Placements at institutes started picking up

After recession the placements at various institutes in the state have started picking up in the before the end of the sessions. Premier engineering institutes like BITS and MNIT this year have received better response from the major hiring firms as against the previous year.

Prof Das Gupta, who looks after the placements at BITS said, "There is a noticeable improvement in the recruitment in BITS' Pilani campus as compared to the previous year. Intake of students per company is certainly more this year". Around 1,000 graduates and post-graduates every year pass out from the institutes.

This year in August the companies started visiting the institute and till now 240 students have got placements. This semester the highest package offered is Rs 14 lakh per annum. According to Gupta the package is likely to increase as many high-profile companies such as Amazon, Credit Suisse, Royal Dutch Shell, Exxon Mobile are visiting for placement.

He is hopeful that most of the students will get placed through campus placement by year-end. Ishwara Bhatt, media coordinator at BITS told, "Most of the companies have not gone for any major recruitment for more than a year. So we are hoping that they will start recruiting now as the market is showing signs of recovery".

At MNIT although the placement scenario is not much similar to BITs, but this year it is quite satisfactory in comparison to private engineering institutes. Alok Ranjan, placement officer of MNIT informed, "This year core companies have showed interest in hiring students. Till date, 65 students have got placed in major companies against 400 qualified students."

This year new trends can be seen in the placement scenario. The students are ready to get placed in public sector undertakings (PSUs) due to revised pay scales and job security. Moreover the students of non-IT branches like architecture, mechanical and electrical are looking for jobs in their related branches.

While speaking about the students’ preference for jobs this year Ayoosh Bansal, placement coordinator at BITS said, "Gradually, inclination of the students is changing. They are looking forward to jobs in core companies in sciences, engineering, pharmacy and management rather than open IT profiles. Also, of late, there is increasing preference to join PSUs."

However both institutes have agreed there are some branches like electrical and electronics, mechanical and computer science, where the placement has been almost 100%.

Ranjan told that although placement was completed by October last year but it will finally get completed by January this year as most of the private engineering colleges postponed their placement sessions from July to December with a view that companies will start hiring by then.

IDBI Fortis to hire advisers to increase business

IDBI Fortis Life Insurance a private sector insurer will be hiring the people for the post of advisers, in the next 5 months. The company plans to increase the number of advisers to 15,000.

IDBI Fortis Insurance Head - Marketing and product management, Mr Amish Tripathi told, “We have 7,500 advisers. We plan to increase the number to 15,000 by the end of March 2010 to ramp up business”.

The company launched life venture operations in March last year and at present has over 30 branches across the country. In the first year of its launch it collected Rs 318 crore as first year premium.

IDBI Fortis Life Insurance has been started in joint venture between state-owned IDBI Bank, private sector lender Federal Bank and Europe-based Fortis Insurance International. in this venture IDBI holds 48 per cent equity while Federal Bank and Fortis hold 26 per cent equity each.

While speaking about term insurance policy, Mr Tripathi said under this latest policy company is offering three options at a very competitive market last week.

He informed term insurance Protection Plan is being offered with 3 different life insurance cover options keeping in mind the protection needs of different customers, including an innovative increasing risk cover option designed to help beat inflation

Wells Fargo expands its back-end, opens hiring in India

Wells Fargo is on a hiring process in India. The fourth-largest bank in the US by assets is in expanding mode of its back-end business processing unit in India, while most of the multinational banks are slimming down their corresponding units. Steve Ellis, executive vice president, wholesale services group, informed among its global services India is a key international centre therefore bank will continue to strengthen up its operations here.

However over the past few years, some of the foreign financial services firms including Citibank, UBS and Aviva have closed their offices or are in the process of selling off their confined BPOs. Most banks think that such operations have limited saving level whereas outsourcing of work to third party BPOs is more beneficial. But Wells Fargo consider its Indian unit of great value and believe its team in India as an extension of US teams.

Mr Ellis’ is coming to India when the San Franscisco based bank is in the process of completion of its merger with Wachovia Bank in India. Last year Wells Fargo had bought Wachovia’s global assets therefore it was least affected by the global financial crisis. But over the years bank has been criticized for its business practices, customer service and fee levels.

Mr Ellis in an exclusive interaction given to ET said, “As we aim to provide our global lines of businesses with a strong delivery capability around technology and business operations, we feel the need to broaden the scope of our search for talent”. He added, “The talent pool in India has been a key success factor in moving us into the future, and further strengthening our customers’ experience”.

Mr Ellis informed recently company has recruited from 1 to 50 or more in a month, in its Hyderabad office and at present there are over 800 people in the company spread across technology and business operations.

At present neither Wachovia nor Wells Fargo are carrying out any retail or commercial banking operations in the country, although Wachovia is providing services in global payments, cash management, trade finance, treasury services and other activities. At Wells’ BPO application development and other business processes related activities like financial analysis, financial modeling and service operation are being carried out.