Mid-sized IT firms go for experienced hires

As India moves to become a destination for technology outsourcing, information technology (IT) are struggling to harness the talents needed with skills specific technologies.

In many cases, customers prefer employees with experience in niche projects, which only adds to the problems of IT service providers. According to industry experts, this poses a major obstacle to medium service companies, as they have to control costs, margin and projects with the talent available.

"Most new projects are very important to customers that requires talent niche. As projects increasingly driven by technology, many of our customers are asking for experienced employees. Our goal is to satisfy the demands of our customers, for which we make lateral hiring more freshers, "said Anand Talwar, senior vice president (talent management), ITC Infotech, a medium-sized IT company.
Traditionally, Indian IT companies depend mainly on campus recruits to meet their hiring plans. Employees hired from the campus are given training before being admitted to the projects. However, the new customer demand has put pressure on these companies, higher employee cost will affect the margins.

For example, ITC Infotech employs over 3,500 people and employs 75 percent of its workforce through the recruitment side. You see a big impact on their margins due to higher employee costs.

"When we hired more lateral creates an impact at the margin, and this is why we believe our margins are lower compared to other players," added Talwar.

Another medium-sized company, MphasiS, said the market is evolving units experienced employees are increasing. Most projects require new resources specializing in technology areas such as ERP, data warehousing and business intelligence.

Babuji said Abraham, director of Human Resources at MindTree, another mid-tier enterprise IT, "We are facing the demand for people with experience of some of the new customers we've added. Before too, the Indian IT industry faces the shortage of experienced talent. But now, the experience does not mean that the number of years put in a company, but the competition has it in a specific domain. "

Scouts believe the market is emerging from recession, there is a large movement of many smaller companies to large enterprises. This has created a shortage of skilled workers for many mid-level companies.

"Mid-level IT companies can not afford to hire more freshers and then train on the job since many of them are specialist companies that offer niche technologies. At the same time, many large software product companies Employees are also looking for experience, "says Abhishek Udayai, CEO of HR consulting firm Talenta.

To meet the demand and supply, companies have taken initiatives to train employees in some specialized areas based on need of clients and projects.

"Now when we go recruiting, looking for people who have additional certifications in any domain. We are also making efforts to certify our existing employees in the specific domain in relation to their projects," said Abraham of MindTree.

KPIT Cummins Pune-based also said he was having specific training and certification programs to train talents.
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