Posted by The 12,000 freshers HCL Tech plans to recruit, will have a mix of on-campus and off campus students
With on-campus hiring becoming a challenge due to COVID-19, HCL Technologies is looking at more off-campus recruitment for FY21, said the company’s CHRO VV Apparao.
The company is looking to recruit close to 15,000 people, including 12,000 freshers for FY21. “The 12,000 freshers will include a mix of on-campus and off-campus,” Apparao explained.
IT firms organise off-campus freshers’ drive for multiple campuses, usually for tier II and tier III colleges. Since it is an open market, competition is high as students are competing with peers from multiple colleges.
Indian IT firms are one of the largest recruiters in Indian engineering colleges. However pandemic has made hiring from campuses a huge challenge.
“Hiring in campuses was part of the plan but we are not getting people in campuses today starting March,” Apparao said. The company starts campus recruitment from January through May. Due to COVID-19, hiring since March had been a challenge.
“Starting March, pretty much all the kids have gone home. Even colleges were not working. There were instances where we sent 10 people to campuses and got only five or six students,” Apparao explained.
Universities are still exploring options to see how to conduct exams for final year students and there is not much clarity on if and when colleges will open. “If this continues, we will have to get into the open market and recruit,” he added.
Apparao said, “So we have already started recruiting some fresh graduates offline because businesses cannot wait. As CVK has given guidance, we are looking at decent growth.”