Hiring sentiment highest in India, 17% firms keen on freshers: Survey

Sectors that have withstood pandemic impact and have had a stronger hiring sentiment are IT (31%), telecom (25%) and tech startups (25%)

Fresher hiring sentiment is highest in India, with 17 per cent employers keen on recruiting fresh graduates in the July to December 2021 period against 6 per cent globally. According to the Career Outlook Report by TeamLease EdTech, conducted across 18 sectors and 14 cities, the hiring sentiment in the country has registered a 2 percentage point increase over the February-April 2021 period.
 
In terms of sectors, those that have been able to withstand the impact of the pandemic and witnessed a stronger hiring sentiment are information technology (31 per cent), telecommunication (25 per cent) and technology start-ups (25 per cent).
 
Healthcare & pharmaceuticals (23 per cent), logistics (23 per cent), and manufacturing (21 per cent) are others sectors which have been faring well.
 
From a location perspective, the leading cities for fresher hiring are Bengaluru (43 per cent), Mumbai (31 per cent) and Delhi (27 per cent), Chennai (23 per cent) and Pune (21 per cent). “During the February to April period, close to 15 per cent of the employers were keen on hiring freshers, the sentiment seems to be not only intact, but has cemented further in the current half year. While the hiring sentiment is improving, we need to be cognizant of the employability of the freshers as well,” said Shantanu Rooj, founder & CEO, TeamLease Edtech.
 
He added that employers are more inclined to hire candidates with specialised skills and thus it is crucial for freshers to be fairly equipped. “Here is where the role of higher education institutions (HEIs) comes in. HEIs must structure their programmes in accordance with industry requirements for job roles to ensure candidates are employable,” said Rooj. According to the report findings, some of the key roles, across sectors, for which freshers hiring has been high are health care assistants, sales trainee/associates, full stack developers, telemarketing and digital marketing specialists.

Neeti Sharma, president and co-founder, TeamLease EdTech, however, pointed out that in India, employability is a higher concern than employment. “HEIs should explore a learning model wherein there is a convergence of offsite and onsite learning as well as industry training that arms the candidates with the right skill sets. On the other hand, employers also need to re-look their hiring and training strategy to skill the freshers. Incidentally, more employers are now using Hire-Train-Deploy (HTD) to on-board and train freshers. This is enabling them to create a stronger workforce for the future. Greater acceptance of HTD and similar models will equip our youngsters to take advantage of the growing opportunities,” added Sharma.
 
Employers are more keen to hire candidates who have in-depth skills and knowledge of data analytics, sales/customer services, data engineering, python programming, project management, artificial intelligence, digital marketing among other skills.
 
The report also highlights the courses that freshers can take to improve their employability. Some of the most in-demand courses, according to the study, are programming, mobile app development, AI and data science, cyber-security, research and management.