Wipro may go slow on campus hiring

Wipro Technologies, the country's third largest software services exporter, today said the company might go slow on its campus-hiring plans till demand picks up. The move comes in the wake of Wipro delaying to absorb to absorb around 10,000 campus recruits, who were scheduled to join before the end of the current financial year.

"Given the uncertain business environment, the company will maintain a wait-and-watch policy," said Pradeep Bahirwani, vice-president (talent acquisition), Wipro Technologies, which currently employs around 70,000 people. "We are waiting and watching the situation closely. We will hire only when there is definite demand. We will not hire in anticipation of demand because this is not business as usual. This is a time of uncertainty," Bahirwani told Business Standard.

In 2008-09, the company had issued offer letters to 8,000 people, who are supposed to be absorbed in the company in 2009-10. However, the process of fresh recruitment is getting staggered, owing to the changed business environment as a result of the global meltdown. In 2007-08, the company had recruited 13,500 engineering graduates through campus interviews, of which about 3,700 people had joined at the end of the second quarter of the current financial year. "Because there is a reduction in demand, definitely there will be some impact. We are anticipating some delay in the on-boarding of the campus recruits because of the uncertainty in business environment," said Bahirwani.

Last week, Wipro issued letters to some of the 2007-08 campus recruits, giving them an option to join their BPO division in technical support roles for 12-18 months before starting their career in the IT services business of the company.

The offer was optional and those candidates, who are not interested in taking it up, are free to wait for a suitable time when they will be absorbed in the company, Wipro said.

Wipro also said candidates could join Wipro BPO with the same salary mentioned in the original offer and the experience in BPO will also be considered relevant and continuous when they moved into IT services after the stipulated time-frame. The offers were given to some selected candidates, who were recruited through campus examinations from some engineering colleges in Orissa, West Bengal and Andhra Pradesh since the technical support positions were required for the company's Kolkata BPO centre.

According to the company, more than 95 per cent of the campus recruits, who had been given revised offer letters, have accepted the offers.

Wipro's BPO division has a headcount of about 16,500, of which close to 5,000 are located in Kolkata. Currently, about 20-30 per cent of Wipro's BPO revenue comes from non-voice and transaction-processing business, which requires professionally-qualified persons, including engineers, MBAs and other financial professionals.