have been left unchanged and the minimum alternate tax (MAT) has been increased, is likely to hurt some companies.

Now it is to be seen whether the savings on the fringe-benefit tax front would actually be passed on to the employees.