Fresher recruitment declines as companies shy away
By Eureka   |   Saturday, 23 August 2008, 16:51 IST   |    1 Comments
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Bangalore: "Does placements work?" can be the question of the day for freshers, as companies are slowly shying away from the campus recruitments. Around 60 percent of colleges have seen a decline in the number of companies visiting for recruitments. Most of the companies have asked for experience during the placements and were reluctant to make offers to the freshers, says Manoj Kumar, a 2008 passed out student of Indian School of Mines University. Even Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) students are relatively affected with the declining rate of offers made, and IIT alone has witnessed a fall by 15 percent. Moreover, the number of companies checking in for campus placements have also decreased as Abhinash D. a student of Venkateshwara College of Engineering points out, "Last year there were 21 companies for both on and off campus, but this year its only eight." About 56 to 60 percent of the colleges like Acharya Institute of Technology, Baldwin Women's Methodist College, Sona College of Technology have witnessed a decline in the number of companies coming forth for recruitments. And the usual course of delaying on the offer is also one of the most important concerns. Sunil Kumar Pandey, a 2008 passed B.Tech student of UP Technical University was selected by Infosys and is asked to join in December, without providing relevant reason. He adds that even HCL has kept some of its selected candidates on the waiting list, though they are providing with online training till then. Moreover, some of those who got through were not given any joining dates, and on queries, there were no proper explanation. The limited companies who have kept their interest in the placements are Wipro, Infosys, Intel, SAP, Startup Rigbus, ICICI, Sher Khan, DOBOC and Carvy, though the offers made were not satisfactory. This has dropped them from being ranged as the most preferred firms by the freshers, as even in the IIT campus a drop by around 50 to 60 percent is witnessed. Around 65 percent of the total recruitments in the IT firms comprise of freshers and recruitments through campus placements. Most of the companies have finished off with the process in 2007, and the dates of joining were for the current year. But with the rupee appreciation phenomena the companies had to delay and in fact plans are to usher in the freshers batches. So, with the U.S. slowdown casting a cloud on their hiring, the companies are playing up with their cost-cutting measures, which may include this reduction in the fresher recruitment too.

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