A much-cherished campus placement offer is turning into an endless wait for many engineering graduates.
For HCL recruits who have been demanding clarity regarding their on-boarding schedule, Monday brought more disappointment as company officials told protesting recruits that the process would be further delayed, to August.
The graduates of colleges across the State assembled at the office of the firm in Nungambakkam, demanding to know the dates of joining. “We had protested last Monday too and the officials said they will get back to us in a week. But there has been no mail from them,” a protester said. “It is time they stop giving us false promises and offer us the jobs we were promised,” another added. The recruits held up placards with messages such as ‘Recruited in 2011, waited in 2012, still waiting in 2013.’ The company had recruited around 6,000 engineering students from many colleges and is yet to take on board most of them.
The recruits waited inside the company campus till 5 p.m., and met HCL officials. “They said they will plan the on-boarding only in August. This means we have not only wasted more than a year waiting, we have also lost opportunities in other companies,” said another protester.
Many of the protesters came from Puducherry, Erode, Coimbatore and various parts of Andhra Pradesh. Protests also took place at Noida, Hyderabad and Bangalore. The company had earlier introduced a Front Runner Programme, which required recruits to clear a test after they had been selected. “It was on short notice and there was no re-test for those who could not clear it. Also, the company did not even call the few who managed to clear the test,” said a protester.
While the biggest recruiters in the State – Cognizant Technology Solutions, Tata Consultancy Services and Wipro Technologies — have already issued their dates of joining to all batches of recruits, Infosys has communicated to its recruits that their date of joining might be slightly delayed and had issued their temporary joining dates.
“I graduated in April last year so it has been a year-long wait for us. But since I already knew my joining date was in May, I was pursuing other courses. Some of my other friends have also gone for higher studies,” said Rathna Kumar, who was recruited by Infosys.
HCL officials said all students who passed out in 2011 have been on-boarded. “We remain committed to have each individual with ‘Letters of Intent’ from HCL join us. We will start communicating the dates of joining in August or even earlier.”
The spokesperson added that the company has immediate needs in HCL Infrastructure Services. “Individuals can consider these or await a date of joining into another line of business. Even if candidates do not qualify for positions in the Infrastructure Services business, they will remain eligible to receive an on-boarding date for positions in other lines of business,” the spokesperson added.
