I was little surprised when I thought of writing about recently held two job fairs. It’s not astonishing to see thousands of job seekers lined up to get a job here , but if they are NRIs or Americans lined up to relocate to India, then? Aren’t you surprised?
Recently two overly successful job fairs were held by Shine.com, an online job portal, at Raritan Exposition center in Edison, New Jersey & Santa Clara Convention Center, California. In fact, the events were so successful that, organizers have to open a separate portal for interested candidates, who are willing to relocate, but couldn’t attend the event. By just visiting the portal you would understand the growing popularity of ‘reverse brain-drain’ among NRIs/PIOs or may be Americans. You can hardly ignore the tide.
But my question is; how many of them really understand the consequences of relocating to India? Is it only about willing to work with brands such as Google, Amazon for cheap wages and explore the country, which was livelihood for some of them before migrating to ‘Land of Opportunity’ or just a hyped show? It could be decided sooner or later, but then working in India isn’t that easy, so you be in Bangalore, Hyd, Delhi or Mumbai. Things don’t change quickly here.
Working in India for Indian MNCs or Global MNCs is often marred with few key issues. Apart from differences in cultures and work environment, Indian work conditions bring its own challenges for those, who have yet to get accustomed to hyperbole of ‘India Shining’ phenomenon. Office spaces are often cluttered with internal politics and promotions/appraisals aren’t always directly linked to performances. Here people often have few attitudinal issues and calling ‘Sir’ to seniors or even colleagues often makes life troublesome too. Even discussion of someone’s private life could be hot topic during lunch and people here are more interested in peeping into someone’s life, rather than sticking to their own.
In India, if you could quickly adapt to conditions and accept things as it is then it would be pain for some. You often find work environment not very much amicable and management here is often more interested in revenues, cash flow and profit margins rather than preserving values, ethics and respecting employees for their abilities. People or rather colleagues here are very friendly in nature and if you have good friendship with someone at higher ranks, then there are high chances that, you could exploit it for your own benefits, rather than company’s. Professionalism often makes presence felt through boring annual meetings or seminar and adoption of new ideas often takes years.
It could vary from places to places, but as I said, you could find at least few things common in Indian work environment. It’s not always global or ‘Cosmo’ culture, but having ‘Chai party’ with seniors before appraisal cycle is still considered mandatory. If you could do this, then it would be smooth ride, otherwise mere relocating to offices of global MNCs could prove fatal turning point. Be ready to face unexpected!
