VISAKHAPATNAM: Recently, about 98 students from the colleges under a popular educational institution were selected by an IT major through campus recruitment in Visakhapatnam. Of the 98 selected candidates, only 30 were from the engineering stream and the remaining 68 were degree students from BSc (computers) stream at the colleges run by the same educational institutions group.
Software companies are increasingly preferring students with BSc and BCom degrees (computer sciences) to BTech graduates. While they make it a point to approach degree colleges for campus selections these firms are consciously avoiding engineering colleges, said engineering graduates. Even during regular selections, the human resources (HR) wing of these companies try to avoid BTech graduates.
The situation is even more disgusting in tier-II cities like Visakhapatnam where most of the software companies belong to the small and medium scale category. “It is simply because BSc/BCom graduates can be hired for lesser salaries and we cannot afford to pay higher salaries. Our salaries are not on a par with the IT giants as our revenue is limited,” said Ch Krishnamacharya, HR executive of a software company in the city.
Compared to BTech graduates, other degree holders stick to their jobs for a long time whereas the expectations of engineering graduates are higher and they move out soon after gaining some experience, opined a HR executive. While engineering graduates expect a minimum salary of Rs 20,000 in the IT firms in Visakhapatnam, the BSc/BCom degree holders can be hired for Rs 12,000-15,000.
“We cannot compare BTech graduates with BSc/BCom degree-holders as the former are definitely better qualified. But the situation is more favourable for regular degree-holders at present due to the projects available in the market,” said VV Prasad, secretary of Visakhapatnam IT Association.
According to Prasad, soon after completion of their graduation, aspiring techies specialise in courses like SAP, Java and Tally, which are not part of their curriculum. While BTech course spans over four years a regular degree is only for three years. Ordinary degree students get the advantage of one year over their counterparts in completing the specialised courses as per the market requirements and land good jobs, he pointed out.