Tata Consultancy Services is on a hiring spree. The organisation plans to hire 30,000 people -- trainees as well as experienced professionals -- in this financial year.

S Padmanabhan, executive vice president and head, global HR, TCS [Get Quote], tells Richa Pant how you can benefit from the company's recruitment plans: 

TCS plans to recruit: "30,000 persons in this financial year up to March 2007," says Padmanabhan.

They hire: Throughout the year.

Positions available: "The hiring will be for both trainees and experienced professionals," says Padmanabhan. "Experienced professionals will be hired under Businesses and Practices such as Consulting, Engineering Services, BPO and Practices such as SAP, BI, KM, etc."

SAP (originally a German term) stands for Systems, Applications and Products in Data Processing; BI stands for Business Intelligence; and KM stands for Knowledge Management.

Recruitment: "Will take place at all levels -- ie entry and various experience levels."

"The hiring of experienced professionals will take place through the year, while campus offers for freshers joining us next year are conducted according to placement seasons at colleges."

Off-campus recruitments for freshers are conducted periodically for any additional requirements. For this, TCS undertakes recruitment drives through walk-in interviews, announcements for which are made in the media. 

TCS also employs a lot of fresh graduates. To help identify new talent, they are engaged with more than 300 academic institutions globally. They have built a robust holistic programme, which includes faculty development programmes, workshops and annual conclaves for the professors and teachers. Through their work with these institutes, they identify with and cultivate new talent. This helps them to groom freshers at the entry level itself.

Qualifications: "It depends on the position and role recruited. For example, at the entry level, we recruit engineering graduates and postgraduates in computer science, engineering.

"Experienced professionals or laterals (professionals with work experience) may be engineering graduates or postgraduates if recruited for technical roles, or management postgraduates if recruited for business or sales roles.

"We may also recruit functional experts for specific practices; for example, the health care practice recruits doctors as functional experts, or the financial services practice hires bankers and other finance professionals for their domain knowledge."


Image: Corporate Learning Center, Trivandrum

TCS periodically advertises in the newspapers for the positions and roles availble. Within TCS, the intranet will have announcements about the various positions and requirements. The TCS web site also lists the jobs. You can also upload your resume here. 

Age limit: "Being an equal opportunities employer, the suitability of candidates is judged on competency. We understand competency as critical knowledge and skills producing key outputs in performance," says Padmanabhan.

Selection process: "For trainees and persons with less than two years of experience, we conduct written tests, technical and management interviews.

"For laterals, we do not have written tests. The process includes shortlisting based on certain eligibility criteria pertaining to the students' academic track record and domain/ specialisations, aptitude test and a two-tier competency-based interview. In management institutes, we replace the aptitude tests with group discussions."

"The attributes we typically look at include technical excellence, professionalism, good communication skills, willingness to work beyond boundaries and the inclination to teamwork," says Padmanabhan.

Applying for the job: "Interested applicants may apply through our recruitment portal. We also advertise available positions on our Web site, on job boards such as Monster, Naukri and newspapers and, for niche positions, in technical magazines."

Interview: "It is important to maintain consistent academic records while developing strong technical/ functional skills. The ability to adapt and innovate, willingness to learn and ability to collaborate are important attributes that TCS looks for, along with a mindset to be mobile," he says.

Post-interview: "TCS has a process of background checks undertaken by professional agencies. As part of this process, we check for authenticity, educational background and work experience. Typically, background checks are completed prior to joining. On joining, the employee is given a letter of appointment. All terms and conditions of service are enumerated in the letter of offer made once the candidate is successful in the management interview," says Padmanabhan.

If you have not been selected: "All candidates, including those who have been rejected, are intimated about their status. Candidates also have the option to call our office and get an update on the progress and status of their application. Although we normally recruit for a role, if alternatives are available and the candidate is deemed suitable, we pursue the application for the same."

Postings: "As a global company, TCS has about 169 offices in 35 counties with operations across India, North America, APAC, Latin America, Europe, Middle East and Africa."

Growth prospects: "We offer careers across five streams ie sales, delivery, practice, technology, corporate roles and specialists in nearly 4 areas -- Engineering and Manufacturing, Infrastructure Services, BPO, IT Services and Global Consulting," says Padmanabhan.

"Our value proposition to employees is for an aspiration-based career across project management, technology, domain and sales streams. This is enabled by ongoing competency development, differentiated compensation and various work-life balance initiatives, as well as the chance to work in different markets and geographies in our network of 169 offices in 35 countries. This is what has helped TCS attract and retain employees at all levels."

Remuneration: "We offer remuneration based on the number of years of experience and the nature of the experience in terms of skills, technology, etc. Our compensation is benchmarked regularly with the industry."

Add-ons: "In addition to remuneration, some of the add-ons include canteen facilities with subsidised meals, health insurance for self and family at subsidised rates, subsidised transport at some of our locations, gymnasiums and recreational facilities at some of our locations.

"TCS also has other add-ons such as leave without pay for pursuing higher studies, joining spouse overseas, part-time/ work from home facility, holiday homes across the country, welfare trust facilitation for higher education, membership in Tata Sons Welfare Trust, Consultancy Employees Welfare Trust, etc.

"Also, as employees of Tata Group, our associates get discounts on products and services from other group companies -- for example, Westside, Titan, Tata Motors [Get Quote] and the Taj Group of Hotels," says Padmanabhan.

Prominent clients: "Seven of the top 10 Fortune 500 companies are our clients. We have an extensive list of clients in the businesses we serve -- Banking, Insurance, Financial Services, Manufacturing, Energy and Utilities,  Retail and Consumer Goods, Transportation, Telecom, Government, Life Sciences and Healthcare, Media and Entertainment. Some of these include Ferrari [Images], British Gas, British Telecom, Chevron Texaco, Citibank, Morgan Stanley, Ford Motor Company, General Electric (world-wide), HP, HSBC, JE Penny, Kellogg's, Lucent Technologies, Microsoft, NSC, Nike, P & O Nedlloyd, SAAB, Schulmberger, ING America, The GAP, UBS etc."

Locations: "We have 169 offices in 35 countries."

Expansion plans: "We are already expanding in most cities where we have a presence -- Ahmedabad, Pune, Lucknow, Trivandrum, Coimbatore, Cochin, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Kolkata. Some of them are under the SEZ. Further expansion plans include moving to Tier II cities such as Bhubhaneshwar, Chandigarh and Coimbatore. The number of non-Indian employees will continue to grow as we expand our global operations. We will recruit in significant numbers in Latin America, China, and America, where we have serious expansion plans.

"TCS is quite open to adopting SEZ if it suits us, and we are in the process of understanding the possibilities. We are planning to create facilities for 10,000 people, which is not easy. Our priority is to overcome hindrances before entering into the new space. By 2009, Social Technology Parks of India will end. So, we have to look at SEZ. We are evaluating both models," says Padmanabhan.

Address: 11th floor, Air India Building, Nariman Point, Mumbai -- 400 021.

Phone: (022) 67509999.

e-mail: Careers.hr@tcs.com