Accenture and Wipro have come back with a vengeance to recruit from campuses. They compensated for the lacklustre hiring from the usual mass recruiter Cognizant Technology Solutions at VIT University, Vellore, which annually churns out nearly 3,000 graduates.
On day one of the campus recruitment on Monday at VIT, about 120 km west of Chennai, Accenture made 1,492 job offers to students as against just 90 last year. Media reports say that for the global software major, out of its 2.50 lakh global employee base, nearly one-third is in India.
Similarly, Wipro made 1,308 job offers this year compared to just 130 last year.
In contrast, Cognizant’s numbers declined by more than half to 803 as against 1,920 offers last year, according to the university. Tata Consultancy Services did not visit the university for the last two years. Infosys is also not visiting this year, said university sources. It is reliably learnt that at Sastra University in Thanjavur in south Tamil Nadu, on day one of the campus recruitment, TCS made offers to 863 students. Last year, the company created a record by recruiting 1,755 students from this university.
‘Feeling the heat’
VIT’s Vice-President G. V. Sampath said that despite the bad market conditions, the institution was able to place students with companies. In a recession-like scenario, every company wants to cut 50 per cent in recruitment and institutions are feeling the heat, he told Business Line .
Samuel Rajkumar, Deputy Director of the university’s placement cell, said Flipkart had offered an annual pay package of Rs 12.5 lakh while D.E. Shaw, a software company, which is yet to conduct its recruitment drive, has offered Rs 14.5 lakh.
A total of 55 companies have conducted placement drives. Rajkumar said that every year 150 to 160 companies visit the university. “Last year, 188 companies came and we are trying to get as many this year. In fact, last year our placement accounted for 95 per cent placing 3,007 students. The overall numbers this year could be due to the slowdown,” he said.