The leading Indian carmaker will be expanding its operations in the consumer driven market. Maruti Suzuki, will hire 3, 000 people in span of next 3 years. Maruti,  currently employees 7, 500 people.

S Y Siddiqui, head of human resources at Maruti, which is 54.2 per cent owned by Suzuki Motor Corp, said the company would add 500 staff to its research and development (R&D) and design departments, including about 20 from Europe and Japan.

“The idea behind hiring from overseas is driven by their specialized skill sets in design. We are looking at an R&D strength of 1,500 people by 2012 as by then we will be fully independent in R&D,” he said.

The company employees about 10 people from Detroit who master in specialized designs, he said.

The company is all set to reach the one million vehicle sales target in the current financial year.

Nandita Gurjar, senior VP, Infosys said that they have already started going to campuses in about 700 engineering colleges. Infosys had made 20,000 offers to engineering graduates for the 2009 fiscal, though only around 75-80 % of the students actually join the company.

New strategy implemented this year is to hire students who are in their final semester as against hiring students a year before they are graduated.

The campus placements this year did see a sea of change in terms of the compensation package, delaying the entry of students and in some cases putting them on a different stream of work.

According to the Infosys official, they would be closing the 2009 fiscal with around 18,000 freshers and 3,500 experienced hires. The same hiring numbers is likely for the coming fiscal.

Source: 

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/news-by-industry/jobs/Infosys-likely-to-offer-13000-jobs-on-campuses/articleshow/5320884.cms

In the Indian education system, academics takes over practical experience, leaving the students unemployable by the end of 4 years. However, education experts feel that skill building and practical training must be given equal importance. This will help the students to apply the classroom learning in practical environment. D. Sahasrabudhu, director of the College of Engineering, Pune said that one of the major reasons why engineers, even from reputed institutes, are not easily employed because they lack hands-on skill.

The focus in most institutes here is always on academics and theory. Thus, a mechanical engineer may actually not know how to change a part of a machine. Therefore even if a high scoring student gets placed in a good company, eventually that lack of practical knowledge catches up,” Sahasrabudhu said during a panel discussion at the sixth Higher Education Summit organised by Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI).

From our experience we now know that practical, hands-on training is very crucial in the education system,” he added.

The latest NASSCOM report said that the Indian IT firms reject 90 percent of college graduates and 75 percent of engineers who apply for jobs because they are not good enough to be trained.

Richard Kerly, a Scottish university professor, said: “Just recently I came to know that Citi Bank had started its recruiting process here, but was not going to campuses placement cells.

“The possible reason is that students here, although brilliant, don’t have an edge when it comes to putting theories to practice.”

Sudhir Matthew, Dean, Ecole Hoteliere Lavasa, Lavasa Corporation Limited, Pune said “The scene is very similar in the hospitality industry. Lack of hands-on trained students has forced hotel chains like the Oberoi, Taj and ITC to open their own hotel schools where the students are trained as per their needs.

“Tourism will grow at a rate of 8.8 percent till 2015 in India, making it one of the fastest growing markets but there is a serious lack of skilled hands. Academics combined with practical training is therefore very important to meet this shortage which is estimated at 3.2 million.”

 source: 

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/5207067.cms