The COVID -19 pandemic has seen a lot of movement in the corporate world with lay off, hiring on hold and contraction of business etc. There are few industries that saw a phenomenal rise during the pandemic as per the study conducted by Board Infinity, a career exploration platform. The study was conducted online from the demand and supply side. The survey was undertaken amongst 2320 freshers and working professionals and amongst 235 startups, mid large organizations and SMEs. As per the study, Media, IT, Finance and Pharmaceutical sectors saw a growth in hiring while Automobiles and Logistics remained stagnant.

The study also saw 20% jump in hiring in Data science, Machine Learning (ML) and Artificial Intelligence (AI), Digital Marketing, SEO and Social Media positions compared to first 3 months of 2020. Another highlight of the study was on internships which have also been

emphasized in National Education Policy where college students were opting for unpaid internship opportunities in order to remain relevant in the market thus helping them in up skilling.

Board Infinity, which also provides online learning courses in various sectors like ML, AI, Data Science, Digital Marketing, etc. organized hackathons during this time, came to a conclusion that YoY the jobs have been particularly concentrated in the aforementioned segments. According to the company’s research there are job placements in various sectors - 28.3% in IT & Services, 14.3% in Media, 19.8% in E-Learning, 11.9% in Marketing & Advertising, 11.1% in Pharma, 7.9% in Civil & Social, 9.5% in Financial Services and the least of 1.6% in Automotive Industry.

As organizations have resumed functioning amidst the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, there is a slight rise in positive sentiment about business growth. This may lead to an encouraging trend in the hiring outlook for the rest of the year. “Although the hiring has picked up pace, there has been a dramatic change in the process for many companies. Initially full time offers were the norm but in these testing times, HRs have started opting for an internship to PPO model for better conversions and long term association with the candidates. Today we are seeing new age companies finding hackathons, and virtual scalable hiring models as a better means to shortlist appropriate candidates in this unbalanced supply and demand market”, says Sumesh Nair, Co-founder, Board Infinity.