With the domestic IT industry targeting $60 billion in exports by 2009-10, there is an estimated demand for 850,000 IT professionals and 1.4 million ITES-BPO professionals. The current number of IT-ITES professionals is around 1 million.
Sensing this huge void, some companies in the hardware business are even employing diploma-holders and students who have passed 10+2, while software companies are making do with graduates too.
IT companies have already started hiring BSc graduates in Physics, Maths and Statistics besides MSc graduates from similar streams.
These candidates, on being recruited, undertake a 12-week training process that brings them up to speed on various technologies they will eventually work on.
HCL Infosystems chairman and CEO Ajai Chowdhary said, "Our manufacturing section does not require software programmers, so we employ simple graduates or under graduates and give them required training for computer manufacturing. But as far as software and programming is concerned, we also employ graduates and train them as per the company's requirement."
"We have also developed an extensive six weeks training programme for the graduates recruited by the company," Jessie Paul, chief marketing officer of Wipro Technologies said.
Even the recruitment agencies are facing the problem to find an eligible graduates for the IT companies. An executive search and project staffing company, Searchworks, CEO Ashish Arora said, "Out of 100 profiles received by us nearly 60 per cent are junk profiles."
In order to send an appropriate candidates to the IT companies our internal technical panel conduct an interview of the remaining 40 per cent candidates and out of them nearly 15-20 per cent profiles and candidates are forwarded to the companies, Arora added.
Patni Computers senior vice president (learning and leadership development Sunil Kuwalekar said, "After training the graduates about the programmes on which they would be required to work in future, they also give us the same output as the engineering graduates. Only difference is they take little more time to master the skills."