Look Who's Hiring in Telecom!

An uncertain regulatory environment and dwindling margins have put unprecedented pressure on the telecom growth story. While the sector is said to be responsible for providing over 15 lakh direct employment opportunities in the past, recent months have been tough for anybody exploring options in this industry.

The cancellation of 122 licenses earlier in the year led to the closure of operators like Stel and Etisalat, leading to many losing their jobs. If this was not enough, vendors are also facing a tough time because of the postponement of technology upgradation decision by the operators. This led to restructuring and change of focus for many and the mood in the industry is predictably somber. (See Mounting Uncertainty Over Job Losses, AlcaLu to Cut 6% Of Its Global Staff, Videocon Telecom: All Is Not Well! and Hiring Slump Hits New Grads)

Though the industry has lost some luster as a result of the recent events, there is always a silver lining in the darkest of cloud - some telecom companies are still recruiting.(See Silver Lining To Telecom's Jobs Freeze?).

Light Reading India spoke to telecom job consultants and companies to understand the job market dynamics and to identify the job roles where companies are hiring.

According to experts, there are several areas where long-term opportunities are available. Numerous services like cloud, VAS (Value Added Services), LBS (Location Based Services) and enterprise business will have a consistent manpower demand.(See Handygo To Raise INR 2bn For Rural VAS, RIM's Developer-Push For BB10 and LBS: Stuck In A Conflict).

In terms of companies, Aricent Inc., Tata Teleservices Ltd. (TTSL), Tech Mahindra Ltd., Handygo Technologies Pvt. Ltd., One97 Communications, and Reliance Industries Ltd. (RIL) have emerged as key players who will continue with their hiring plans this year.

Going by the sources, software development firms like Aricent have plans to hire around 3000 people by the end of this year, mostly in the telecom software engineering domain. TTSL is expected to hire for their operation expansion plans in Madhya Pradesh and Chattisgarh.

What's critical to note is that employment opportunities may not be the same at all levels and roles. "A lot of talent will go to mobile-software cloud-based solutions for telecom, and mobile applications for consumers and enterprises as smartphone penetration is increasing rapidly," says Uday Sodhi, Chief Executive Officer of a leading job search engine, HeadHonchos.

Agrees Pankaj Mittal, Director - Recruitment Services at Archelons Consulting Pvt Ltd, "Sales hiring will continue to happen. There is not much hiring expected from equipment vendors like Nokia Siemens Networks and Ericsson AB for the simple reason that they are under tremendous cost pressure."

A general slowdown will continue to impact recruitments in support function roles like HR, communication and administration where companies are offering only contractual employment. There will be, however, demand in sales and of developers and network-rollout specialists.

Amidst all the trouble, most of the recruitment consultants have big hopes from the VAS sector.

"There is a lot of hope from the VAS sector, which is expected to generate significant employment opportunities. With the uptake of 3G services and cheap data plans, there is an increase in demand for exciting content on mobile phones which means a lot of new and interesting services will need to be launched," says Srimanto Bhattacharya - Senior Partner, Spearhead Intersearch.

According to a recent report by IMImobile, the MVAS segment, which includes ringtones and SMS-based applications is expected to reach INR 33,280 crore (US$5.9 billion) by 2013.

Experts hope that the telecom job market will become steady over a couple of quarters till the regulatory conditions improve.

This perhaps is not the time to be disheartened. This is the time to upgrade your skills so that you are ready when the right opportunity knocks at your door.

- Jatinder Singh and Rimit Singh, Light Reading India