Developing applications for clients around social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter is a focus area for HCL Technologies.

But, little would the company have realised that those to whom it had given job offers would use Facebook to create a pan-India stir against the company for the delay in taking them on board.

Around 70 fresh graduate students assembled near HCL’s Haddows Road office in Chennai this morning demanding that they be hired immediately. HCL was supposed to take them on board last April but now says they will be hired in August, said an agitating student.

“Thanks to forming a group in Facebook, the affected persons could assemble here to put pressure on the company to recruit us,” said an agitator. The agitators were from Chennai, Erode and Karur, and from remote places in Andhra Pradesh, he said. “We could not go to any other company for a job, as we wasted nearly a year,” he said.

A banner read, ‘Give back one year or take me in April.’ Another said, “We do not want speeches. We want jobs. Give value to our feelings.”

“When we protested last week, the company said that they would come back to us in two days. However, there was no word from them,” said the person who did not want to be quoted as it could affect his chance of getting into the company.

“My batch mate got placed in Tata Consultancy Services and has started earning for the last two months. There is enormous pressure on me from my family to start earning,” said another tense-looking potential agitator, who took a break to have a cup of tea from a nearby shop.

raja.simhan@thehindu.co.in

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