Infy to hire 1,000 interns in 2009

NEW DELHI: In a bid to curtail its training expenses (which rose to $170 million, this year) and shorten time to billing for new joinees, India���s second largest IT company Infosys is now hiring engineering students whilst in their third year and putting them on internship for 17 weeks. This way the company will make them billable faster by almost 3 months when they join Infosys.

During the internship, the students get a Rs 1,000 stipend from Infosys apart from free boarding and lodging. According to Infosys Group HR head Nandita Gurjar, there is two fold benefit to the company through this program. One, it helps short circuit the billing period from December to July now.

Two, during large business orders, there is always a compulsion to hire from outside as the employees are still not ready, as the result many expensive and experienced along with many bottom of the barrel candidates join the company, she says. The company will hire 1,000 interns in 2009.

���This program will reduce all of that.��� Due to the paucity of quality talent, most top IT companies give joining letters to students while they are still in their third year. Infosys doles out job offers in month of September to October every year to candidates in the third year. For the pilot batch of interns the company had doled out job offers after September last year.

���Candidates, who join us in June or July (after the academic session is over) are ready to hit the floor only after October or November. The candidates to whom we will give offer letters in September this year will only be able to join us in 2010 (after their course is over). This program will make new joinees hit the business faster (in just one week) as compared to three months earlier,��� Gurjar added.

This year���s pilot batch was for 243 students from colleges across India. ���We got excellent feedback as the students were able to mix with global interns from colleges like INSEAD, Wharton and Stanford which intern during this period,��� said an Infy official. Before Infosys can induct a student as a trainee, it has to get permission on the various project he or she will be undergoing while at Infosys.