Fresh out of college? Keep your CVs ready as firms look to build talent pipeline for future growth

Mumbai: Companies in the banking, financial services & insurance (BFSI), manufacturing and fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) sectors are looking at hiring more entry-level employees this year from management, engineering and undergraduate campuses, said top company executives.

The focus is on building an internal talent pipeline to cater to future growth plans amid rising external volatility, officials said.

Axis Bank will double the number of campus hires to about 9,000 this year as it aims to strengthen its internal talent and skill pool, said president and HR head Rajkamal Vempati. "We are trying to change our talent mix with an increasing focus on fresher recruitment," said Vempati, adding that volatility in the external market makes it imperative for organisations to build their internal talent pool.

HDFC Bank plans to increase hiring from campus to over 3,500 candidates to create a sustainable pipeline of talent, said chief HR officer Vinay Razdan.

Kotak Mahindra Bank too plans to "significantly increase" its campus intake. "Our aim is to create a pipeline of future leaders and accelerate their development by cross-functional stints," said its CHRO, Chetan Savla.

Madhavi Lall, Head HR, Deutsche Bank Group, India, said: "We have seen an increase of 40-50% across our technology and operations hiring programmes. We will witness our largest graduate hiring for the class of 2023, with more than 800 graduates joining us, versus 550 in 2022 ... we are also hiring 200 interns for the year 2023."

Among the major focus areas of hiring for banks are risk analytics, cyber security, sales & customer services, product, private banking, corporate banking and technology, while for manufacturing companies, the bulk of the hires comprises engineers and management grads. Apart from the top IITs and IIMs, and other leading management and engineering institutes, companies will also rope in talent from top undergrad colleges as well as CAs.

Leading manufacturers and conglomerates too are planning to onboard more entry-level people.

Diversified miner Vedanta is planning to take around 2,000 campus hires this year, up 55% from a year ago.

"Vedanta is expanding its businesses through new projects, expansion of current capacity as well as new acquisition ... we are focused on inducting talent from the campuses and developing them for critical positions," said group CHRO Madhu Srivastava. "We are also inducting talent from new-age and niche specialisations such as digital & analytics, sustainability, fire & safety, environment, geologists & mining engineers, and petrotech & explorations specialists."

Consumer major Dabur will hire 10-20% more from campuses this year.

"While the campus hiring is mostly for non-tech roles, we are also increasing our hires in specialised digital roles. In our new Graduate Business Trainee programme, for instance, we are recruiting graduates from top-tier institutes for niche specialised roles like ecommerce, digital marketing, sales, IT, etc.," said executive director-HR Biplab Baksi.

Motilal Oswal Financial Services will hire over 500 freshers consisting of graduates, post-graduates and CAs, in line with previous years.