India’s largest IT firm Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has hired a significant number of freshers in its latest recruitment drive, multiple colleges confirmed to Moneycontrol.
Apart from Tata Group companies like TCS and Titan, firms such as Happiest Minds use NQT for hiring.
Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) had announced that tests will be held on April 26.
While the first phase of recruitment is for the "priority colleges", the second phase will be held on April 26 for the rest.
However, students from its “trusted” partner colleges have been asked to take the test on campuses, a placement officer said.
India’s largest IT firm Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has hired a significant number of freshers in its latest recruitment drive, multiple colleges confirmed to Moneycontrol.
This comes as a shot in the arm for colleges and students alike who have seen hiring drop from most big information technology (IT) companies, owing to weak demand in the sector.
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Last month, the country's largest IT services company had announced that it has begun fresher hiring via the National Qualifier Test (NQT), which is an assessment platform designed by TCS iON to measure the candidates’ cognitive ability and skill expertise. Apart from Tata Group companies like TCS and Titan, firms such as Happiest Minds use NQT for hiring.
The last day to apply was April 10 for the recruitment drive. Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) had announced that tests will be held on April 26. While the first phase of recruitment is for the "priority colleges", the second phase will be held on April 26 for the rest. Placement officers said NQT and campus placements are one and the same.
When reached out, TCS said it is in "silent period" and cannot respond to Moneycontrol's request for comment.
The Mumbai-headquartered firm is hiring for three categories -Ninja, Digital, and Prime. The Ninja category offers a package of Rs 3.36 lakh per annum for various roles, while the Digital and Prime categories offer an annual package of Rs 7 lakh and Rs 9-11.5 lakh.
Colleges said students receiving Digital and Prime profiles will be placed for a development role. While students in Ninja profiles will be placed in support roles.
“In my view it is a very, very welcome move given the current situation, so definitely good students from all the colleges will get a placement with TCS,” said V Samuel Rajkumar, director of Career Development Centre, Vellore Institute of Technology. “I think they will be reasonably good numbers, that's what we are expecting.”
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Rajkumar said VIT students have received a total of 963 offer letters, out of which 103 were for the prime category.
S Vaidhyasubramaniam, vice-chancellor of SASTRA University, said 1,300 students at the college have been handed over 2,000 offer letters. Which implies one student received more than one offer on average. However, a separate breakup for students recruited by TCS was not available.
“TCS has come in a big way on recruiting. And that's the big news of the season,” said Venkata Narasimhadevara, director of the Career Centre at SRM Institute of Science and Technology.
Colleges say TCS's approach of a three-tiered package signals a departure from traditional entry-level position offerings, to attract better talent.
“The IT services companies have realised that if they want to recruit good talent, they need to increase their packages and communicate well to the media… So, I think it's a very welcoming and positive move,” said Ashok Kumar Mittal, chancellor of Lovely Professional University.
Placement officers also said TCS is using its iON centres, spread across the country, to conduct tests instead of college campuses. However, students from its “trusted” partner colleges have been asked to take the test on campuses, a placement officer said.
TCS, typically conducting hiring processes in August-September each year, faces both challenges and opportunities due to the delay in recruitment this year, according to placements officers.
Rajkumar noted that TCS faces the disadvantage of arriving late in the recruitment season, as many students may have been hired by other companies. However, the advantage lies in the increased seriousness of students who have not yet secured placements. “They (TCS) came a little late, most students were already recruited. So the talent pool actually fell short,” said Vaidhyasubramaniam.
In another departure from the norm, TCS is seeking candidates who not only excel in coding but also demonstrate creativity and proficiency in solving business problems. “They are hiring candidates who would not need too much of a training,” a recruitment officer said.
Also read: Psychometric tests, higher score, hand-written codes: Tech companies make freshers sweat
Speaking to Moneycontrol on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum (WEF), TCS CEO and MD K Krithivasan said a positive headcount will reflect on the books only when the company has much better handle on the demand outlook.
Earlier, TCS had said it planned to add 40,000 freshers in FY24. The company added 22,600 employees during FY23, a steep decrease as compared to its net addition of 1.03 lakh employees in FY22.
This was the company’s lowest net headcount addition since FY15 when it had added 19,000 employees on a net basis during the year.
Kapil Joshi, the deputy CEO of Quess Corp's IT staffing business said that IT companies have now reached to a level where they have started backfilling positions left vacant by attrition. "I think somewhere it is a good sign that companies don't want to lose what you call billable resource or billable opportunity."
