Friday, May 27, 2005

A very interesting note!

I got this as a forward through email. This is supposed to be written by a Global IT Manager of an MNC in Bangalore. I can't vouch for the source, but the note is worth reading.

Every day for the last four months I have been hiring. I come to office each day, hassle my recruitment team, agencies and consultancies for resumes, perform interviews, negotiate salaries and make offers.
It's amazing to see how people negotiate for salaries and perks, no one asks anything anymore about what the job entails, what they can contribute, or how they can grow and realize their dreams here. It's about pay, and people are eagerly willing to display unbridled stupidity in managing their careers by focusing incessantly on money.
Heck, the time it takes to finalize an offer nowadays, I could send out an offer letter, go have several children, watch them grow, put them through school and then head back to office, the candidate is likely to have finished negotiating his pay and ready to join.
This is all fine and dandy; it's a hyper-inflationary job market. What's disturbing is the not-so-new trend of IT jobs flying out of India. I hear an 850-seater call center has decided to move out of India due to attrition and increasing costs. Hell, my own company has pushed out 100 jobs out of India into Eastern Europe, and I was part of that decision.
We need to wake up and smell the stink of the decay we are creating all around us in the IT job market.
Year-on-year end people here expect nothing less than 30 to 45% salary increases, where as the average salary hike in the US per year is 3% and Eastern Europe is 4%.
I could go on and on about the quality of the flotsam and jetsam that washes on to my desk in response to job ads, but we all know it. Sometimes it takes as many as 40+ interviews to close one position. Sad part? The bozos still think they are worth it.
At this rate IT India better ensure they have transferable skills, because in a couple of years from now they will not have jobs to feed their money-frenzied lifestyles.
Let's do justice to the lessons the dotcom tried to teach us, what goes up must come down.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Good post / forward there Krishna... was very worth reading

shub said...

very good write up there, we need more such fwds...not trashy ones!

Anonymous said...

Good post, Kris. Given the unrealistic expectations in terms of salary hikes on joining/increments vis-a-vis relentless costcutting and competition in this industry, I think many companies in the IT industry will one day implode! Hah, I like that - 30 to 45% hikes!!!

Anonymous said...

Good post

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Anonymous said...

I agree. My company decided to set up a development centre in Singapore. The reason - cheaper than US, and LOW ATTRITION RATE.

--KM said...

Nice post and pictures realistic life.

But before comparing, we should keep in mind that US was in this stage for long time.. people have seen how recruiters used to stand outside school gates and people drive on valley and get 3 offer enroute!!

So India is replicating that.. but correct thing to do would be learn from US lesson and candidates move to higher level of skillset before demanding such hikes.

I think all MNC's are more to blame for this culture, same as what happened with start ups in US. They need few people and good one, so they had to go that route and today they need more people... BUT ! :)

Good article nevertheless..
atleast it is moving around in net and those who want to realize will know what to do!!

bye

Anonymous said...

This is a realistic picture of today's IT India. High expectations, more so, unrealistic ones...and that too from the people who do not have such quality skillsets that would support such hikes.

Predictions about the future of IT industry are realistic, given the trend highlighted here.

It's a very nice article Krishna.
Keep posting such good articles.

Anonymous said...

I can't agree with some of the comments that some of the IT workers do not have the skill set to support such hike simply because of the fact that this is a demand supply game.The fact of the matter is that IT workers are paid many times less in India than in the US/1st world for the same skill set.So,for cost arbitrage many MNC's are opening centeres in India.Clearly the demand for IT workers is more than the supply because of this competion.Skills,Profit and attrition are the three paremeters which are in play here.Companies trying to focus on profits are having a high attrition or beacuse of management(skill) problems.I guess MNC's are learning the hard way that 'there is nothing called a free lunch'

Rony