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In an effort to attract high-potential talent from the fresh graduate pool, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), India’s largest IT services firm, has introduced a new hiring tier, dubbed “Prime”, as part of its campus recruitment strategy this year.
Engineers recruited under the Prime category will receive annual compensation packages ranging from Rs 9 lakh to Rs 11 lakh, significantly higher than standard entry-level offers.
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Girish Nandimath, TCS’s global head of talent acquisition, detailed the rationale behind this new category in a video interview. “With Prime, TCS is making sure that we are able to secure the right high talent... Colleges will make sure that students who are offered jobs in this category do not go for another company’s hiring process.”
He further elaborated on the unique challenges of campus recruitment, particularly regarding “dream” category offers. Typically, students with dream category offers can still explore opportunities with other companies, potentially declining TCS offers later in the process. This new Prime category aims to mitigate such risks by solidifying the commitment of high-potential candidates.
The urgency to secure top talent is driven by the rapid technological advancements transforming the IT services sector. “We have product business, we have strategic growth businesses, research units, and here we need such high talent who are high on programing and coding potential and who also have flair for new technologies that are in the market today, such as AI, GenAI, and machine learning,” said Nandimath.
This move is not unprecedented for TCS. In 2019-20, the company introduced two distinct categories — Ninja and Digital — offering annual compensation packages of Rs 3.6 lakh and Rs 7 lakh, respectively. “We reimagined how we wanted to hire from campuses. The intent was to get access to the best talent, (while recognising that) some students within the same campus possess superior aptitude and capabilities,” he said.
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TCS has occasionally recruited students in the Rs 9 lakh category, often referred to as “Prime” by various campuses.
However, this is the first time the Prime tier has been formally expanded to include several top-tier institutes, according to Janardhan Santhanam, TCS’ vice-president and chief learning officer. Previously, such hiring was limited to the research and innovation (R&I) segment or product verticals but is now extended across all business units.
With a total headcount of 606,998 as of June 30, 2024, TCS did not disclose the proportion of hires under each category. “Ninja will continue to dominate bulk hiring, and while Prime is newly introduced, I can’t share specific numbers yet. But our experience of talent hired under Digital has been extremely positive. Over the past four years, our funnel of talent getting hired under Digital has gone up and we do see it going up in future as well,” Nandimath noted. He highlighted that Digital hires, which initially constituted less than 10 per cent of TCS’s total recruitment, have since surpassed that threshold.
For 2024-25, TCS plans to hire 40,000 fresh graduates from campuses.
Nandimath also emphasised that candidates recruited under the Digital or Prime categories tend to require less training, exhibit higher readiness for billable work, and show better productivity.
Santhanam clarified that starting in the Ninja category doesn’t preclude upward mobility. “We believe in the potential of every candidate,” he said, adding, after training, the company assesses Ninja recruits to identify those who might transition to higher categories.”
Talent hunt
> The decision to have a higher salary bracket is to attract higher talent from premier colleges
> This is also being driven to cater to the fast changing tech landscape
> TCS has till date two categories in fresher hiring: Ninja and Digital
> The number students hired under Digital category has been rising
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