The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Software companies are biggest employers

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Mar 27, 2005

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Software companies are biggest employers

By Akhila Seetharaman

CHENNAI, MARCH 26. Big software companies were back on campuses for recruitment with greater appetite this year.

Tata Consultancy Services trebled their intake from Anna University. Compared to last year's 80 recruits, Cognizant Technology Solutions took 285 students from the university this year. Infosys raised the intake from 210 by 35. By last December, 700 of the 1,500 graduating students found placement in one of the three companies.

Widening the field of recruitment, software companies relaxed their criteria and opened their doors to almost all branches this year, a contrast to the focus on six `circuit branches' last year.

In their zeal to hire the best, software companies are coming to campuses earlier each year. They recruit between April and June because they want candidates in bulk, say students.

P. Mannar Jawahar, Director of Centre for University-Industry Collaboration, Anna University, says he agrees with predictions that the demand from the software industry will continue to rise until 2008.

"Software jobs are attractive because companies pay well, offer chances to travel abroad and are white-collar jobs — you don't have to dirty your hands on the shop-floor," says Prof. Jawahar.

According to Sampath Kumar and Santosh from the College of Engineering, Guindy, it is a choice between calling your CEO by name and addressing your seniors as `Sir'. Software companies are younger and more informal. But Sampath, mechanical engineering student, preferred Larsen and Toubro to software companies. He says the large number of recruits scare him. "I don't want to be one among a million new recruits. What kind of future can you expect?"

For many, it is a toss-up between joining the legions of software analysts and finding their feet as trainees. "An IT student can enter the company and immediately take up a project, but in a core company, you need to be trained. Based on an appraisal of your performance, the employers assign responsibilities," says Sampath.

Core company jobs

But even for those determined to join a `core company', passing up the stream of software companies is difficult. "Every year, there are 10 to 15 students in each stream who are determined to work in a core company when placements begin in June," says Kapilan, a student. By the end of the year, very few are left waiting; most would have joined software companies. "Eventually, the pressure builds and people lose their nerve."

Most core companies have limited yearly requirements. Unlike software companies, most of them do not plan campus recruitment. "You do not even know if the company you want to work for will come for campus recruitment," says Kapilan.

For final year electronics and communication engineering student Prabhu Shankar, a pre-placement talk by a consultant made him rethink his goals and stay. "Once I removed the fear of not getting a job, I began to think big ... about core companies, where having a masters degree really matters."

Prabhu Shankar is outnumbered by those who choose to take their chances with software. Even those chasing brick-and-mortar dreams tend to play it safe, jumping on to the software bandwagon, even if it is only for a short ride.

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