Hyderabad: Good CVs' no longer fetch jobs for IT seniors

HYDERABAD: Senior software professionals, even those with good professional track records are banking on recommendations to get a job. According to a senior officer in the industry, the trend was very different. Hitherto, most candidates carrying recommendations were freshers looking for entry level jobs. City-based techie L. Vignesh who was laid off a few months ago, said that seniors used to feel that enclosing a recommendation would cast doubts on their skills and abilities. The ongoing retrenchment has changed everything.

“Not only has hiring slowed down, but seniors are also finding it difficult to get called for interviews. Therefore a few of them are trying to get recommendation from industry seniors or other sources,” he said. “Every company follows a rigorous screening and selection process. The company’s job necessity and needs determine a candidate’s selection,” said Mr Ranga Pothula, president of Hyderabad Software Enterprise Association.

Companies put cap on campus hirings

IT companies are filling  up vacancies internally rather than going for external recruitment, after giving wide advertisements within the company offices across the country. Campus recruitments have also been affected. IT recruiters are not only confining campus drives to a limited number of colleges but have also reduced the number of jobs given to final year students compared to the last few years.

Only state-run engineering colleges like OU, JNTU and a few top private engineering colleges are on the companies’ radar. College managements have taken to writing to IT companies individually, requesting them to include their college in the campus drive list. According to Mr V. Uma Maheshwar, chief placements officer, OU College of Engineering, IT service companies have cut down on job hiring this year. Former Nasscom chairman B.V.R. Mohan Reddy said that the National Association of Software and Service Companies had already pegged IT recruitments this year at 1.25 lakh against 1.8 lakh previous year.

Automation, geo-political situation in the US and Europe have resulted in companies going slow on recruitments, he said. The slowdown is taking a toll on retrenched tech-ies. According to Mr Kiran Chandra of the For-um for IT Professionals, several engineers, who were axed illegally over the last three months, are unable to get jobs because external hiring of seniors is almost scrapped.