BPO companies begin hiring again

After more than two quarters of no hiring, walk-in interviews for BPOs are back in the picture. Impacted by the global credit crunch, BPO firms had cut down the employees on the bench and frozen the hiring. Now, with the market witnessing positive signs of revival, walk-in interviews are back on the job sites and newspaper advertisements.

“Actions are back on track again and walk-in-interviews are happening as earlier. The downturn had impacted this segment, but it was not a major one,” Perry Madan, executive director, Elixir Web Solutions, told Financial Chronicle over the phone.

He said there has been a growth of around 15 per cent in the walk-in-interviews, which witnessed a negative growth during the downturn.

“Walk in interviews have started, but have not picked up as it was earlier before the downturn happened, as new projects are not coming from the US and Europe. Companies are now also looking at experienced people unlike earlier when even fresh pass-outs from colleges and schools were hired and given training,” Global Hunt director Sunil Goel said. He added that earlier it was a different game when people were just hired and given training for the processes. Karthik Shekhar, general secretary of union of ITeS professionals said that the there has been some hiring in BPO firms but the number of vacancies is relatively small compared to the mass hiring earlier. “Now we find hiring only for few experienced positions and the number of applicants is also huge. In certain cases, for 10-15 openings, there are more than 1,000 applicants,” Shekhar said.

However, there are few companies that have not been affected much and the walk-in-interviews are happening the same way as earlier. “During the downturn, the attrition rate reduced a bit as people stayed longer due to fear of losing jobs in newer companies. But, walk in interviews remained by and large similar, as we were not desperate for hiring more people,” Serco CEO Aditya Gupta said.