Lack of qualified candidates hits IT

K V Ramana / TNN / May 29, 2007, 02:33 IST

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That there are 'qualified' people around, in terms of their academic credentials, but most of them are 'unemployable' people is also public knowledge.

HYDERABAD: That a severe manpower crunch is confronting several IT and ITeS companies hard is a well-known fact. That there are 'qualified' people around, in terms of their academic credentials, but most of them are 'unemployable' people is also public knowledge. But what's new is that the ratio of unemployable to qualified people is rising rapidly.
"We have to outrightly reject over 90 per cent of applications we get.These guys are nowhere near the benchmark for hiring," the centre head of an MNC told TOI.
"On paper they look good, but are useless actually," he said. Similar is the experience of other IT recruiters. In the past, the rejection rate was around 60%.
What has also made the rejection rate rise is that companies want to be more careful before hiring anyone.

"Considering that it costs us around Rs 30,000 to hire a candidate, we were a little liberal in opening our doors. But we have found that these candidates had to be rigorously trained which cost us more. So now, we are more careful and hence there are more rejections," said a HR chief of an IT company.
Admittedly however, the problem has become acute because IT/ITes companies are in an expansionary mode in Hyderabad. Many of them started with leased or rented premises, but now are moving out into their campuses. As a rule of thumb, every time that companies move to their campuses, their head count goes up by double.

"Manpower problems afflict us at every level, whether it is entry level, middle or top levels," said a ITeS company HR person.
Thankfully however, the attrition rate has stabilised - at least for the time being - at around 13 to 14%. Had this rate gone up, this would have meant more problems for the companies.
However, contributing to the stabilisation of the attrition rate is also the realisation by companies that filching staff from competitors only adds to manpower shortages and the salary bill. This because it sparks a chain reaction.
These developments in the industry come even as the state government has set an ambitious target of creating three lakh jobs in IT and ITeS sectors by 2009.
The government is also planning to lend a hand to rescue these companies and expand the Jawahar Knowledge Centre (JKC) model to non-engineering colleges.
About 11 degree colleges have started implementing the JKC programme and this year, another 18 colleges are likely to take up the project.
"As part of the campus placement mission, we are extending the JKC model to non-engineering institutions for training and placing graduates of B.Com. (computers), B.Sc. (computers) and B.Sc. M.P.C. students," an official involved in the programme said.

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