Pune: The first ever two-day e-recruitment mela (Fair) started in Pune on June 14 with great expectations.

The much-publicised fair was organised by HR Works, a human resource solutions company to recruit at least 500 people on the spot for eight IT (Information Technology) and three ITES (Information Technology Enabled Services) companies.

There were about 1500 job openings for which organisers were expecting 6000 candidates. And this is where the organisers went wrong.

Candidates started lining up in front of the venue from six in the morning. By 10 o'clock, 15,000 candidates had formed a serpentine queue that went a mile outside the venue. Organisers were simply not prepared to deal with this kind of crowd. Though they tried to deal with the crowd by cutting down the duration of the written test, too much was left for the organisers to handle.

"The objective was for you (candidates) to come here and then have a written test, group discussions and final round of interviews.

But looking at this response.......A normal written test goes on for one hour, we reduced it to half an hour. But even then the response has been so huge that we have to stall the written test as well as the group discussions.

We have asked the people to leave their resumes behind and we would get back to them in a couple of days time," said Kavita Kulkarni, Vice President, HR, WNS Global Services.

The major luring factor in the advertisement was on-the-spot recruitment but candidates were up for disappointment when they were told to leave their resumes and that the companies will get back to them.

"They should have not put a note that you will get offer letter in two days. They should have told that it is not recruitment mela, it is a resume mela. If they would have told us to give our resume at the cost of Rs 25, not a single person would have come here.

Because that you can do at the internet itself at the cost of Rs 2," said Manisha Patravali, an unemployed engineer.

"I have come from Bangalore. My bus ticket cost me Rs 600. I will be spending the same amount for going back. Plus I have deposited Rs 25 here for the resume. They have made lakhs of rupees today itself," added Sandeep Patra, another unemployed engineer.

Candidates alleged that most of the companies, which participated in the mela do not have any plan to recruit people on-the-spot. Their aim was just to set up stalls to shortlist people and call them on campus for further interviews.

The day ended with thousands of aspiring candidates waiting for hours in the blazing sun to get an opportunity to get inside the venue. But instead they were told to submit their resume and go back.

ANI