Bengaluru: Technology companies face a major shortage of AI professional talent in just 15-20% of their AI-trained workforce. This has prompted a change in employment strategies across the sector.From major IT services companies such as HCLTech to digital engineering players such as emerging AI startups such as Publicis Sapient and Staque, the message is consistent. “There aren't many people in the market with AI skills,” said Shefali Sharma Garg, Chief Resources Officer at Publicis Sapient. “Our approach is to hire agile talents that can evolve as AI matures. It moves fast and adaptability is important. ”Most popular roles include engineers skilled in building, training and deploying AI models, as well as experts who can work with intelligent systems to drive business outcomes. As a result, compensation for special individuals in AI expertise has skyrocketed. HCLTECH reports that provide up to four times the standard entry-level salary for freshmen with niche AI competency. “We focus on quality rather than quantity,” said Ramachandran Sundararajan, Chief Human Resources Officer at HCLTech. “Around 15-20% of campus intake this year will be professional recruitment. If more candidates meet our benchmarks, we will expand that.”
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At Staque, a Gurugram-based AI startup, the recruitment model revolves around hiring young self-taught engineers, even before graduation. “We are not hired based on years of experience,” said CEO and co-founder Atul Rai. “We evaluate Github contributions, community feedback, and research outcomes. Those who have been working on two years of practical Github work in AI are more valuable than those who have been in 20 years in Java.”But procuring such talent remains a challenge. RAI highlights a wider range of issues. India's limited research infrastructure and funding is preventing it from building basic AI models on par with countries such as the US and China. “We're not building LLM. We're building applications on top of them. That's why we need adaptable AI engineers, not just coders,” he added.This shortage is also evident in E2E Networks, a cloud-native company that empansed with Meity. “AI doesn't have a fixed curriculum. Today's demand didn't exist two years ago,” says Mohammed Imran, CTO at E2E. “Only two out of the 10 candidates have cleared the AI hiring process.”This gap is reflected in broader industry data. According to a recent Bain & Company report, AI-related job postings have grown at an annual rate of 21% since 2019, with salaries increasing by 11%. Still, the supply of skilled professionals has not continued to walk. The Bain Project predicts that the Indian AI industry will generate 2.3 million jobs by 2027. However, it is estimated that the talent pool will reach just 1.2 million positions, over one million positions through high-end initiatives.
