R2I job blues

[dheeraj_handa]

Just want to know experiences of people who are returning or returned to India from work point of view in IT or any other field.

In my R2I attempt I started looking for jobs on naukri.com, one day I found a “O” India ( I don’t want to disclose name but a hint “This is a product company 2nd largest in world which also has consulting division in Bangalore, Hyderabad, and support center)contact wanting to hire in my skill set Which is PeopleSoft. Here is my conversations with him, this started in 3rd week of Dec 07'

Balaji :- Hello Dheeraj , I received your resume and we want to conduct interview with you,

Me: Balaji, that is fine, but my experience with O India recruiters and O India Managers was not good few months back when someone called me , I gave interview at 12 midnight and in last the practice manager called and said we are rolling out offer and it never came.

Balaji: Yes I see in our system that the offer was frozen for some reason. may be hiring freeze.

Me: Ok, so what is the guarantee this time?

Balaji: No that is a different group, I want to hire for different group , I promise whole process wont take more than a week or two.

ME : Ok, you can conduct your process, and then Balaji conducts first round of interview haphazardly, confirms one time, does not call, then calls in midnight confirms again , one round of techincal interview is over by Mr X

Balaji(After few days): Dheeraj we want to conduct second round of technical interview , one MR Y will conduct this . I ask him why second round of technical, he says its a formality, so I thought its a nuisance and told him I am not interested by email and sms

Balaji: Dheeraj I received your email and sms it looks you are not happy by our interview process , I promise this is final technical and then HR round with me.

Me : Ok you can fix and let me know when

Balaji : Calls to me 2’ O clock midnight , Dheeraj I want to fix interview 10 am your time today, i said ok

ME: waiting for call no one calls till 10 30 am, I call Balaji, And ask why no one called, he said he was not aware if they did not call , he will confirm and get back

Balaji : Dheeraj sorry for that, we will have second round tomorrow this and this time, I said ok

The second day secound round of interview happens by My Y.(technical interviwe) he apologizes for not calling yesterday and after everything goes well, he offers me 3 kinds of roles in senior level and says you can choose whichever you want

Balaji: After few days Dheeraj My Y is very impressed with your profile and we want to go further, I tell him the options he gave , he says ok that all you can discuss with the practice manager based in US CA who want to have a final interview with you.

Me: Ok after few days the practice manager calls and I speak to him and keep asking for some specific roles which Mr Y had offered in interview, he talks for sometime explains me the role the recruiter had offered. I said ok and he says now Hr would roll out the offer and he would wait for me to join and all in India and we discuss joining time etc etc

Balaji: sends email Dheeraj we can offer you this and this manager role and this would be your position and rank, this is our final decision and asks me to confirm

Me : I say ok , (the time is around January 08), I confirm him through email the other day, I again reiterate to him I am visiting India on Feb 1st so please let me know much in advance about offer letter when would I get ,so I can plan my return.

Balaji : Ok, you are travelling on Feb. 1st, keep checking your emails once you are in India and send me your mobile no too I will send you the offer in email by the time you would reach India for vacation you would have a offer letter in email, and also I will call you as soon as you reach India

After I go to India on Feb 1st for one month visit , two weeks go by and no calls no emails from Balaji, I call him one day….

ME: Balaji, what happened , you said offer will come once I am in India and you said please confirm in email which I did too, you are not even calling me or emailing me and telling what is going on. I told you I need to plan my R2I

Balaji: Hummm, you know there is some problem the approval process has taken too long , I promise it will be done soon, again

ME : after another week, I ask him what is the matter either say yes or no, he says that the offer came with lower role that we promised so we are fighting, I ask him you are the HR you are fighting after promising. he says what to do. He says he will call me after 10 mins

Balaji : Calls in half hour and says the Bangalore team has a conf call at 8 pm in night with practice manager in CA who spoke to ask him why did they send offer with a lower level than promised earlier. And he says he will talk to him and call me in night.

I knew he would never call in night and I would keep thinking what happened

ME I call him and tell him I am not interested, you had said you would finalize in two weeks max it has taken almost 3 months now, I am not interested to take the offer now so please close this as I cannot plan in this situation

ME : Balaji, if you can do this to senior level roles , what would be position of junior levels I cannot imagine

Balaji: No its my mistake I had promised you the offer I will give , if you don’t want to accept you can do that, I said Ok

10 days pass by and I thought he would never call or anything, I get a call from Balaji on cell again he says, Dheeraj we have decided a higher position( Management level) for you and we want to have a final call on compensation with you , Mr. Z who had also spoken to you earlier is a senior person and he will decide on behalf of Mr P the practice manager who spoke to you too ,will call and talk, I said is compensation less that you had said earlier?, he says yes but how much Mr Z will talk, he will call you tomorrow and I too would be in call.

