What's so surprising?
recruiter...@gmail.com
I was speaking to one aspiring freelance recruiter sometime last
evening, and a few thins took me aback through the conversation.
The discussion started off with her interest in devoting much more
time in freelance activities than she had been able to dedicate so
far. While, as most of the time, I had to spend time in explaining
what the current situation in the job market is and how things are
going to be, I was telling her about a few statistics about the
present industry scenario, viz., every above average or good techie
has 2.5 offers to decide upon before joining one. S/he would accept
almost all of them and do a no-show on the joining date and so on. I
never knew that recruiters outside Bangalore did not have this much
trouble in hiring!
I was speaking to one of the hires, that I made from Mumbai for a
senior manager position with us sometime around last week, while
having lunch, He was awe struck at the recruiters were prying on his
resume for any vacancy they could match a few keywords for. He also
happened to mention that people in Mumbai were not as bad job hoppers
in Bangalore were (well, luckily he missed noticing the shopping
habit!) He also told me about his bad experience in hiring while at
Mumbai, for most of the new age techies were the ones that plan to
stick around in a company not more than 1 year or so. And that hiring
from Bangalore has been his wors experience for they use offers and
jobs in new cities as stepping stones to "better ones" (in relative
terms).
In fact, I was also trying to explain the lady about how difficult
hiring has become with the imbalance in supply and demand of, not just
techies, but all types of manpower. It would be very good for her to
be located outside Bangalore and work on feeding this city's growing
need for professionals for all the industries. Relocating people from
tier-2/3/4 cities to the Bangalore, the city of IT dreams (not
'gardens' anymore!) would be a lot easier. To get a job in any
software company is relatively a lot easier then it was 3/4 years
back. Dudes, the dotcom boom alike seems to be back. Remember? The
dotcom boom + the Y2K scare made the industry grow superfast, well it
seems this time around a recession would not be needed to slow down
the pace but shortage of manpower is likely to show its true
colours :) Sad, but true.
I read on naukri.com's HR zone sheet that 'India shining would have
12% of the population into the IT industry directly or indirectly by
2015". If that is true, then don't be surprised if your present press-
wala/dhobi turns into a corporate laundry incharge in the years to
come... sounds funny, but that is my nightmare. Hiring would not be
restricted to the internet and references then, but more a field job
than ever. It would be no more the fancy talking to a VP/CEO and
getting some fancy references, but it would be asking the CEO/VP about
who does their dishes and who maintains their garden :-O. My-oh-my,
imagine, if that be the case, then India would have to come up with
minimum wage plans etc, and to get a tyre-puncture fixed, we would
need to shell out money at Rs.200 per hour of labour or so. :-S scary
thought indeed.
It actualy makes me wonder whether India is actually shining or is it
just an illusion of a happy life, but actually we are just wrecking
ourselves into more materialism and less 'actual' recruiting. I also
recollected recruiting for Motorola for its Schaumberg unit at
Illinois and how people would say that commuting 140 miles one way
would be tedious (they live in suburbs 70 miles from downtown Chicago,
and Schaumberg, is on the other side of Chicago) and that they would
need to relocate closer to Schaumberg etc. I would sit and convert
distances into kilometers and figure out people travelling ~224kms
(one-way) to work. Man (Or Woman), thats close to 2/3rd of the
distance to Chennai from Bangalore!!
Is India headed that way? Yes it is, but the problem with Bangalore is
that infrastructure so pathetic that it will NOT be able to scale up
to the required growth rate (for many reasons including short-sighted
Magoos' voted ino power and other strategically important bureaucratic
positions.
So, how does this relate to hiring? Well, if you get a picture of what
is and what is to happen, then it is pretty obvious that India will
start outsourcing to the then 3rd world nations, and we would have to
shout at a PM that would be alike to the US president Bush then (!!
LOL! Bushy boy! LOL! ) for losing out on our jobs.
Can anyone suggest what their thoughts on future freshers' hiring
would be? I know a few folks out here in person who have devoted a few
years of their careers in hiring freshers. They could give a better
picture of what is to come. Please contribut.
Peace, Love & Empathy