TCS to ramp up hiring from tier II, III cities
The Economic Times — September 25, 2007

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), India's largest software and services firm, on Monday said it will hire up to 5,000 employees in the northern region this fiscal and 70 per cent hirings will come from tier II and III cities.

"We will hire 3,000 trainees and 2,000 lateral hires in the northern region. We don't want to miss out on talent in tier II and III cities where quality talent just needs some polishing," TCS vice-president, human resources, Thomas Simon said here.

The company believes that the knowledge base of these candidates is as strong as their counterparts belonging to bigger cities. However, imparting training in areas of language, soft skills and etiquette is essential to give them a finishing touch, he said.

The compensation and rewards for employees across centres will be similar, Simon added.

Eligibility criterion for trainees will remain a minimum 60 per cent score in all the degrees attained. As for hiring experienced professionals, the cut-off has been kept at 50 per cent, Simon said. Hirings will be taken up for positions based in the NCR region apart from Lucknow. While experienced professional hirings will be done for pre-mapped positions, the trainees will be sent to Thiruvananthapuram for initial training.

The company had earlier said it planned to ramp up headcount by 32,000 across India this fiscal. TCS has witnessed an attrition rate of 11.5 per cent overall, with 11 per cent attrition rate in the IT services business and 16.7 per cent in BPO in the first quarter of the current fiscal ended June 30.

"We managed to keep a check on the attrition figures this year," Simon added.

The total employee strength of the company was 94,902, from 67 nationalities at the end of the first quarter. There was a gross addition of 8,706 employees, of which 2,898 were trainees and 4,795 experienced professionals in India and 1,013 employees in overseas subsidiaries and branches in Q1. The net addition in the quarter was 5,512 employees. The company is expanding the talent pool beyond engineering students through its 'Ignite' programme aimed at science graduates as well.

TCS recently completed a seven- month on-the-job training programme for science graduates.

It also plans to reinforce its new brand image though increased branding activities, newsletters, blogs and campus portal.