Top Indian IT firms have accused Accenture of violating campus recruitment norms by beginning placements in some colleges a semester ahead. Companies including TCS, Infosys, Wipro and Cognizant have lodged a complaint with industry lobby Nasscom.
Even a couple of years back, IT companies used to hire engineering graduates a year before they passed out. However, Nasscom asked top colleges last year to postpone their placement season to the final semester. This was done to ensure that software firms would go in for just- in-time hiring, to ensure that they do not over hire in an environment where project pipelines were under pressure.
Nasscom wanted the same practice to be followed for the 2010-11 batch too even though growth has returned to the industry. To boot, Nasscom president Som Mittal wrote an e-mail to senior execs at TCS, Infosys, Wipro, Cognizant and Accenture last week asking them to continue with the policy. ET has a copy of the mail.
But IT firms allege that Accenture had violated this directive by giving offer letters to students in a couple of colleges based in Pune and Ahmedabad. When asked, Mittal said: “When you are doing this across a very large country, there can be some leakages or emissions , but nothing is at scale. But we have spoken to companies and they said that they will abide by the directive.” Mittal did not, however, go into the specifics of the issue. “It was a gentleman’s agreement and they have broken it. It is a clearly loss of face for the Indian IT industry,” said a person in charge of campus placements at one of the rival firms. The colleges where Accenture has given offer letters are Sinhgad group of institutions in Pune and Dhirubhai Ambani Institute of Information and Communication in Gujarat. Two people involved in the placement process at these two institutes confirmed that Accenture had issued offer letters.
An Accenture spokesman declined to offer comments on the accusation made by rivals . Industry watchers say campuses will see aggressive hiring as growth returns to the IT sector after a tough year. “There is better traction in hiring and this is indicated by higher attrition levels. The normal rules of truce will be forgotten in such an environment . So, if one or two break the ranks, it is a free for all,” said E Balaji, CEO of HR consulting firm Ma Foi Randstad.
“This is just an aberration. Hiring in the last semester is good for everyone so I don’t see why companies won’t align,” Mittal said.