Bangalore: With the economy on the path to recovery, it's raining jobs at major tech firms. However, this is having an adverse effect on startups, who are facing the challenge of getting right candidates as well as retaining them. Over the past year, startups were able to cash in on the slump in the job market but things are not looking rosy now. "Last year, we were able to recruit six people as the markets were down. But now we are unable to select a single candidates with good skill sets for the 10 openings we have," says Puneet Bindlish, CEO of Infogile.

India's largest IT exporter Tata Consultancy Services has announced plans to hire 8,300 trainees and around 3,000 laterals or experienced persons in the fourth quarter of this fiscal. IT major Infosys, which will exceed its hiring target of 25,000 for the current fiscal year, has made some 20,000 campus offers for fiscal 2009-10. The company has already dispatched about 18,000 offer letters to prospective employees. Wipro's hiring plans for fiscal 2009-10 are also on track, with 8,500 people to be recruited by May-June 2010.

Many startups similar to Infogile, who hired during the slowdown, now fear that their current employees may quit and join the large firms. "People are leaving startups to join the large firms as they pay good salaries, which as a startup we cannot afford," says Bindlish. Speaking of compensations, Satkam Divya CEO of Rupeetalk feels that people should not join a startup just for the monetary benefit. "By working in a startup, a person will get more responsibilities, learn newer things and enjoy better visibility, which will pay off in the long run," says Divya.

Divya also hired eight people in the mid management level during the slowdown, but now just like Bindlish even he is facing the challenges. "Though, we had been hiring last year as it was easy to find the right talent, now we are going slow on recruitments," says Divya. Despite the challenges in the job market, Sudarshan HS, CEO of Onze Technologies feels that startups are independent of the overall job market, because they hire lesser number of people. "We may have to face some issues, but not very serious problems," says Sudarshan, who plans to hire 10-15 people in the coming months.

Adhil Shetty, Founder and CEO, BankBazaar.com believes that people, who are joining startups, join just because they want to work in a startup environment. "Last year, we hired from several B-schools and these were people who were keenly interested to work only in a startup without worrying about the monetary benefits," says Shetty. According to him, this time the company has already received one summer recruit from IIM-Bangalore and also has some prospects in Anna University.