Hiring season this May in Bangalore IT sector

This May, the city reverberates with the excitement of upwardly mobile, young professionals, especially from the IT and IT enabled services sector, quitting their jobs and making the rounds of  innumerable placement services companies not only to move up the professional ladder but also take home, sizeable salaries.

Industry sources say that nearly 25-30 per cent of IT professionals look for new opportunities and this phenomenon is unique to Bangalore as compared to other cities in the country. There are, it seems, a lot more opportunities.

Professionals are not satisfied with the percentage of hikes, and shift jobs  every year or two. Bangalore also has good opportunities for new comers who are picked up during campus placements while professionals with expertise with two or three years of experience can demand better emoluments in the next job.

City Express spoke to people working in the industry in both Indian and multi-national companies, placement companies, and of course, the employers.

Better packages

In the past three years, Lohit has already changed three jobs and is presently working in Flipkart. His reasons are the usual but he stresses that he prefers to work here as they pay well, there is lot of freedom, good training sessions and less restrictions.

“Earlier, I was working in a company which was giving me a hike of 12-15 per cent only but here, they pay you a hike anywhere between ` 9000-12,000.  I have been here for eight months, and have got a good hike and I am very happy work wise as well as the work environment which is free and informal.”

In Bangalore, the IT hub of India, are the opportunities greater?  According to Chander Mannar, Phoenix Login Solutions, product developers regularly face the problem of young trained people quitting this time of the year says, “Bangalore has more opportunities even today particularly in product development compared to cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Chennai. Therefore, we see lot of migration from other cities too. We have to be mentally prepared to accept the fact that we could be losing nearly 25 per cent of employees and for that reason, we hire more thereby, incurring more expenditure in the process.”

More opportunities

With IT majors like Infosys, Wipro headquartered here, obviously this city has more momentum and opportunities unlike other cities followed by expatriates who have set up their companies attracted by the weather and international branding. Nowadays, lots of new companies are coming up and they love to hire trained personnel and this results in the constant movement of people from company to company.

Christina has changed three jobs in seven years and recently, she left Convergys Ltd, a customer management solutions company after working for 13 months. The reasons are of course the same: a hike in the salaries, however, she explains that working in the night shift for a long time is not feasible.

“One almost spends 12-13 hours in a day commuting, working and devoting the best part of your life holed up in the office, sacrificing your personal life and commitments. It is not easy to get day shift jobs with a good pay packet. As it is, working in the night results in health problems, you tend to gain weight and succumb to occupational hazards like cervical spondylosis, etc. So, I have left this job and since last month, looking for better opportunities as even work wise, I had reached a saturation point,” she adds.

On the other hand, engineering graduate, Somya (name changed) joined Cognizant (IT solutions) in campus selection just eight months back. But she left this to join another IT services company, Tech Mahindra.

“It was not for a hike or anything else but I could not adjust to their system of functioning and was not comfortable working there. Since I had already undergone training for three months, it was not difficult to get a job within the next few weeks.”

More manpower

With placement companies dime a dozen and offering services for every category and at different entry levels, every other day, thousands of experienced personnel register and attend interviews day in and day out. Rakesh, a staffer in one of the leading consultancies in the city adds, “We manage to place hundreds of people every day particularly in the mid-segment companies. Each candidate is on the lookout for better packages, better facilities followed by work environment. But we do get a few youngsters who are prepared to take the same package or even less salary for a better working environment. But most youngsters who come here are looking for a hike of 15 to 20 per cent at least and further and also an entry into MNCs once they have gained an experience of three to four years. Nothing can stop them in their endeavour to move forward, neither the brand value nor any loyalty to that company,” he opines.

New hiring is indirectly related to high turnover of man power and directly to availability of opportunities in Bangalore which is after all the Silicon Valley of India, says an industry expert. “Although other cities too throw up new jobs,   Bangalore not only opens opportunities for local people but also migrants from Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and North Eastern states. But keeping in view, the 25 per cent reduction in staff every year which affects our services, we need to keep a backup of trained people, otherwise it is very difficult to provide the same level of services to our clients and customers,” Mannar opines and signs off “Waiting for any small spark, the young professionals change their job within a year, gaining confidence and expertise and looking for opportunities which not only benefits some but affects some.”

Rajiv Wagre of Career Options who is into placements agrees that youngsters have more opportunities in the city when compared to Hyderabad or Gurgaon and therefore, they actively take a chance and even sit at home between jobs. “They are highly confident of getting jobs and youngsters with 2-3 years of experience make changes fast. This year, big companies like Infosys, Wipro are giving a hike of less than 10 cent as they are under lot of pressure while other companies are giving anywhere between 11-12 per cent. Hikes vary from industry to industry and depends on the level of competitiveness. For many from the north, Orissa and AP, Bangalore is still the Singapore of India as far as job opportunities are concerned,” he says.

Date: April 29, 2014

Source: The New Indian Express