After two-and-a-half years wait, many campus recruits got their jobs in Infosys in October last year, but at least 490 of them from the 2022 batch were laid off last week from the Mysuru campus.
Infosys in a statement said all freshers get three attempts to clear the assessment, failing which they will not be able to continue with the organisation.
However, a couple of trainees that The New Indian Express spoke to said it was a stringent assessment and that there was no mention of these three attempts in their offer letters. Have IT companies' assessments changed over the years?
No, say Human Resources (HR) experts.
Kamal Karanth, Co-Founder, Xpheno, said that it is a fairly evolved practice for enterprises hiring freshers to have rigorous training and stringent evaluation models. "As the employability gap of graduate engineers with respect to the skill needs of tech companies is significantly higher, the standards set for them to become billable resources is competitive. Most of these fresh graduates will have to even clear client assessments to be on live projects. The disappointment of the rejected is understandable. But it's a fairly accepted norm even in non-IT enterprises to let go people if they don't meet acceptable standards during the probation period," he added.
Aditya Narayan Mishra, MD and CEO of CIEL HR, said companies have been trying to adapt their training models to ensure their workforce remains relevant and competitive. "Candidates facing delayed onboarding may experience skill gaps, which could impact their performance in these evaluations," he added.
A young graduate from Jharkhand (2022 batch), who was laid off, said he was recruited for a Systems Engineer position. While he cleared Java, he failed in DBMS by just three marks. "All 490 trainees were asked to leave the campus the same day. I am stuck here in Mysuru as I did not get a ticket to my hometown. I have not informed back home about this layoff," he said.
Though the IT company says the trainees failed to clear assessments, these young recruits are now clueless about their future.
"Since we are from the 2022 batch, it is difficult now to try in other companies as they prefer only freshers," another trainee said.
Dhriti Prasanna Mahanta, Vice-President and Business Head, TeamLease Degree Apprenticeship said in the current landscape, IT companies are intensifying their evaluation and assessment processes as they brace for a substantial surge in digital investment-industry forecasts indicate that IT spending in India is set to increase by nearly 15-17%, surpassing the 150-billion mark.
"This influx of capital is driving companies to adopt more sophisticated testing and evaluation frameworks to identify top talent, yet many trainees struggle to complete these assessments. A major challenge is the skewed qualification model that overemphasises traditional academic credentials rather than practical, hands-on expertise. As a result, many candidates, though theoretically proficient, are unprepared for the rigorous, real-world demands of IT roles," he explained.
The tests themselves are often designed around outdated curricula and fail to account for rapid technological advances, leaving students under-equipped in critical areas such as advanced coding techniques, cloud computing, and data analytics, stated the report by The New Indian Express.
Consequently, the disconnect between academic instruction and industry requirements means that new entrants typically require an extensive transitional period-often spanning six months to a year-before they can effectively contribute to a company's operations, he added