IT Pros Hunt For Better Deals: Survey

"The IT industry has one of the most mobile work force," the findings of a survey revealed. "More than 75% of IT professionals have been with their current employer for less than two years," according to the second CyberMedia Dice-TNS survey. Job portals were getting increasingly popular with IT professionals, with 60% of the respondents posting their resumes on job portals. "That the specialist job portals are becoming an important tool for hiring by the IT industry is visible in the jump in the number of IT professionals registered with three or more job portals from 17% in 2005 to almost 60% in 2006," says E. Abraham Mathew, CEO, CyberMedia Dice (CMD). Interestingly, even though the IT professionals were happy and committed, their registering with job portals showed that they were shopping around for the best deal in town for someone with their skills sets and experience, the survey revealed. It added that more than 63% of the IT professionals had less than five years of work experience in IT or IT related fields. The survey involved 1886 online respondents, who were among the 3,50,000 members enrolled on CMD, a dedicated technology job site. Bangalore-based CMD is a joint venture between two technology specialists: CyberMedia, South Asia 's largest specialty media house and Dice, the leading provider of online recruiting services for technology and engineering professionals in the United States . The CMD-TNS survey also found that over 70%of the IT professionals were given promotions in the last one year. It also said the job seeking IT professionals were a highly satisfied and committed lot with a quarter of them having a TRI*M Index above 70 while the all India mean for all employees (across all sectors) was only 62. Commenting on the highlights of the survey, Abraham Karimpanal, Head of Technology Practice of TNS India said, "Nearly a fourth of the job seeking IT professionals are an extremely happy and a committed lot with TRI*M index of 70 plus, significantly higher than the Indian industry average of 62." Growth offered by a company was the most important determinant of employee motivation and commitment, while the salary had little impact on motivation or commitment, the survey said. On GenNext IT professionals, Pradeep Gupta, Chairman and Managing Director of CyberMedia said, "A closer look at the profile indicates that that they are restless, very ambitious professionals looking for a fast track career growth. The challenge for the industry is to meet their ambitions and aspirations." The study revealed that the employees demonstrated the highest commitment to their organization in their first year of employment and it dropped considerably over the years.

"IT professionals promoted in the last six months in their company have the highest satisfaction level while those waiting for their promotion for over two years are the least committed to their jobs," the survey said. Professionals at junior to middle level with a gross salary of Rs5 lakh were more committed than those at the middle or senior level with a salary of Rs12 lakh. "Postgraduates in technical subjects are getting paid 17% more than MBAs employed in (the) IT industry," CMD's Mathew added. Multinational companies (Indian or non-Indian) were able to command higher level of commitment compared to those working with Indian and joint venture companies. The survey also revealed that for 90% of the respondents considered multinational software firms as ideal employers. Three out five IT professionals spent between 8"10 hours daily at work. One out of six IT professionals put in over 10 hours of work and only one out of four IT professionals worked under eight hours, the findings revealed. The survey found that salaries in Western and Southern India were higher compared to that in the North and Eastern regions. Salaries in Gurgaon, in the north, were now comparable with those offered in the IT capital, Bangalore . West had the highest average annual salary of Rs4.91 lakh followed by South at Rs4.79 lakh. The last two spots went to professionals from North and East at Rs4.58 lakh and Rs4.14 lakh per annum, respectively. The average annual salary of job seeking IT professionals in Bangalore and Gurgaon, just above Rs6 lakh mark was the highest in the country. The average annual cost-to-company of IT professionals working in Chennai and Hyderabad was Rs4.5 lakh in 2006. The survey, carried out in the last quarter of 2006, stated that the average annual salary for an IT professional in Mumbai was Rs5.09 lakh with those in Pune drawing marginally less. The respondents from Delhi had an average annual salary of Rs4.89 lakh. Of the respondents from across the country, two-thirds were between the age group of 23"31 years. Respondents turned out to be evenly distributed between Indian MNC, non-Indian MNC and Indian companies. Around 60% of the respondents had non-technical educational background. One fifth of the respondents were engineers. Almost half of the respondents had worked with their current employer for less than a year. However, IT professionals in Delhi and Kolkata beat the trend. Nearly 29% respondents in these two cities had been with their current employer for more than three years. On an average each respondent IT professional had changed three jobs. The survey drew respondents from over 50 cities, with Bangalore contributing the largest number of 453 respondents, followed by Hyderabad 252, Chennai 213, Mumbai 181 and Delhi 166.