TCS working on hiring through social networking sites

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), India's largest technology services company, wants to connect with talent long before it is hired, at a young age.

To reach out to the Internet- and social network-savvy generation, the company is working on hiring through networking websites such as LinkedIn.

Ajoyendra Mukherjee, Executive Vice President and Head of Global Human Resources, says more and more hiring takes place directly, rather than through third parties.

The company, which says about 70 per cent of its employees are Gen Y, conducts a survey each year in 14 cities, including Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Bhubaneswar, Chennai, Coimbatore, Delhi and Mumbai, and has a base of more than 18,000 students between the ages of 12 and 18.

Mukherjee says the survey helps the company understand how to deliver messages to the "workforce of the future". It also helps them develop better online training solutions for probable hires and induct them early. The fifth annual survey was conducted between July and December 2013, with the participants of the TCS IT Wiz programme.

TCS uses the survey data to target better candidates and cut down on training time. "This helps us reach out to people who are digitally savvy and prone to self-learning," he says.

Interestingly, the survey has found that respondents were most active on Facebook, and about 25 per cent of them post on it more than three times a week. This is followed by Google+, which has gained some ground. The survey also noted a growing interest in websites such as Pinterest and LinkedIn among participants.