Slowdown fast-tracks HALs drive to get recruits from top tech schools

The economic slowdown and its impact on recruitments from premier colleges has come as a boon for Indias premier defence aircraft design company....

The economic slowdown and its impact on recruitments from premier colleges has come as a boon for Indias premier defence aircraft design company,Hindustan Aeronautics Limited HAL. In a first,the Bangalore-based company has mass recruited engineers from IITs and BITS Pilani in its design bureau.

While engineers from premier colleges joined HAL in the past,this is the first time that 34 trainees have been inducted in a single batch after a massive campus recruitment programme. The engineers,who are from the fields of electronics,mechanical and aeronautics field,will join HALs design bureaus after a 52-week training schedule.

The aircraft company,which has several major new design programmes underway,including a new light helicopter,a medium lift aircraft and a passenger plane,acknowledges that the slowdown and increased allowances in the revised pay commission has helped in recruiting engineers from the colleges.

Earlier,the trend of IITians joining was there in bits and pieces but now we are going into a major recruitment drive on the campuses. We have recruited 34 engineers but a lot more had applied and we had many layers of screenings to get the best applicants, HAL spokesperson Anantha Krishnan said.

The engineers will join research facilities in Kanpur,Bangalore and Hyderabad after a training programme that will involve visits to IAF bases,research units and labs across the country.

The receding demand for fresh recruits in the private sector may have led to a large number of engineering graduates joining the organisation but the demand for skilled aeronautical engineers in the private sector is also a factor.

There is a need for skilled and trained aeronautics engineers in the private sector which is now getting into defence manufacturing. After working for a few years in HAL,engineers can get a good package in a private firm, a senior HAL official said.

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The three-fold increase in salaries with the Sixth Pay Commission has helped matters. Stability is the key. There is a big demand for jobs in HAL as we can gauge whenever we advertise vacancies. Salaries have increased with the pay revision, Krishnan said.