At a time when hiring is slow for the information technology (IT) sector, companies are expected to step up the gas on lateral hiring over fresh graduate recruitment. This shift is driven by the industry’s increasing demand for candidates with four to five years of experience, said Neeti Sharma, chief executive officer (CEO) of TeamLease Digital.
“Lateral hiring will continue to grow because people look for candidates with four to five years of experience. Hiring could grow (by) 8-10%. If it is better than last year, it is good for us,” said Sharma.
In a departure from the norm, the IT services industry has not hired in bulk over the past 12 to 18 months, because of macroeconomic headwinds faced by these service exporters. Sharma said the trend is unlikely to revert to pre-pandemic levels anytime soon, due to ongoing uncertainties in global markets. However, she is cautiously optimistic that hiring in the financial year 2025 may surpass the previous year’s figures by 7-8%.
“Some campus hiring will happen in Jun-July (but) not right now,” Sharma said, indicating a potential timeline for fresh graduate recruitment.
The IT industry is bracing for a storm now, with the twin factors of demand slowdown, along with technology disruption in the form of Generative Artificial Intelligence. This technological disruption first started in November 2022, with the launch of Microsoft-backed OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Ever since, it has led to tech companies battling it out on the artificial intelligence front, which has thrown open challenges for academia and the industry as a whole.
These factors have put a question mark on how the industry will absorb the shock and disruption, with analysts and executives trying to reconcile with the changing times. Therefore, lateral or mid-level employees have found themselves in a sweet spot as of now.
“Every candidate now is expected to have some knowledge of using AI,” Sharma said. “It’s not that I just need developers who use AI or ML (machine learning), but I also need someone who knows how to use GPT (Generative Pre-Trained Transformers such as ChatGPT). I think that’s a skill that all companies are looking for,” she said.
To put things in perspective, TeamLease had placed about 5% of its workforce into IT companies for the role of AI/ML engineers.
Apart from the above factors, a boom in data within businesses has led to a surge in demand for professionals skilled in data science and analytics. Sharma said the number of data science and data analytics job roles, which was very low in yesteryears, has increased now because every company is dealing with lakhs of records on a daily basis.
She further said that in addition to technical expertise, companies are now looking at composite skills, encompassing both technological and domain knowledge. “Our customers look for composite skills along with specific technology, companies are looking for lesser head counts and more brains and better maturity,” she said.
Despite these evolving trends, Sharma said the challenges faced by job seekers, particularly in a market where job opportunities are limited. “Where would people even go? If there aren’t many positions (vacant) outside, there’s a small percentage of people who can move jobs.”