Typically in a slowdown, campus hiring gets hit first and in recovery, campus hiring recovers last. The next placement season may be a challenge. A lot of IT companies which had made offers have postponed joining dates by six months, 12 months. That is a challenge.

•SANJEEB MUKHERJEE: Where is this revival coming from? Which companies are planning to hire?

Six industries continued to hire even through the worst period. Those were education, healthcare, pharma, FMCG, telecom and insurance. Insurance is hiring not because the industry is doing well; insurance is hiring because there are new companies coming in, fresh investments are coming in and they need staff. It is not as if the companies, the businesses are doing well.

•VINAY SITAPATI: In a previous Idea Exchange, when the American columnist Thomas Friedman, he argued that one of the problems with the US stimulus package is that they propped up banks, companies like General Motors, but they failed to notice the huge number of startups which make use of credit. The stimulus package does not address them. Do you have the same problem here that startups like yours that relied on initial funding with ICICI will now find it very hard to come across cash?

When we started the company in 1990, there was no venture capital available. We had to struggle for six months to get a Rs.30,000 OD limit from Bank of India. When credit dries up, when there is de-leveraging, small companies are, perhaps, hit harder. But small companies are also more agile and flexible and they can change their business faster. They are more innovative entrepreneurs. So, there is a plus and there is a minus.

... contd.