“Just by the financial pressures and the subsequent issues like headcount restrictions, there is an increasing trend towards entry-level contract staffing globally. In the Indian IT industry, some staffing firms are historically doing deployments for lateral talent. However, entry-level temp staffing is yet to start seriously here,” he told Business Standard.
Stating that the entry-level contract staffing model was common in the Indian retail sector, Paul said TalentSprint was hopeful that there would be a natural market for qualified entry-level temp staff in the Indian IT industry in the next couple of years.
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According to him, almost 20 per cent of the software professionals in the developed countries, including the US, is contract staff, while the number is still less than five per cent in India. This is set to change and the number is expected to touch 20 per cent in India in the next couple of years as the market is quite large, he said.
Though only less than 50 people that TalentSprint had trained received jobs through this model, Paul said the company was experimenting on this model slowly and it was expecting at least 20 per cent of the people that it trained to become contract staffers in IT firms at some point.
Under the entry-level IT contract staffing model, companies hire skilled freshers from TalentSprint with a convertible option that they would absorb them as permanent employees after one or two years of putting in service.
The company, which had raised $1 million from angel investors in 2010, $2 million from National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) in 2011 and $4 million from Nexus Venture Partners in 2012, is targeting to train 30,000 people – 20,000 through its in-campus short-term model called Super Campus and 10,000 through its three-month full-time programme.
It plans to train 500,000 people over the next seven-year period.
TalentSprint currently offers training through Techno Choice (IT training) and Bankers' Choice (banking training) in a hybrid (classroom and online) environment.
It is in the process of launching a similar training module for aspiring primary and secondary teachers in the beginning of the next financial year. The module will cover all the TET (teachers eligibility test) subjects besides providing information and communication technologies and interpersonal skills.
Paul said the company had introduced an Android course a year ago to provide training in application programming for mobile devices.
“We are planning to combine this with a cloud course to offer training in cloud computing and mobile applications as we believe that the future training employee for IT will be somebody who knows the front-end of mobile application and also the back-end cloud application,” he said, adding the 120-hour cloud course would be launched in six months from now.