Infosys may have over a lakh of employees on its rolls, but it has an equal number of ex-employees as well and the IT major is not merely looking at them to rehire but also tap them for knowledge, people, career and events.

About 96,650 people have been Infoscians in the last 30 years and are now working in other companies in the sector or have chosen to become entrepreneurs, the company said at its FYQ3 results recently.

Alumni network

Realising that a one lakh-strong ex-employee pool was not to be overlooked, Infosys launched the green channel last year where alumni were given the option of returning to the alma mater. About 2,500 applications were received through this channel and about 500 offers have been made.

The company also launched an alumni network on January 1 this year and has received about 13,000 applications so far for registration. “This is not exactly directed at recruitment, but could lead to referrals where ex-Infoscians could refer some of their friends for jobs at the company,” says Ms Nandita Gurjar, Senior Vice-President and Group Head, HR, Infosys Technologies.

The company has reduced its dependence on recruitment vendors by almost 15 per cent this year, as 61 per cent of the 5,500 laterals recruited were through referrals. For an industry that has seen and accepted employees changing jobs as frequently as twice a year, Infosys is now coming down heavily on frequent job-hopping. “We will not hire anyone who has switched jobs more than twice in five years,” says Mr Mohandas Pai, Head, HR, Infosys Technologies.

Campus hiring

The IT major is in the process of visiting 240-plus engineering campuses and 50 business schools this year and will hire close to 26,000 freshers. About one lakh of the current talent pool are engineers, a ratio which the company is planning to change. By 2014, about 60 per cent of the employees would be engineers, 20 per cent business management graduates and the rest from other streams, Mr Pai has already indicated.

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