TCS campus hiring plans intact despite layoffs

Mint

4 days ago

Tata Consultancy Services Ltd (TCS) is pressing ahead with campus hiring plans, even as it navigates the retrenchment of over 12,000 middle and senior executives. Placement executives at multiple engineering colleges said India's largest IT services company emailed last week to select graduates through its hackathon programme, and also as part of its usual hiring plans.
The outreach signals that India's biggest private employer continues to prioritize lower-cost, entry-level talent, particularly those skilled in emerging technologies, while trimming its more expensive, seasoned workforce. The move, coming at a time of broader slowdown in foreign markets and domestic business challenges, underscores TCS's cost-saving measures and its strategic pivot towards a younger, digitally fluent workforce.
'The mails for their hackathon called CodeVita came in last week," the head of placement at an engineering college said, referring to the coding contest that TCS organizes to identify and recruit top coding talent. "Last year (for the batch of 2025), TCS recruited about 80 students, but this year's numbers are not confirmed. Last year, the company offered ₹4-6 lakh and ₹13 lakh for students depending on the programme for which they were recruited," the person said on the condition of anonymity.
First step
The hackathon is the one of first screening tests to join TCS, and shortlisted candidates are interviewed at TCS offices. Hiring, either via CodeVita or directly from campuses, typically starts in August. Sometimes, TCS executives also visit colleges for campus placements.
TCS has a multi-pronged strategy on hiring. It recruits via hackathons, and in some cases, comes directly to campuses and shortlists candidates. The firm has its own recruitment team which hires lateral talent from the industry, and also works with HR firms to get people on board for both contract and permanent hiring.
Queries emailed to TCS remained unanswered.
On Sunday, TCS said it plans to reduce staff by 2% over the course of the year, particularly middle and senior-level executives. The decision, which will affect over 12,000 employees, comes after the company deferred pay hikes earlier this year, and saw a decline in revenue in the June quarter. Like its peers, TCS also faces pressure from slowing discretionary spending by global clients, as well as the disruption from the advance of GenAI.
A rough calculation shows that if the employees being relieved earn ₹15 lakh per annum, TCS may save at least ₹1,830 crore. Compared to the average compensation of the middle order, freshers armed with the latest in AI and ML skills come in for ₹4-13 lakh.
Analytics, web apps
'We are hoping for TCS to hire more this year," said Savitha Rani, training and placement officer at Ramaiah Institute of Technology in Bengaluru. 'TCS generally hires from the computer sciences and allied branches, but hiring is not restricted to any department," she added. At Ramaiah, TCS hires at salaries above ₹6 lakh per annum. 'Skills are more sought-after for data analytics and web-based application development," said Rani.
TCS told analysts after its June quarter earnings release that it aims to hire 40,000 freshers this fiscal year. However, the plan now looks ambitious, said an industry executive who recruits for TCS. 'They may have announced it in earlier quarters, but they cannot be laying off 12,000 and hiring much more at campus levels, the person said on the condition of anonymity.
Meanwhile, rival Infosys has said it plans to hire 20,000 freshers this year, whereas Wipro is targeting over 10,000. HCL Tech is expected to hire more than 7,000 freshers.
Revenue fall
In the June quarter, TCS revenue fell 0.59% sequentially to $7.42 billion. The IT firm, seen as the crown jewel of the Tata Group, was the slowest performer last quarter among India's top five homegrown IT outsourcers including Infosys Ltd, HCL Technologies Ltd, Wipro, and Tech Mahindra Ltd.
'We don't expect TCS to hire fewer people this year, because we haven't heard anything along such lines. The hiring is expected to continue as expected for niche roles such as coding and software skills," a placement officer at PES University in Bengaluru said on the condition of anonymity.
TCS added 5,090 employees last quarter to end with 613,069 employees by 30 June. In FY25, it added about 42,000 graduates in categories such as ninja, digital and prime at salaries upwards of ₹3 lakh, ₹7 lakh and ₹9 lakh, respectively.
Hiring hotspots
'TCS conducted a virtual test two months back. We are expecting the results soon," the PES official added. TCS hires throughout the year, especially off-campus; hence, a count of graduates it hired isn't available, the official said. To be sure, the virtual test is part of the regular campus hiring, separate from CodeVista.
PES University in Bengaluru, Ramaiah Institute of Technology, Sharda University, Manipal Academy of Higher Education, and Amity University are among the colleges TCS routinely hires from. Some of the colleges have received confirmation for the hackathon and some for direct campus hiring as well.
'More than 50 students were recruited last year and this time, we expect a similar number. Rival Infosys has picked up some students already for a higher package," said the placement officer of one of the colleges mentioned earlier.
Last year, the company recruited from its campus for a salary of ₹4.25 lakh.
Recruiters are increasingly looking at soft skills, the PES placement official said. This comes at a time when IT outsourcers like Wipro Ltd and LTIMindtree Ltd have been taking assessments for its employees. While Wipro is rolling out English language assessments for employees on email writing, speaking and comprehension, LTIMindtree is linking pay hikes of middle and senior managers to coding and math-based assessments.