Wait set to end for HCL Tech recruits

Source: BusinessLine
Mumbai, Feb. 23 In what could end several months of uncertainty for the 1500-odd campus recruits selected by HCL Technologies in their penultimate year of college (in 2007), they could now be joining the company within the next five months.

“You will be given an eight-week notice to join the organisation and the joining dates shall be communicated to everyone over the next three months as we decide city, technology and service line for each student,” the company said in an e-mail dated February 13, to its employees-in-waiting.

It added that the appointment letter with the joining details will be shared two weeks prior to the date of joining.

Business Line had reported earlier this month that about 1,500 campus recruits were groping in the dark as HCL had neither given the date of joining nor a hard copy of the offer-letter to the freshers. HCL had then said that the hard-copy of the offer letter was provided only closer to the date of joining.

Subsequently, about 50-70 recruits organised a peaceful protest in front of the HCL campus in Noida. And the company eventually wrote back to its employees-in-waiting that they would get their date to join the company in three months.

In its latest communication to the employees-in-waiting, the country’s fifth largest software exporter agreed that the challenging macro-economic environment had forced it to rethink some of its strategies for training, hiring, performance evaluation and deployment.

“Unfortunately, unlike the past few years, this year we will be unable to demonstrate any flexibility on defined norms and process,” the company said.

Due to shrinking client-spend, IT firms are going slow on recruitments. Even those freshers with a valid offer letter are being brought on board in a staggered manner. Recently, the country’s largest software company Tata Consultancy Services said the last batch from the previous year’s campus recruits (about 1,000 persons) would join the company latest by this month-end.

“Deployment at HCL is planned in a phased manner and done in batches. The first batch has already joined the organisation after completing their training and certifications, while few others are undergoing training,” the company said.