Friday, April 25, 2008

Jobs in India- Companies to change hiring tactics!

It is interesting to note how different companies react –to stay ahead and be perhaps immune to the US recession/ subprime crisis-and how that has an impact on the job scene in India.

-A recent survey by Teamlease predicts that the infrastructure and telecom sectors will grow-while the IT and ITES companies have a lesser growth than last year. However, the well grounded India story would also see a robust hiring in the FMCG, retail and insurance sectors.

-the hiring trend in the tier II & tier III cities and rural areas is increasing while the same isn’t a favourable situation in the metros –forcing companies to adopt innovative ways of attracting talent..including a mobile bus to make it easier for call centre employees to explore options.. or “bus- drop ins" interviews!!

-With a scuttled optimism, one often relates reduced hiring means to lesser jobs!! The reality is that the numbers are still quite large...it is just that it is lesser than last year! Just three among the top 5 biggies in India - TCS (30000 to 35000) ,Infosys (25000), and Satyam (15000 account to hiring plans of about 75000 professionals-while some of the IT MNCs still want to hire 40000!!

-A point of concern..is India's share of recruiting coming down? While Accenture will hire 13000 in India, their world wide plans are to hire 60,000- there is a definite opportunity loss for some of us!

- The intention to hire across all managerial levels is gradually on the rise as companies looks to move up the value chain of outsourced IT services and deliver “value” not “price” to its clients. For eg Infosys predicts their fresher: lateral ratio changes from the current levels of 66: 34!

- While most IT firms are trying to reduce their dependence on the US markets, and focus more in Europe, some companies look to hire a different mix of employees – and reward them differently!! The Indian market expects an annual hike of 11-13% while abroad –the general trend is only 4-6%!
Personally, I feel that the increased pressure on margins would ensure companies relook at their hiring processes:
-certain companies are increasingly resorting to the RPO (recruitment process outsourcing) model and focus their management attention to retention and talent management!
-some companies have adopted and upgraded some of their recruitment consultants as partners-rather than, often 'dozens of vendors' as earlier- to manage the entire supply chain of talent.

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