Next day I am in market at 4 pm they call, I thought it would be a 10-15 mins discussion so I wait in one shop and take call,

Mr Z: Dheeraj I am opening your Resume(he pronounces resume like you pronounce resume work or resume your day) just trying to see your profile before we begin interview,

Me: How long would this take,

Mr Z approx 45 mins to 1 hour.

Me: Balaji( who was on call), you said this would be a compensation discussion , this looks like a new interview.

Balaji: No Dheeraj , My Z did not speak to you earlier in length, he had only talked to you once when you wanted to know our corp. hierarchy , now he wants to know more about you.

ME : Ok once that is over how long will it take for you to let me know, because I want to plan my R2I , my kids school and all since I am on vacation to India, this is after he read the offer letter on phone to me and he just wanted compensation discussion

Balaji : I cannot promise,it can take weeks, months , I don’t know

ME : Ok I am outside call me tomorrow at 12 noon as I Cannot wait for one hour on road to take interview

Next day at 12 noon call comes:

Mr Z : Dheeraj lets start with your education background( This happens after 3 interviews are over, practice manager spoke, offer being given in email in terms of designation and position and MR Z who too had spoken to me earlier himself)

ME : Mr Z we had spoken last time too on some clarification on position and then I was promised by your HR and Practice Manager MR P in CA that I would get this and this role and etc. I got a email too and I confirmed, I just want to know before we begin what is that O India wants me to do, what is in O India’s mind. Because it has been 3 months and when I ask Balaji every time he says he is sending offer letter and now this interview again

MR Z : O India is big company can take 10 interviews,

ME Interviews are taken before offer, Balaji send me a mail with title and everything and asked me to confirm,

Mr Z : No it looks you are too frustrated with the process if you are not interested then we should not proceed, do you want to proceed or no?

ME : No, I don’t want to continue , I am not interested, MR Z says good Luck and I keep the phone.

The whole process takes 3 months and still they are interviewing without knowing for what(after promising offer in email), or which role. This is the condition of O India Consulting division and their recruiters and managers, I tried putting as much information as I could , though there were more instances in conversation etc which annoyed me or would annoy anyone

This all happened after few friends of mine who had similar experience had warned me not to join O India or even think of. I am in a dilemma how does one look for job in India from US, how do one trust these big companies, who say something , do something, before and also after joining.

PS: I met someone who was contracting to my company in US as a sun solaris adminstrator he came to US on h1b first time, could not adjust to the culture and he was depressed, wanted to go back , started taking or looking for jobs in India, after 5 months of his stay in US got a job with a very big company in Mumbai( Rel) and the title was manager, he was very happy told me he could not have imagine this title , this salary , I am so happy, he packed his bag went , after few may be two months i got to know he had resigned from there, when I visited India in Feb 08 I happened to chat with him and he said I left that company(rel) the title and role was all on paper it seems he said to someone, I asked him which company have you joined, he said CGY, that is one of the biggest consulting company, I asked him are you happy? he said no work, manager plays lot of politics, money is ok, in nutshell he was already trying to find something else........

[Froogle]

Oh.. What a Kiosk... Can't imagine if this is the case while interview then what while running the show. If my guess is right it is most popular database name company but I can be wrong ...

Thanks for your efforts to put it together it was great to learn in such a details

[ILuvHyd]

I feel sorry for you Dheeraj that you had to face that BS for that long. That's one of the reasons I am taking the job out of my R2I equation.

[dheeraj_handa]

Oh.. What a Kiosk... Can't imagine if this is the case while interview then what while running the show. If my guess is right it is most popular database name company but I can be wrong ...

Thanks for your efforts to put it together it was great to learn in such a details[/quote]
yes you are right,

[dheeraj_handa]

I feel sorry for you Dheeraj that you had to face that BS for that long. That's one of the reasons I am taking the job out of my R2I equation.[/quote]
that is good, I cannot afford to take job out of R2I , I have family depending , mortage home in India,

[indian]

Oh My!

Thanks for sharing your experience.

[dheeraj_handa]

I feel sorry for you Dheeraj that you had to face that BS for that long. That's one of the reasons I am taking the job out of my R2I equation.

I knew it was tough to put all this as its a long story, but would be helpful to someone to deal with these recruiters in India

[MrLong]

A friend of mine used the 'recomendation' route OR 'reference' route. He moved from CT to B'lore.

He knew another friend, who knew the CTO of a services company. My friend called the CTO and talked for 20 minutes or so.. and it was more of a chat..

Then the HR guy talked, and they made the offer.

[dheeraj_handa]

A friend of mine used the 'recomendation' route OR 'reference' route. He moved from CT to B'lore.

He knew another friend, who knew the CTO of a services company. My friend called the CTO and talked for 20 minutes or so.. and it was more of a chat..

Then the HR guy talked, and they made the offer.

that is what someone told me too now, that these recruiters are not trust worthy, best option is to go through some reference.

[Indian.Sam]

Since you have made a detailed post here, why don?t you write a letter to the head of HR and launch a formal complaint?