PUNE, INDIA: Young, bright and raring Archana Biyani is a worried face today. Like hundreds of smart IT whizkids dreaming and working hard for a great career in the IT industry, she did not factor in US recession as the party-pooper while getting ready for her foray from the classrooms to the cubicles.

But the sane and smart Biyani, student of ASM IIBR, Pune who is specializing in IT and Marketing, is doing all her calculations right. She knows that for her and her peers the job climate would be very different from what her seniors and alumni had enjoyed.

The scene is the same. Be it another top-notch institute in Pune's PDGM programme in MBA and IT, where only 13 out of 86 students have been placed so far, or recent headlines showing that companies like MindTree are deferring joining dates of campus recruits.

And as Kris Laxmikanth, founder, CEO ad MD, The Head Hunters predicts, there are job cuts expected in the range of 100,000 to 150,000 in the next year in the industry. Sectors like BFSI, banking, insurance and domains like testing would be the worst hit.

So if you are one of those who has been handed a sabbatical or is on bench or in the upper project management rung, the butterflies in your stomach are not unreal.

The reason being that when companies resort to cost rationalization (the jargon they prefer to call it), it is overheads and redundant resources in these very areas that would directly come under the scanner first.

"Project leaders with one to four year of experience or people on bench should read the danger signals fast. It might be time that if needed, a company may choose to have one project leader supervising 60 people instead of 30," Laxmikanth cautions.

In fact, the real impact cannot be gauged till the companies assess their project pipelines based on the January orders. "The real extent of job impacts would depend on the contract renegotiations that would happen in the next two-three months and onwards," he explains.

Nevertheless, it's natural that freshers too are getting jittery, it could very well be a scenario of no job or if so, one with a compromise on salary expectations.

"Things could be difficult indeed and 2009 would be something like witnessed in 2001. The campus offers drop could be 50 per cent," Laxmikanth surmises.

For a CV that is almost fresh, it might not bode well, but there's a lot that smart and patient ink can still scribble well. Freshers can accept the scenario as tough but temporary and look for more practical options as Laxmikanth advises.

"Higher studies or opportunities in lateral sectors like manufacturing or lateral skills like management or sales could be a good idea."

Something that students like Biyani have already started mulling over. "I know that big corporates is not what I should be expecting, so I would go for a small company and get robust and future-ready experience till the current scenario lasts. Go small or compromise on salary is what students should be ready for."

The slowdown, all said, is not that as deep and durable as rumours and jitters make us believe. With contract renegotiations, a clearer picture would emerge and though projects are expected to get affected, it's only the painting jobs that will be delayed or brushed aside and not the plumbing ones.

"The 30 to 35 per cent that is made up by new application development work would be under scrutiny, the balance 65 per cent that fall under regular maintenance work is not to be worried for," an upbeat Laxmikanth points out. 

Moreover, the scene in India cannot be that dismal either as elections are on the way, and it would need guts to announce major job cuts in such a political climate.

No matter how bad it may seem, it's only temporary, as the verdict turns out. And so, even the worried Biyani says this wisely and confidently, "Wait for two-three years till things stabilize. It's just a matter of time till things get better."

Do you share her confidence?