Scores of engineering students who accepted job offers from IT companies during campus interviews last year are looking for temporary employment because the recruiters are now in no hurry to induct them.

“The tendency of companies delaying appointment letters was noticed during the previous round of recruitment as well… But we are seeing more such cases now,” said Manas Sanyal, the placement officer at Bengal Engineering and Science University.

Anik Basu (not his real name), a student of electronics and telecommunications engineering at Besu, was to have received his papers immediately after completing his course in June. He is still waiting.

Electrical engineer Arjun Mitra (name changed), who was recruited during a placement session last year in a private engineering college off the EM Bypass, was told through an email on July 6 that his appointment had been postponed for an indefinite period.

Sources in the IT industry confirmed a freeze on hiring, though not in all companies. “Entry-level recruits are being looked at with a magnifying glass. Most companies, especially those whose profits have been affected by the global IT slowdown, are scaling down recruitment. There are even instances of companies giving pink slips to recruits just after induction,” an official said.

Some companies are looking to recruit science graduates instead of engineers as trainees to cut costs.

Siddhartha Bhattacharya, the placement officer of Jadavpur University, would not admit any such problem for engineering graduates from the institution. But students said most companies that visited the campus last year were keeping their recruits waiting.

“Of course we are worried. We have no back-up options,” a fourth-year student of engineering said.

“Last year, many of the students who had been hired by a large IT company were sacked after being forced to sit for a second test. And that was after they had received joining letters.”

An associate professor of computer applications in a private engineering college said some of his students were hopeful of being inducted a few months later and had decided to do temporary jobs till they received their papers. “Some have applied for posts like laboratory assistants in engineering institutions.”

Most companies recruit from campuses 8-10 months before they actually need additional manpower.

“Usually, 50 per cent of those who receive offers join the companies that select them. But it becomes difficult for us to accommodate everyone when the job market tightens and students take the only offers they have in hand,” said the human resource head of an IT company.

A Besu teacher said the delay in companies issuing appointment letters had affected good students the most.

“Top rankers suffer the most because they are the ones to be recruited first. It so happened that after selecting a student during a campus interview in July 2006, a company informed him in December 2007 — six months after he graduated — that it did not need him.”