Vodafone to hire more from IITs, IIMs; focus more on freshers
Telecom company Vodafone India is stepping up its campus recruitment plans with greater focus on succession planning and creating a leadership pipeline.
It has been increasing the intake of management trainees and hiring from technology campuses, with specific plans to go to the premier Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs). The company also plans to launch its first summer internship programme for tech students this year. The number of trainees will go up to 90 for 2014 from 60 in 2013. Of these, 65 will be management trainees, 20 technology trainees, and five in departments such as finance and marketing.
"Two years ago, we were taking just 25-30 people. Focus on investing in more freshers who can be groomed for top roles is becoming a secular trend in telecom," says Ashok Ramchandran, director, human resources, Vodafone India.
"Time to success is much lower; cost of failure is much higher. You need a pool of young people with fresh ideas and steeper learning curves ready to take on leadership roles in the next two to three years," he adds. But a major change for the company will now be its presence in IITs. A pilot run last year saw six offers being issued to IIT students.
This year, Vodafone says it will be present in the top five IITs, with intent to make 20 offers. It also plans to start a summer internship programme for tech students, similar to that for management students. Of the total 70 internships planned, 20 will be for students from the IITs, and 50 for management students from institutes such as the IIMs, Symbiosis, SP Jain, and so on.
The trend of hiring more freshers at the company goes beyond management and technology trainees, with a spike in the intake of fresh sales and customer service executives as well. The company, which has an employee base of 11,500, will have 550, or 30% of its total 1,800 hires for FY14, as freshers.
Last year, the number was at 20% of the total. "Over the next two years, we expect fresher recruitment to be closer to 40% of the total," adds Ramchandran.
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