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Vishwanath Kulkarni
Shamik Paul

Bangalore, May 10 Taking a cue from the slowdown-hit IT industry that has pared hiring substantially, job seekers are eyeing employment opportunities in other sectors.

Staffing companies such as TeamLease said given the status of the IT recruitment market, students are considering other sectors. About 25-30 per cent of job seekers are voluntarily shifting to other industries, said Ms Surabhi Mathur Gandhi, General Manager, TeamLease.

“Candidates are not seeing IT as the most lucrative job now. They are opting for IT profiles in non-IT industry verticals such as manufacturing, pharma and engineering,” Ms Gandhi added.

As a result, the IT industry that has been one of the largest recruiters in the past decade has seen a decline in number of applications from job seekers.

For example, Infosys Technologies Ltd saw the number of resumes almost halve in fiscal 2009, compared with the previous year, while it was only two-third of that received in 2006. It received 4.88 lakh resumes in fiscal 2009, down from 8.85 lakh in fiscal 2008 and 14.23 lakh in fiscal 2006.

The Vice-President and head of HR at Infosys, Ms Nandita Gurjar, attributed the decline to factors such as reduced advertisement and less job-hopping due to the uncertainty in business environment.

Infosys has cut down on recruitment advertising to almost zero last year and advertisements contribute to the largest inflow of resumes, Ms Gurjar said. Further, Infosys has enhanced its focus on hiring niche profiles for which employee referrals and hiring through placement agencies are more effective. “Sourcing through employee referrals has reached a high of 50 per cent for lateral positions,” Ms Gurjar said.

The company recruited 18,000 students from campuses and some of their batchmates may not be able to apply. Ms Gurjar explained that a rejected applicant will have to wait for nine months before applying to the company again and this has affected the number of applications.

Though the number of job seekers with Infosys has declined gradually, the strike rate of an applicant making it to the rolls has gone up in the past few years. If one among 100 applicants made it to the company’s rolls in fiscal 2005, the number stood at seven among two hundred in fiscal 2009 when the company made some 16,900 offers.

Mr Pratik Kumar, head of HR at Wipro Technologies, said the company has not seen much of a change. “As IT industry was hiring, and in large numbers, the impression was that it was the preferred choice for many. If IT is not hiring now candidates would go and look for jobs in other sectors,” he said. Wipro has cut down on hiring and would not be making any offers for freshers this year.

A TCS spokesperson said lateral recruitment remains need-based and related to demand for niche skills. “There appears to be no slowdown in job applications received from experienced professionals. The company has not visited campuses this year, in keeping with the just-in-time hiring policy, and therefore it is yet to be seen if there is any drop in application from freshers,” the spokesperson said.

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