Jnana Vikas Institute of Technology (JVIT) is one of the innumerable colleges in Bangalore with no placement history. More than 90 percent of its 600 graduates were left unemployed last year. Roughly around the same time, when their peers from top engineering institutes in the city were weighing different offers, a bunch of engineers from JVIT were running from pillar to post. In the absence of an active placement cell at college, and after three months of a hurtling journey down the path of dwindling hopes, they gave in to survival necessities, and joined a company they had long aspired to—IBM; but only on the help desk as tech supports.

This is the untold story about the unemployed engineers of the burgeoning Silicon Valley of India— Bangalore. To start with, its distinction of having the highest number of engineering colleges in the world (alongside science institutes, research organization and tech companies in the country) kept it apart from other metros. And garnered the coveted title of Silicon Valley. Today, it shelters more than 60 percent of the 123 engineering colleges in Karnataka, with nearly 20,000 engineers graduating every year from the city alone.

What would otherwise appear as an ideal ground for the talent seeking mammoth IT industry in Bangalore, suggests the apathy of orphaned, and often, unwanted children of the newly mushroomed engineering colleges in the city. To put spoon in mouth, an estimated 50 engineering colleges of the total 69 have less than 30 percent placement of its students. Indicating that more than 40 percent of the 20,000 graduate engineers in Bangalore are unemployed after campus recruitment every year!

So when companies claim campus hires to form a good 70-75 percent of their new recruits—TCS, Infosys and Wipro are planning to add 30,500, 25,000 and 15,000 freshers for 2007 respectively— their indication is towards engineers from the select few colleges—especially 12 from Bangalore—while the rest are laid away even before the placement procedure begins.

The data might stand in contrast to the recent hue and cry raised by the IT industry about a shortage of skilled labor. The reality stands that of the 3.75 lakh students prepared by the academia only 1.75 lakh are actually employed. Many a time, companies recruit larger number of students from second tier cities and towns where they can afford to offer lesser pay than the city graduate for the same quality of talent.

All of this bringing us back to the 20,000 unemployed engineers who start hunting for alternatives. The search may last anywhere between three to nine months and is frequently made more difficult as they try to ward off the industry norm: Once a fresher looses his tag it is nearly impossible for him to land a job. Here comes the catch-22 situation where on one hand companies ask for experience since the candidate is no longer a fresher and on the other hand no company is willing to give him a job because he has no experience.

Meet the Finger Pointers
A journey back in time would show that the State Government’s intention of creating more opportunities for students backfired when engineering colleges mushroomed at every nook and corner, many of them after the 2001 IT boom. At that time, it only seemed natural after the city demonstrated an immense charm in attracting most of the IT companies from around the world. Unfortunately, these colleges posses no labs and are faced with extreme shortage of faculty and guidance in terms of soft skills and outside academic training. A cakewalk for students to get admitted into these engineering colleges while bearing the brunt of abysmal quality of education offered.

One can’t entirely pinpoint to the students who trust their management to know what is best for them. Though these colleges have a placement cell intact, it seems to be only functioning as a reservoir of woes for the students. The absence of good enough placement officers, lack of good enough contacts within the industry and dearth of database of alumni result in their sad plight. Many a times the companies are not aware of the existence of the college, let alone visit their campus for recruitment.

Campus Pooling
As a means to overcome this problem, the industry and academia devised a method of pool campus placement. Here the company selects few colleges for placement on campus and assigns one among them to play host. Eligible students from all the select colleges would assemble at the host college and undergo the daylong placement procedure. Though it appears like the perfect set up, the concept has failed to live up to its expectations due to two reasons. One being that top institutes, who also have placement on their premises, compete with colleges who have pool campus as their only means of placing students resulting in placement of very few of the latter’s students. Also, students complain, though very discreetly that the host college manages to have more students recruited than other participating colleges.

The problem is not unknown to the university. After a thorough analysis it is trying to mend the engineering boom that seems to have grown out of control. Says Dr.K.Balaveera Reddy, Vice Chancellor, Visvesvaraya Technological University (VTU), “The University is now working on a scheme for common campus placement for the engineering colleges affiliated to the VTU.” The plan runs along the lines of pool campus recruitment where eligible engineering students will be allowed in for the recruitment that would be organized on the university premises. The companies would then be invited to recruit these students after they undergo a common entrance exam as per the company needs thus eliminating the biases due to institutions. “It would serve as a common platform for the engineering graduates from all over the state to compete for placement, be it urban or rural,” he concludes.

