After skipping campuses last year, IT services major Wipro Ltd is stepping up its hiring apparatus this year as it mulls expanding its initial target of hiring 10,000 newcomers in fiscal 2025, a person close to the development said on condition of anonymity.
“Management is discussing the possibility of increasing the total number of new employees to around 22,000. The number is not final yet, but discussions are ongoing,” the person said, adding that hiring for the project engineer role was underway across all teams.
However, hiring is likely to occur only at the lowest level of the company’s three-tier hiring structure, with starting salaries of ₹3.5 lakh per annum, and that too from engineering colleges other than IITs and NITs, according to an internal email sent to its employees that Mint has seen.
Wipro will resume on-campus hiring within a fortnight, the email said.
Starting salaries for employees at Wipro’s list of “elite” universities have remained unchanged for at least a decade, the person cited above said.
An email sent to Wipro remained unanswered by press time.
Entry level jobs only
Wipro hires fresh graduates from campuses in three categories. The top category is “star”, where graduates receive starting salaries of approximately ₹10.5 lakh per annum. This is followed by the ‘turbo’, where graduates earn more than ₹6.5 lakh per year. The lowest level is the “elite” level, where graduates are paid ₹3.5 lakh per year.
As of now, Wipro is only hiring employees in its “elite” category, according to the email mentioned above.
Mint It could not be independently determined whether the company will hire graduates of the “turbo” and “star” categories in the future.
According to the email, Wipro will provide a letter of intent to graduates who complete all five rounds of selection, including interviews and skills assessments. The selected graduates will be given training specific to the teams they will be deployed to, delivered by an external training partner for 8-12 weeks. Only after they complete the training will the graduates join Wipro.
There is no work for IITs and NITs
The Bengaluru-based software services company will visit the top 100 engineering colleges, excluding Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and National Institutes of Technology (NITs), to recruit graduates for the class that will graduate in 2025.
There are around 8,000 non-IIT/NIT engineering colleges that fall into Wipro’s ‘elite’ category. Some prominent names include Bengaluru-based Ramaiah Institute of Technology, Chennai-based SRM Institute of Science and Technology and Vellore Institute of Technology.
Even though the company’s profitability is under pressure, Wipro is hiring only at the lowest rung of the pyramid because it believes retaining engineers from non-elite universities is easier, the person cited above said.
“The turnaround time, i.e. the time taken for freshers to become project-ready, is less for engineers from non-IITs or NITs compared to those from top-tier institutes,” the person said.
Hiring returns to the agenda
“Hiring by IT services companies is expected to increase for the 2025 cohort compared to the last two years,” said Savitha Rani M., training and placement officer, Ramaiah Institute of Technology, Bengaluru..
Rani added that in the OpenAI era, the placement landscape is evolving rapidly, driven by advancements in AI and automation.
India’s largest IT services companies have signaled they will resume hiring from their campuses after a year of low demand forced them to cut staff and freeze their hiring plans.
Infosys Ltd is expected to hire up to 20,000 new employees this year, while India’s largest IT services company, Mumbai-based Tata Consultancy Services Ltd (TCS), is expected to hire 40,000 graduates, according to commentary by the companies after they announced their first-quarter earnings in July.
Hiring talks at IT services companies have been gaining steam after reports emerged that Nasdaq-listed Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp. is offering salaries of ₹2.5 lakh per annum for new entrants. Cognizant issued a clarification through a press release.
“Our recent job offer for non-engineering talent with a three-year college degree was completely flawed. This job offer, with a remuneration of INR 2.52 lakhs per annum, was meant only for candidates with a three-year college degree and not engineering graduates,” Surya Gummadi, Executive Vice President and President, Cognizant Americas, said in a statement dated August 18.
Wipro, which saw a leadership change at the top when Srini Pallia took over as the company’s chief executive on April 6, saw its annual revenue fall 2.2% year-on-year to $10.8 billion for the year ended March 2024.
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