IT slump: Engineering institutes eye small firms for campus hiring
MUMBAI: Smaller engineering colleges in India are looking at mid-size and small technology firms to do the bulk of hiring in the coming campus placement season after a slowdown in hiring by the information technology (IT) industry.
These colleges are also diversifying courses on offer and their skill development programmes to look beyond IT and align students’ qualifications with current job demands.
Hiring by IT firms has fallen by 24% in the last one year, as per the latest report by online job portal Naukri.com. Tough business conditions across the globe and increasing automation have led to a decline in recruitment by most software companies.
According to human resource consultants and placement representatives, the so-called tier II and III engineering colleges which depend heavily on IT companies for campus recruitment will be affected for the next few years by the slowdown.
The impact on tier I colleges would be less as they continue to be the first choice for campus recruitment by big IT companies, experts said.
“There is a major dent on IT campus hiring. Hiring of freshers by IT firms has reduced by half in the last one year. However, demand for new sets of skills is emerging. Most engineering colleges are struggling and looking for new emerging sectors,” Pankaj Bansal, co-founder and chief executive officer (CEO), PeopleStrong HR Services Pvt. Ltd said.
However, there are immense challenges ahead for engineering institutes as most are used to large IT companies snapping up the bulk of their students during placements, he said.
“Across all campuses, there has been a dip of around 25-30% (in the intake by large IT firms). The emerging sectors should be able to take some of the engineers. People have to re-skill themselves and universities are trying to tweak their courses,” said a former placement representative with a large engineering college, who asked not to be identified.
Some institutes such as the National Institute of Science and Technology (NIST) in Behrampur, Odisha, and SRM Univer- sity which has four campuses in Chennai and the National Capital Region, are increasing the number of companies they invite for campus placements with a special focus on mid- and smallsize internet-based firms, startups and non-IT firms.
“We cannot heavily rely on these three-four big companies under these circumstances. We have to somehow compensate the slash by increasing the number of partner companies,” said Atanu Dutta, associate professor (computer science) and placement manager, NIST.
The institute, which has over 900 students graduating each year, has started focusing on consultancy, research and development companies, startups and IT product firms.
For the 2016-17 batch, around 47 companies turned up for campus recruitment. The placement cell plans to add at least 8-9 firms more for the next year (2017-18) .
“Earlier, we were focused only on Bengaluru-based technology firms. Now, we have broadened our base and shifted our focus to Pune, Chennai, Hyderabad, Mumbai, National Capital Region and even manufacturing companies based out of Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh,” Dutta said.