Sop story: Lucent makes up for job offers with cash

Kavitha Vivek in Bangalore

Telecom major Lucent Technologies is lining up a compensatory payment of Rs 50,000 per student following the withdrawal of the offers it had made to engineering students on campus in the Karnataka region. This is indicative of the overall pattern emerging among IT companies in the market with recruitment plans having gone haywire owing to the downturn in the market.

Incidentally, another Indian IT company —- Trigyn Technologies —- has also come forward with a compensatory package of Rs 15,000 per student.

According to market sources in Bangalore, Lucent visited some of the better known engineering colleges including RV College of Engineering, BMS College of Engineering, some colleges in Mysore and the regional engineering college at Suratkal and is believed to have made close to 50 offers in the region. As per market information, Lucent made offers of over Rs 2 lakh per annum to the campus recruits.

However, now the college sources have confirmed that the company had recently sent written communication that it will not be able to make good the offer made on campus owing to depressed market conditions and that they would be willing to offer a compensation package of Rs 50,000 per student.

While the compensation package has been settled for few students, the process is yet to be completed. When contacted, officials at Lucent were not willing to discuss the matter and said they would not be able to comment on the company’s recruitment plans.