TCS would be hiring more than 40,000 freshers from campuses in the country in 2021-22, a top executive of the country’s largest software exporter said on Friday. 

The company, also the country’s largest employer in the private sector with a base of over 5 lakh employees, had hired 40,000 graduates from campuses last year and would do better on that number, said Milind Lakkad, the chief of global human resources of TCS. 

He added that the COVID pandemic-related restrictions did not pose any difficulties in hiring and added that last year, a total of 3.60 lakh freshers had appeared for an entrance test virtually. 

“From the campus in India, we hired 40,000 last year. We will continue to hire and hire 40,000 or more this year in India, Mr Lakkad said, adding that lateral hiring would also be robust this year. 

Similarly, the company would also do better on the 2,000 trainees hired from American campuses last year, he said, without sharing an exact number. 

Mr Lakkad said that a lot of planning went into hiring from campuses and that it was not “just-in-time” hiring when a business deal gets signed up, and typically, it takes over three months before a resource gets on a project. 

TCS Chief Executive and Managing Director Rajesh Gopinathan said that he often got asked if the organisation was too large, but added that the way it was structured, made it possible from a management and nimble-footedness perspective. 

TCS had broken the organisation into small, autonomous entities with support from the top which helps take care of challenges, he said, pointing out that several entities like the railways, armed forces and political parties, function with large pools of people.