Industry for hiring students only in final year

CHENNAI: The seventh semester is about to start in engineering colleges and even as students gear up for their penultimate semester, a larger debate continues on when is the right time to hire students. Nasscom mandates that IT companies should hire students only during the final semester or at the end of the seventh semester. This however has not gone down too well with some universities.
Thanjavur-based Sastra University recently wrote to Nasscom asking them to request companies to conduct their recruitment during the seventh semester.Sastra says it encourages students to do internships in various universities, companies and premier research labs, inside and outside India, after the seventh semester.
"Such students miss the opportunity of attending campus recruitment, as an internship of high quality is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity... Students are forced to travel repeatedly in the event of not being selected by the first few companies. This will dilute the quality of internship and strain the relationship between the university and internship partners, who feel such frequent interruptions upset the internship schedule," the letter from Dr S Vaidhyasubramaniam, Dean (Planning and Development), Sastra reads.
But Nasscom refuses to budge from its stance. "It is in the interest of the industry to hire students in as finished' a state as possible. The end of the seventh semester is the best time, since most of the academic curriculum is completed, with just the project in the final semester to go. So companies can make a better assessment of the candidate at that stage," says K Purushottaman, regional director of Nasscom.
IT majors echo Nasscom's view. "We hire from the eighth semester onwards from engineering colleges. We feel this is most appropriate as students are fully groomed around that time. Additionally, hiring around the eighth semester matches our demand forecasting schedules," says Pradeep Bahirwani, VP of Talent Acquisition at Wipro Technologies. Wipro is likely to add about 11,000 freshers during the current fiscal with 65% of them being from engineering colleges.
"Early hiring destroys the spirit of education. Students who get jobs in the sixth semester typically show a drop in interest in academics and this is not good for the student, the university or the industry," says T V Mohandas Pai, head of HR at Infosys. The IT industry has frequently noted that only about 25% of the students are employable.
Vaidhyasubramaniam counters that saying a sudden behavioural change in a student who is studious for seven semesters is an issue concerning his/her fundamental values. "Such students will behave the same way even if the recruitment happens in the eighth semester," he says. But evidently, that argument doesn't have too many takers.
Sastra says Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) integrates its Initial Learning Programme into the eighth semester curriculum, while Infosys conducts an orientation programme as part of the final semester course work at its Mysore office. So early hiring would help.
But Pai says this can be done even if students are hired at the end of the seventh semester. "Besides, we prefer to hire students as close to the joining date as possible," he says.
Traditionally, IT companies used to hire students at the end of the sixth semester one year before they graduated. This was during the boom time but the economic slowdown saw many companies unable to honour their offer letters. There had also been growing concern about students being far from industry ready'. So Nasscom issued a directive saying companies should go for campus recruitment only at the end of the seventh semester.
For companies too, this works well as they have a clearer idea of their recruitment needs. "We believe it is a win-win situation for all concerned: students, academia and the industry," says Shankar Srinivasan, chief people officer of Cognizant.