TCS Offers Vendor Bonus to Speed Up Quality Hiring

Unhappy with the quality of candidates being provided for hiring, India's biggest IT services firm has urged its third-party vendors to raise their game, and promised a sweetener to help them step up.

- Devina Sengupta

According to two vendors who spoke with Mint on condition of anonymity, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) Ltd said vendors can get 50% higher payouts for candidates who pass its quality checks.

This aggressive push comes as TCS, despite postponing its own wage hikes, looks to swiftly close critical software programming vacancies and capitalize on what it sees as a "promising" first half of the current fiscal year.

In a series of virtual meetings with its vendors in April and May across Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, and Pune, the company's senior HR officials, including chief human resources officer (CHRO) Milind Lakkad, pointed out that barely 10% of the mandates that the recruiters got have been filled, the vendors cited above said.

"The company informed the vendors that they have 3,000 open positions, plus 600 other critical vacancies that need to be closed by June end," one of the vendors cited above said. "They said that the first two quarters of the fiscal look 'promising' but cautioned that the quality of profiles needs to improve."