Bengaluru/mumbai, July 30 -- Tata Consultancy Services Ltd (TCS) is pressing ahead with campus hiring plans, even as it navigates the retrenchment of over 12,000 middle and senior executives. Placement executives at multiple engineering colleges said India's largest information technology (IT) services company emailed last week to select graduates through its hackathon programme, and also as part of its usual hiring plans. The outreach signals that India's biggest private employer continues to prioritise lower-cost, entry-level talent, particularly those skilled in emerging technologies, while trimming its more expensive, seasoned workforce. The move, coming at a time of broader slowdown in foreign markets and domestic business challenges, underscores TCS's cost-saving measures and its strategic pivot towards a younger, digitally fluent workforce. "The mails for their hackathon called CodeVita came in last week," the head of placement at an engineering college said, referring to the coding contest that TCS organizes to identify and recruit top coding talent. "Last year (for the batch of 2025), TCS recruited about 80 students, but this year's numbers are not confirmed. Last year, the company offered Rs.4-6 lakh and Rs.13 lakh for students depending on the programme for which they were recruited," the person said on the condition of anonymity. The hackathon is the one of first screening tests to join TCS, and shortlisted candidates are interviewed at TCS offices. Hiring, either via CodeVita or directly from campuses, typically starts in August. Sometimes, TCS executives also visit colleges for campus placements. TCS has a multi-pronged strategy on hiring. It recruits via hackathons, and in some cases, comes directly to campuses and shortlists candidates. The firm has its own recruitment team which hires lateral talent from the industry, and also works with HR firms to get people on board for both contract and permanent hiring. Queries emailed to TCS remained unanswered. On Sunday, TCS said it plans to reduce staff by 2% over the course of the year, particularly middle- and senior-level executives. The decision, which will affect over 12,000 employees, comes after the company deferred pay hikes earlier this year, and saw a decline in revenue in the June quarter....