Surviving the apocalypse

Engineering graduate Hitendra Kalia, 24, had his first brush with a slowdown in mid-2008 when he set out to find a job in the coveted IT services sector. “IT was the dream sector to be in,” he says. After a few months of searching in vain, Kalia decided to switch not just sectors, but functions. He landed a job in marketing in a Gurgaonbased financial services multinational.

“I am better off in marketing,” shrugs Kalia. “It’s time I acquired a degree in marketing.” With an education loan and now a car loan, Kalia can ill-afford to take chances.

Pooja Bansal Age: 23, Indore What happened: The Analyst Programmer was working with a Mumbai-based software firm that wanted to move her to the KPO division Current status: Re-skilling, filling up forms for govt. Jobs in banking and IT in her hometown Indore

Kalia and a host of young techies like him are being forced to revisit their career plans in IT, thanks to declining growth in the sector and the consequent reluctance of the IT majors to recruit. “It’s a perfect storm of oversupply and demand destruction globally for IT,” says Manish Sabharwal, Chairman, TeamLease Services, India’s leading staffing company. Conservative estimates put IT job losses at 1 lakh between October 2008 and June 2009.

Little surprise then that techies are taking the road less travelled. Take the case of Delhi-based Devender Kumar Saini. IT was a dream he nurtured from Class VIII. A native of Narnaul in Haryana, Saini, 23, graduated from University Institute of Engineering and Technology, Kurukshetra University, in 2008. He waited till August for two campus hire offers to fructify, but they didn’t. “They kept postponing the joining and finally said we do not have positions,” says Saini. Result: He decided to enter event management and joined a professional conference organiser in Delhi Augustend. Yet, Infosys remains his dream company to work for.

If Saini were to ever meet Vijay Prasad (name changed on request), he might just change his mind about the Bangalore-headquartered major. The investment plans of the 25-year-old techie with Infosys got a rude jolt recently when Infosys announced a salary and promotion freeze. “I had planned to invest in a house over the next few months, but now I will have to reconsider,” says Prasad. But he is glad that he at least has a job with a blue-chip IT major, the freeze on hikes notwithstanding. “I am thankful to have a job at a time when there is an extremely rigorous assessment in place,” he says. “We have zero tolerance for poor performers in this economic environment,” says T.V. Mohandas Pai, Director (HR & Administration), Infosys.

Ketaki Kode Age: 23, Pune What happened: The engineering graduate did manage to find a job in Mumbai, but was not keen on relocating Current status: Self-employed. Runs a start-up called Sark Software; her graduating friends want to join her

According to Pai, around 2,100 people have been identified for “outplacing” (terminating an employee’s services and helping him find a new job), sent on performance improvement programmes or just asked to leave. HCL Technologies is honouring its commitments to freshers in the classes of 2009 and 2010, but is moving away from recruiting them. “We have not made any net hires since the middle of last year; most hiring since then has been attrition replacement but even that has slowed down over the last couple of quarters,” says CEO Vineet Nayar.

Who would have thought that a time would come when IT services head honchos would actually be telling engineers to look at other sectors! “I think it will be a good thing if fewer engineering graduates join IT. India needs civil and mechanical engineers.... In a weird sort of way, the slowdown in IT recruitment might be good for the country in the long run,” says Nayar.

But that is unlikely to happen anytime soon. In the last four years, India has seen an unprecedented proliferation of engineering colleges, especially in the North.

Rehan Mark D’Almeida Age: 22, Bangalore What happened: The final semester student has been attending job interviews for the past six months, but sans luck Current status: May do some certification courses; if offers don’t come, may opt for a masters programme overseas

According to Sabharwal, Uttar Pradesh alone has 69,000 engineers graduating from 192 colleges that did not exist four years ago. These are all under the UP Technical University Industrial Centre. Kanpur itself has 25 colleges. Where will these candidates find refuge? Many of them will keep hunting for an offer letter.

Like 22-yearold Rehan Mark D’Almeida, who has been attending job interviews for the past six months. An eighth (and final) semester student with the CMR Institute of Technology, Bangalore, D’Almeida’s hunt has proved unsuccessful so far. “I have been for placements on and off campus, but there are very few jobs on offer and companies are taking much longer to decide. Many companies have also postponed the joining date and are reworking salaries,” he says. D’Almeida is now reviewing his options. “I may do some certification courses to improve my employment chances and if no offers happen soon, I may opt for a masters programme overseas,” he says.

Devender Kumar Saini Age: 23, Delhi What happened: Two campus offers failed to fructify, after many postponements Current status: Plunged into event management; joined a professional conference organiser

A techie who is relying on re-skilling is Pooja Bansal, 23, who, till recently, was working in a Mumbaibased software company. She was hired from campus and trained in Pune for two months before being taken on board as an Analyst Programmer. Bansal first realised something was amiss when she was benched in January 2009; yet she was confident of working on a project soon. A couple of months later, the penny dropped with a thud: The company gave her the option of joining the KPO (knowledge process outsourcing) division, which was still hunting for talent, but Bansal was not keen on a non-IT profile. Her next stop: Hometown Indore where she is burning the midnight oil to study ASP.NET, a Microsoft programming model. She is also busy filling up forms for government jobs in banking and IT. “Now I think government jobs are safer.”

Yet, Bansal would be better placed than (over)experienced techies. Juxtapose her against Delhi-based Ambalika Sanyal, another techie who lost her job, but whose experience is coming in the way of new options.

In her 30s, Sanyal, who was a Quality Analyst at her last job, has seven years of experience. “In this market, companies invariably think a candidate with experience will ask for a higher salary and techies with less experience are hired,” she says. Sanyal is scouting for offers and is wary of investing in re-skilling till the time she is sure of a return on that investment. Sanyal could, perhaps, take a cue from Pune-based Ketaki Kode, who has decided to take the road less travelled. Kode, 23, an engineering graduate from Pune University, passed out in 2008.

She did find a job in Mumbai, but wasn’t too comfortable shifting. Much to her parents’ surprise, she decided to strike out on her own. “I had a tough time explaining to them that the job market was bad.” Kode is self-employed and her fledgling outfit is christened Sark Software. Since July 2008, she has carried out 7-8 small projects. In her current three-month project, she is developing software for barcodes for retail shops for a client.

The perky youngster is listed on a couple of job sites, but insists till the time she has projects, she is committed to them. The good news is that a few of her graduating friends want to join her. Now here’s one sanctuary where there’s no job freeze!

Additional reporting by Rahul Sachitanand and Kushan Mitra