While the idea is only being formulated and will take time for implementation, it eventually boils down to the man in charge—placement officer. Many colleges are witnessing a change after the placement officer has been switched. “Field work, contacts and getting the pulse of the students is a necessary trait,’’ says Narasimha Murthy, Placement officer at Vemmana Institute of Technology (VIT) which recorded 40 percent placement.

Career detour
“Students who don’t get placed are pretty much left to their misery,” comes the honest remark from Dr R Dattakumar, Placement Officer at National Institute of Engineering (N.I.E), one of the top engineering colleges in Mysore that recorded 80 percent placement this year. “When students find themselves without a job offer, they are forced to rethink their career options.”

Inability to find jobs owing to lack of campus placement facilities, and peer pressure has made many an engineer turn to the BPO industry for employment. “It was disheartening to not have a job when my friends from other colleges landed one,” says Shreya Joshi. An engineering graduate from the 2004 batch of VIT, she had to struggle through a call center job and a lecturer’s post before ending up as a technical assistant in an HR company. Her dream of becoming a software developer crushed even before it could take off. The college only has an active placement cell after 2005.

Companies often complain that they don’t find the right candidates. A recent report stated that only eight to ten percent of the engineers churned out by the academia are fit to be employed by the industry. “Colleges have to be in constant touch with the industry to meet their parameters and requirements,” says Prof. Sridhar, Director of Placement, PES Institutions (PESIT). Ranked as the number one engineering college in Karnataka, it recorded a placement percentage of 93.5 percent this year, with the figure touching 100 percent for its Computer Science graduates. It has also recorded the one of the highest offers (in Karnataka) made to any student: Rs 9.3 lakh per annum.

PESIT ensures that every department has a MoU signed with certain companies pertaining to their domain so that it would become easier to assign projects as well as prepare them for the company’s work environment and professional expectations including soft skills like communication and team building.

Like PESIT, other colleges are reading well into the signs from the industry. Institutes like JVIT are now rethinking their strategies organizing JAVA courses, soft skill and personality training and improving overall quality of education of their students while trying to maintain a constant rapport with industry.

Their hope: A few companies will come forward to hire these ‘unwanted tech kids’.


Ahoy! Let’s go Campus
By Rishi Das

The author is a cofounder of CareerNet Consulting, an integrated IT and KPO recruitment consulting company. He can be reached at rishi@careernet.co.in

2006 and 2007 have been the best years for graduating engineers. Over 200 companies are visiting each tier 1 campus for recruitment, and iBanks and financial consulting companies have become the new buzzwords.

Why so many companies are visiting campuses?
The established presence of MNCs and robust domestic growth in most sectors has led to the announcement of massive expansion plans. The crunch for quality talent and growing salary cost has forced the organizations to target the campus talent pool. Organizations are looking at cultivating talent rather than the self-defeating tactics of poaching from competition.

Hiring pattern in IT
Organizations are looking at 10 to 50 percent of their headcount increase to be met through campus recruitment. The targeted campus hires range from multiples of thousand for large IT services organizations to a couple of hundreds for an IT product MNC. Even start-ups are looking at 10 to 15 percent of their total workforce to be fresh engineers.

In mid 90’s, IT companies replaced the core engineering jobs as the most preferred option. History seems to be getting repeated with investment banking and consulting companies replacing the hi-tech organizations as the dream job. Even core engineering sectors like automobiles, infrastructure, chemicals and manufacturing have made a strong comeback.

There is a sea of change in campus perception; for example at IIT Madras, management consultancies and financial institutions were offered first week slots, as they are paying the best compensation to the graduating student. Core engineering, manufacturing and research and development organizations are slated to visit the campus in subsequent weeks. This is in sharp contrast to the situation two years back, when bulk recruiters, typically software service companies like Infosys, Wipro and TCS were given the first slots at IIT Madras.

Compensation trends
Campus salaries this year have been driven by investment banking and consulting firms offering dollar jobs. More than 30 companies have visited IIT Delhi whose salary is in excess of Rs 9 lakhs per annum with only four or five IT companies figuring in that list. Dollar jobs, mostly based in the U.S., have ranged from $55,000 to as high as $100,000 per annum.

