Frustrations with job search - looking for advice on how to move forward

[sfmommy]

Hi,

We moved to Bangalore @4.5 months back - I had a good job in the bay area which I gave up when I moved. There was no option for me to work remotely for my company for India so I decided to take my chances and look for a new job here.

However the market is very chaotic and I am finding it very difficult to even get a call back from a recruiter - forget even interviewing for a position. I've tried monster, naukri and sending my resume in via friends but the only response i got was an acknowledgement once from the company. Otherwise absolute silence. And when I compare my skills with the requirements of the jobs, I could swear I am a perfect fit for many of them.

A little about my background - I was a senior manager heading Enterprise Content Management and Information Governance in my company for the last few years. It allows me to work in practically any industry and is quite broad in its scope.

If I can get any leads on recruiters for mid-senior IT positions I'd really appreciate it. Also any tips on how to make this easier would be most welcome!

Thanks,
A.

[srinivas74]

Hi

Indian market is very strange and different. I tried looking for a job for year and couldnt get one. One thing which I want to warn you is if you put your CV in naukri, some companies such as True vision, they claim they are naukripro a company dealing with big companies in arranging interviews. They are not associated with naukri, they just pick the database from naukri and see who is searching for jobs etc and they call you. Ask you to pay some money i paid around 5K rupees and they said they will arrange interviews in a week etc. Initially I thought Let me give them the opportunity and see if they really do anything for me. They took the money and never even could arrange one interview. So in case you get a call from True Vision or Naukripro etc, (not sure if they keep changing names) they all speak well on the phone and we think they are genuine. So please dont fall into the trap of paying money for arranging interviews etc.

[ILuvHyd]

Management positions are tough to get in India without proper contacts and referrals. One has to remember, there are lot of internal candidates who now have sufficient experience to move to management, so lot of pressure and competition for these positions. Also don't get surprised if the interview process goes on for months, expect 5-10 interviews on different days.

I also suggest not to get hung on exact position, may be take one level down as an Individual contributor (Project Manager, Program Manager, Scrum Master etc) and once you are in the company, can move up quickly with your US senior manager experience.

[return2desh]

I will recommend trying Linkedin in India and targeting folks (recruiters / people working in the same field) in the company that you are interested in and see if they can internally refer you. I have not done this myself, but a bunch of recruiters reached out to me for executive / leadership positions through Linkedin.

Unfortunately, things are not so clear when it comes to recruiting or finding job especially for leadership/executive position, moreover, things move really slowly in India for some reason (I am going through an interview process in India and it's painstakingly slow). Have patience I am sure you will get something.

[Gator92]

When I was working in Bangalore and involved with recruitment in India for senior level positions, the process used to be quite chaotic ! The job description said one thing, the recruitment manager had a different criteria, the interviewing folks focused only on technical skills and nothing else and out rightly rejected so many candidates that I thought would be a great fit in terms of personality and getting adjusted to the company work culture. Then the U.S folks would get involved in the interview process and they had a different opinion on what the ideal candidate should be. I think one of the issues is that the decision making is not with one person who is the hiring manager, a big group of people with diverging expectations are involved and the whole interview process gets pulled in different directions. I used to wonder how would we fill this position at all and then the requirement would change due to some org restructuring and we would go back to the hamster wheel again !

One of the suggestions I have is reach out to your friends and ex-colleagues who are working in U.S and U.K and have operations in India. They can give you some leads on open positions that they are trying to fill in India. Most times when the recommendation for a candidate comes a U.S based employee they have a good shot at getting interviewed and most probably the job as well.

The whole process is pretty frustrating, just keep trying and something will surely work out. Good luck !

[indian6]

Let me add my 2 cents. I am also trying through my contacts and relatives, most of them work in major IT companies in India. When I visited, last time, I got an interview at the top IT company through referral. The guy who contacted me was off same my age /exp level, very polite etc. Interview was also good, no nonsense questions. Then on the same day, another guy wanted me to interview and I told the pretty much same thing and everything exactly based on my exp and what I mentioned in my resume. After 2 weeks., when I called him, he said , we are looking for retail business and you don't have that exp. I politely asked him, didn't you notice when I sent the resume or when you interviewed me? where did I say I had that. I stopped telling why did you waste both of our time. BTW this was my 2nd or 3rd interview in past 6 months or so. But on my part, so far I am not seriously looking. (main reason after reading several forums about the difficulty of getting jobs if one have more than 20 plus exp and working in US).
I see only couple of options, internal transfer (if you are lucky) or learn something latest/ hot (big data etc) skills , but I am not sure if this will help or best if you can, retire / semi retire after R2I.

[srinivas74]

I was interviewed by one of the companies which are in insurance sector. Well renowned one, I spoke to the VP and he was saying you have so much experience in diverse areas and I said to them i worked in public sector at a managerial level so you get exposed to all kind of technologies and in fact technology is a miniscule thing, we look at bigger picture etc, he was asking questions of my longevity etc and i said the whole idea of moving to india is working there, he was saying my hr would really think twice because you may leave abroad anytime. In fact it is very tough to convince them. In one of the companies they didnt have someone to interview itself and they made me wait for a month and after interview the feedback was very good, but they still didnt hire me. The guy who interviewed me working only on one product for 12-15 years and i have used that tool at my place for 4-5 years. but the guy was asking me nitty gritty stuff and i said to them as a manager i dont deal with too technical stuff. they want you to do hands on coding etc,.

[desiprodmgr]

I was interviewed by one of the companies which are in insurance sector. Well renowned one, I spoke to the VP and he was saying you have so much experience in diverse areas and I said to them i worked in public sector at a managerial level so you get exposed to all kind of technologies and in fact technology is a miniscule thing, we look at bigger picture etc, he was asking questions of my longevity etc and i said the whole idea of moving to india is working there, he was saying my hr would really think twice because you may leave abroad anytime. In fact it is very tough to convince them. In one of the companies they didnt have someone to interview itself and they made me wait for a month and after interview the feedback was very good, but they still didnt hire me. The guy who interviewed me working only on one product for 12-15 years and i have used that tool at my place for 4-5 years. but the guy was asking me nitty gritty stuff and i said to them as a manager i dont deal with too technical stuff. they want you to do hands on coding etc,.

This sounds like the typical response for fake interviews (where positions are already closed, or the candidate is rejected, but they are going through the motions)

I was once asked by a US based manager to identify the profile that a product manager should have in my firm and how to select such a person.
I gave detailed feedback on what to look for in candidates locally. But the recruitment ad that went out was too generic. Then the self-selection bias (and other hidden criteria) of the recruiting team eliminated other candidates. Finally, as the budget was not very high, that eliminated the best/most expensive candidates. So then I recommended someone internal to the firm, who could move from engineering to product management. This made recruiters happy (as the process was shorter), the engineering team happy (as they got their OWN person as a PM), the engineer himself happy (he gets to be called PM and travels to the US). And it made the US manager happy as he did not have to conduct endless interviews (He had a deadline of one quarter to recruit a PM).

IMHO, you better use your linkedin network and declare to all your friends that you are actively looking for a job.
And be prepared to join at a lower position or in a different city.
Else you can retire/semi-retire if you feel like it.

[Old-Spice2]

Else you can retire/semi-retire if you feel like it.

What is semi-retire? Work for 20 hrs instead of 40?

[hermes]

What is semi-retire? Work for 20 hrs instead of 40?

Exactly. Get paid for 40 hours and browse internet for 20 hours.