Bangalore: Infosys Technologies on Monday announced its first large-scale plan to recruit 300 college graduates from universities in the United States this year and 25 graduates from the United Kingdom in 2007 as part of an ongoing commitment to create a diversified, global workforce. In 2005-06, Infosys doubled the percentage of non-Indian employees, hiring more than 25 different nationalities.

In the first phase, Infosys' university-level recruiting programme in the U.S. will bring more than 100 American college graduates to India in August, 2006.

The new employees hired will develop their engineering skills at Infosys development centres across India for six months before returning to Infosys offices in the United States. This is the first global recruiting initiative of its size to bring foreign talent to India.

"This represents a very important landmark in the evolution of Infosys. We firmly believe that the future success of Infosys lies in its ability to create an environment that is open to people from different nationalities and ethnicities," said chairman and chief mentor of Infosys N.R. Narayana Murthy. "Through the breadth of understanding and cross cultural adaptability that can only be found in a diverse workforce, Infosys will play an even more strategic role for its clients," he added.

Infosys began recruiting for entry-level software engineer positions at top universities in the U.S. following a successful pilot programme that brought 10 young Americans to work in Bangalore. Applications were accepted from all majors, including liberal arts majors, for the software engineering position. In August 2006, more than 100 new employees from American universities will begin their careers at the Infosys Global Education Centre in Mysore, one of the largest corporate education centres of its kind in the world.

They will participate in a customised education programme for four months, after which the American trainees will be relocated to various development centres throughout India for another two months before returning to various Infosys locations in the United States. Along the same lines, a pilot programme will take place to recruit students from universities in the United Kingdom.

"As we expand our global presence, we need to attract bright talent from the local economies. It was with this in mind that we launched university-level recruiting programme in the U.S.," said T.V Mohandas Pai, member of the Board-Human Resource and Education and Research, Infosys Technologies.

"We plan to run a pilot at top universities in U.K. this year for 25 positions. We feel college graduates from the U.S. and U.K. offer unique skills and perspectives that will blend with the skills of our Indian employees to expand our capabilities in all areas."

While this initiative will be the first instance of Infosys recruiting graduates abroad for permanent positions, students from schools such as Stanford Graduate School of Business, MIT Sloan School of Management, Harvard Business School and the Said Business School of Oxford have been competing to visit Infosys' Bangalore campus for InStep, the Infosys internship programme.

Subsidiaries such as Infosys Consulting, Infosys China and Infosys Australia will also enhance Infosys' global workforce as they continue on their path of growth. Infosys Consulting Inc., the consulting arm of Infosys Technologies Ltd., which primarily recruits in the United States, will reach 500 employees in the next two years while Infosys China hopes to reach 6,000 employees by 2010.

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