It is perhaps a record of sorts as far as campus recruitments go in India.
Cognizant Technology Solutions, one of the fastest growing IT services companies in India, has made a whopping 504 recruitment offers on a single day to students from colleges which come under Chennai's Anna University. These engineering students will pass out in June 2006.
Cognizant was awarded the first slot -- Day 1, Slot 1 -- for recruitment of the 2006 batch of undergraduate and postgraduate students of the constituent colleges of the Anna University comprising College of Engineering, Guindy, Madras Institute of Technology, AC College of Technology and School of Architecture.
According to a Cognizant spokesperson the company administered the aptitude written test to 1,644 candidates on May 29 and short-listed about 1,110 candidates for an interview on May 29 and May 30.
A total of 504 candidates were finally selected for an offer by Cognizant across disciplines of study. Cognizant brought in more than 150 of its senior professionals as its panel for conducting interviews. It ran about 120 parallel panels to interview the 1,110 candidates before arriving at the final select list.
Last year too, the Nasdaq-listed company was one the largest recruiter from Anna University and had recruited 286 students. Last year Anna University attracted all the IT heavyweights, who made a good number of offers to students passing out in June 2005.
Cognizant made the maximum at 286, Infosys made 245, TCS 235, Wipro 105 and Satyam 18.
Campus reports indicate that IBM pays the maximum for freshers at Rs 2.96 lakh per year. HCL pays Rs 2.2 lakh, Cognizant Rs 2.11 lakh, TCS Rs 2.04 lakh and Infosys Rs 1.93 lakh.
Interestingly, other than Cognizant all other leading top-tier recruiters insist on a bond from the student. Infosys has a 12-month bond, Wipro has a bond for 15 months and TCS and Satyam for 24 months.
Anna University invites firms based on the number of people they want to recruit, the salary they offer, and the number of engineering streams they are willing to recruit from.
"We were truly impressed with the high quality of the students at Anna University which led to we making 504 offers," said R Chandrasekaran, Managing Director, Cognizant. "We are seeing good demand in our business arising out of three factors: taking a broader range of services to our existing customers, providing services to clients in newer verticals like pharmaceuticals, telecom, logistics, transportation and media that are adopting offshore strategically, and servicing the European marketplace which is seeing increased demand."
Cognizant has been one of the power recruiters in the Indian IT industry, recruiting over 85 percent of its global person-power requirements from India.
In calendar 2004, it recruited about 6,000 professionals globally. In calendar 2005, it plans to recruit about 7,700 professionals and take its global headcount to 23,000 by December 2005.
In fact, in the quarter ended March 2005, Cognizant had the highest net addition among the top-tier IT services companies. It added over 1,700 professionals to take its headcount to 17,050, up from 15,300 in December-end 2004.
