Are six lakh fresh engineers passing out this year better prepared for employment in the Indian IT industry than the batches of the last few years? Bellwethers Infosys and Cognizant � who together employ over 2.3 lakh workers globally � say �job readiness' of engineering graduates has definitely improved. However, this is more visible among students passing out of engineering colleges that have actively collaborated with software companies on the curriculum front.

�Today IT companies are doing high levels of investment in fresh graduates even before they join the rolls�and hence, if one out of 10 fresh recruits were �industry ready' earlier, then the number is more like about three out of ten now�, said Mr Lakshmi Narayanan, Vice-Chairman of Nasdaq-listed Cognizant Technology Solutions. Since the IT industry operates a model where every manpower resource brings in additional revenues, software companies comb campuses each year in search of fresher hiring. And they recruit in large numbers. Infosys, for instance, has made 26,000 offers in campuses for fiscal 2012 alone.