Key observations on campus compensation:
* Most organizations offered 10 to15 percent more to M.Tech compared to B.Tech graduates.
* A large number of organizations are offering differential salary based on the profile and grading of the campus.
* Increasing trend to offer signing bonus by organizations paying salaries in excess of Rs 6 lacs p.a.
* Concept of quoting Cost to the Company (CTC) is becoming more prevalent.
* Stock options are offered by few organizations on
campuses.
Comparing the campus compensation over last year, there is an inflation of 15 to 20 percent for IT companies’ salary figures. A similar trend has been witnessed in core engineering companies as well.

From an engineering specialization perspective, the biggest gainers have been students from computer science, information technology, electronics and telecom discipline. The average increase has been around 20 percent going up to as high as 35 percent in some campuses. However the same is not true of students in other disciplines. Students in non-IT related disciplines like mechanical, civil and chemical have witnessed a modest 10 to 15 percent increase.

Campus talent – The supply side
Out of total 2.1 million graduate students’ enrollment, a little over 400,000 engineers graduate each year from over 1388 engineering colleges spread across the country. However as per the McKinsey study only 25 percent of the Indian engineering graduates are employable.

About 67 percent of the graduating engineers have a specialization in Computer Science, Electronics and related discipline. Most of this talent pool is from the tier-3 campuses that have been started in the last decade which have only focused on IT related disciplines. Only close to 30 percent of the engineers graduating from the top 50 campuses have an IT related specialization.

To meet the industry requirements and the growing manpower demands, there have been some positive steps from the government. Upgradation of RECs into NITs, announcement of setting up of 30 more Indian Institutes of Information Technology (IIITs) and specialized courses for manpower development in IC design have been some of them.

The crunch
With organizations aggressively looking for students through on campus or out-campus placements, fresher recruitment is no longer a pure campus phenomenon. Institutionalized methods used by the campuses to ensure fair distribution of job-offers between the students has now become a farce as most students have more than one job offer by the time they graduate out of the campus. The age-old concept of day zero has lost its true meaning as campuses today work more on a free economy model.

Moreover with limited talent pool at their disposal, organizations end up fishing in the same pond with no emerging clear winners. This has also led to a significant reduction in the recall factor for the organizations and has thus called for a shift towards the campus strategy. A lot of organizations are now fostering their relationships beyond the top 20 T schools and leveraging their talent supply to meet the demand-supply gaps. For example, this year product companies like Microsoft, Adobe and Google are visiting 20 to 30 tier 2 colleges apart from Ivy League colleges that they visit consistently.

IT consulting and services companies like Infosys, TCS and Wipro who do bulk recruitment are taking aggressive steps to overcome the talent crunch by targeting the vocational and diploma colleges. They are able to improve the quality of their hires by rigorous induction training for final year students and even opening finishing schools or promoting faculty training in colleges. They would be visiting more that 200 colleges for their hiring requirements among which 70 to 80 percent hires will be from tier 2 to tier 3 colleges.

Tackling the Crunch
In depth understanding of the current talent landscape and the current challenges has brought academia, corporate and the government to work in unison. The increased corporate participation in “cultivating talent” by running finishing schools has emerged as a winning proposition for both the student and the organization. The organizations are running industry specific mini universities to coach students on the latest technologies and innovation.

Educational bodies are contributing towards inculcating focused talent pools and thus addressing the demand supply gap. There is an increased participation of the industry in the curriculum design and the course content development. The government is also involved in taking adequate measures to equip institutions with more resources and infrastructure to ensure better quality of education.

We are witnessing conceptualization of various nation wide assessment programs being initiated by industry bodies like NASSCOM and ISA to create talent benchmarks and identify the talent pockets across the nation.

The talent crunch has also forced organizations to adopt various non-conventional techniques to create more awareness about the career path, business models, products and services they have to offer to the campus community. Organizations are adopting online strategies and building web infrastructure that supports gaming, contests, code jams and other interactive events to create more student traffic on their websites. Thus they are successful in educating students about their offerings and their business models with a significant increase in the brand recall.

The menace caused by poor offer to joining ratios and high infant mortality among new recruits has led to localization of the IT industry, with organizations setting up multiple offices in the country. This has significantly helped in better joining ratios and talent retention as candidates get the best of both worlds.

With the growing challenge, the industry and academia are coming up with innovative and ingenious solutions to counter the talent crunch and at the same time manage their business bottom lines. In times to come, the industry the academia and the government organizations have to come together to create a scalable and replicable solution to cater to growing business demand and fuel the next level growth of the Indian economy.