HCLTech bets on IIT, NIT talent; salaries from Rs 18 lakh

Bengaluru: HCLTech has completed its FY27 fresher hiring programme after visiting engineering campuses across the country from July onwards. The company is likely to hire around 11,000 freshers this fiscal. The continued focus on campus hiring comes at a time when the IT services industry has turned cautious on freshers amid macro uncertainty and AI-led productivity gains.In FY27, the company scaled up hiring under its Elite Engineer cadre, comprising graduates from IITs and NITs with skills mapped to frontier technology domains such as semiconductors and silicon, AI, data engineering, physical AI and robotics, and quantum.Salaries for the Elite Engineer cadre start at Rs 18 lakh per annum. Recently, the company’s Chief People Officer Ram Sundararajan spoke about increasing the percentage of elite engineers that the company would hire. “These elite engineers over the next two to three years should become part of the FDE cohort,” he had said.“The company is pivoting to a skills-based hiring approach with a focus on emerging technologies that are in demand with clients globally. The Elite Engineer programme continues to play an important role in our strategy to build future-ready talent,” Sundararajan said. In addition, HCLTech expanded its Primus Campus programme to build a network of select partner engineering colleges that receive hiring priority.Amid LPG shortage, HCL allows employees to work from home for 2 daysFor Primus campuses, HCLTech follows a tiered AMP — Ascend, Momentum, Polaris — matrix anchored on a merit-based evaluation process, including cognitive, coding/technical and English proficiency assessments, followed by interviews. Salaries start at Rs 4.5 lakh per annum for Ascend and go up to Rs 10 lakh per annum for Polaris.Although there were no significant job opportunities in IT services earlier this year, HR experts said Q3 signals a gradual recovery in IT hiring. However, the more significant shift is in what employers are looking for.”Demand is increasingly centred on specialised capabilities across AI/ML, cloud, cybersecurity, data engineering and automation, as enterprises move from broad-based recruitment towards skills that support specific business priorities. GCC expansion is adding further momentum, particularly for experienced professionals and niche technology talent. We expect skill-led hiring to remain a defining trend as organisations progress from AI experimentation to deploying AI at scale,” Varun Sachdeva, SVP and APAC Head, NLB Services, said.Hiring is also becoming more distributed, with employers looking beyond traditional technology hubs to access wider talent pools. This is creating greater opportunities in Tier-II and Tier-III cities, particularly where institutions and employers are investing in industry-aligned digital skills. “As this ecosystem strengthens, these cities can play a larger role in meeting the demand for specialised technology talent,” he added.

Source: Deccan Herald