After years of hiring experienced professionals to serve top customers in the US, Indian tech firms are now seeking to hire fresh engineering graduates from American universities, as stricter immigration norms and high unemployment rate make local hiring attractive in the country.
In a year when India’s top outsourcing firms are under pressure to position themselves as more global companies not necessarily responsible for America’s ‘jobless economic recovery’, experts and company officials say a war for local US talent is set to become a priority.
Apart from stricter and costlier visa permits in the US, outsourcing customers such as GE are also asking Indian vendors to play a role in addressing high unemployment rates.
India-based tech firms including Wipro, Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys and Cognizant are now battling it out to hire hundreds of fresh engineering graduates from campuses of Pennsylvania State University, Rutgers, University of Massachusetts, University of Connecticut, North Carolina State University and University of Michigan, among many others.
Companies such as Infosys, which counts JP Morgan among its top customers, say they have started hiring from US campuses.
“We have a target of hiring 250 local employees every quarter in the US for the next four quarters,” said S Gopalakrishnan,
CEO of Infosys. “As we develop our consulting and systems integration services, we need to hire more at all levels in the United States. Brand recall for companies like ours is improving every year, we are slowly getting there,” he said.
US talent pool much smaller
“There is no big cost difference because we have to pay American salaries even to our Indian employees going there,” he added.
However, unlike India, which produces nearly 600,000 engineering graduates every year, the US pool is much smaller, ensuring a much more intense fight for whatever talent is available.
“Though IT is a popular choice, compared to Indian colleges, the pool of students looking out for a career in IT is smaller and all tech firms are tapping into this pool; so definitely, the war for talent is there,” said Priti Rajora , global head, talent acquisition, Wipro Technologies .
On their part, India’s top outsourcing companies TCS, Infosys, Wipro and HCL have already started setting up development centres in locations such as Atlanta and Michigan. While TCS aims to double its foreign workforce from 10,000 currently to 20,000 over the next five years, Infosys and Wipro could see non-Indians account for 10-15% of their total employee base in next 3-5 years, from around 5% currently.
Wipro, for instance, wants US locals to account for more than half of its workforce in the country, and hiring from local campuses is a strategic shift to achieve that goal.
These companies have kicked off several initiatives to build a brand on campuses and attract the best talent. Wipro, for instance, has hired a senior campus relationship manager responsible for keeping the company visible in campuses throughout the year. The company says it has managed to create a buzz in these campuses by showcasing alumni, being a part of campus fairs and being present on multiple other forums.
“It is true that Wipro is not as big a brand name in the US as it is in India but we have been able to generate significant interest. IT is a buzzword there too and India and China are being seen as the places to be. We have been doing a lot of work in campuses to showcase ourselves,” Rajora of Wipro said.
IT firms pay at least 20-25% more to tech graduates in the US compared to Indian colleges. But they do not see this leading to a big increase in employee costs as they are able to charge higher for onsite employees. At the same time, Indian employees sent on H1B visas also prove to be as expensive as they draw salaries on a par with local US talent.
“The view of Indian companies in these campuses has changed a lot over the past few years. In the US, campus connect programmes are much deeper and more developed than in Indian colleges and it would be difficult to enter a good college if you were not known.
Indian IT companies are now finding a place in these colleges; they are now slowly being seen as alternatives to the big tech firms there like IBM and Accenture ,” said Thiruvengadam P , leader, human capital advisory services, Deloitte.
Cognizant has a team of 60 full-time recruiters in the US who are solely responsible for hiring candidates locally, both from campuses and the lateral market. The company views this is a sign of a maturing industry.
“Just like the manufacturing supply chain went atomically global, we are seeing the early signs of the services value chain go atomically global.
While we have done undergraduate recruiting from campuses for specific needs of practices earlier, this is the first time we are aggressively focusing on key universities for our pan organisation needs and we are trying to build deep, long-term relationships,” Shankar Srinivasan, chief people officer, Cognizant said.
Local experts such as Morley J Nair, who is based in Philadelphia and advises on immigration, say the rate of visa denials by US consulates is among the reasons for increased campus hiring.
“Actually, the trend of hiring graduates from US campuses seems to have picked up momentum last year itself, with increased enforcement of H-1B-related regulations by US consulates abroad, and even by the immigration inspectors at US entry points.
If you recall, the deportation of Indian H-1B workers from Newark, New Jersey airport, in January 2010 was big news, which sent shockwaves through the H-1B community, both employers and employees,” says Nair.
“So the logical conclusion is that if employers are able to hire candidates from US campuses, the ‘hazards’ of US consulate interviews and overbearing questioning at US entry points can be avoided, at least in the short term, i.e., until they have to travel overseas again and obtain visas to re-enter the US,” adds Nair.
Most of these companies are going to the tier-I tech colleges in universities like Carnegie Mellon , Emory, Stanford, Massachusetts, Connecticut and North Maryland, among others.
Source:http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech/careers/job-trends/Indian-IT-cos-hire-local-US-talent/articleshow/7522378.cms
