Will and I will be moving to Pune in January. I have accepted a new position with iPlace USA, a recruitment process outsourcing service provider, running their sister company, iPlace India. In an expanded Senior Vice President role, I will be in charge of HR, marketing, leadership development and career coaching, and responsible for all new initiatives for expanding the company and achieving the business goals. It's going to be AWESOME. Even better, the CEO is American and we're in synch with where the company should go and how we can grow it together as a team. The company has made some amazing hires and while most of the staff are very young, they have tremendous potential. The company works hard to treat everyone fairly, there is parity across the organization, and employees are compensated based on their performance and effectiveness, not by who the managers like or are related to. Nice change. Some of the managers in place are extremely impressive and I look forward to working with these rock stars. :-)
We're super excited! Will is looking for the right college and there are plenty of very good schools in Pune. We'll be closer to Mumbai and south Goa, a couple of our favorite places in India, and will enable us to focus our travels in the south of India, where we haven't spent much time. We've been all over the north of this great country, but the backwaters of Kerala are calling, Pondicherry has been whispering in my ear for years now, and the fact that I've never been to Bangalore is almost embarrassing to make public.
So, this blog will effectively end with this post. My thanks to all my readers, for all of your great feedback, support, laughs and fury. It's been a tough slog these past few years. I will deeply miss my current co-workers, some of the best and brightest women (and a few good men!) I've ever worked with, here or overseas. But fear not, dear reader! I have set up another blog, focused on Pune at http://american-in-pune.blogspot.com. Check it out! Subscribe to it, like it, share it amongst your friends and we'll continue our brilliant conversations from there, okay? Follow me!
Onward,
Jeanne
wonderful are your words, all so true as well. It captured me, especially your discription of special treatment as a 'white' in India. I too had that very same reaction - in regards to position to the front of the line while on my visit to Delhi and Southern India. My first trip to India was a shocker in many ways. Here I a native Californian, born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area in a mix raced household no less...to have this ' you white woman go to the front of the line ' made me EXTREMLY uncomfortable - completly against my nature and way of being raised. I would become angry and fustrated - which seemed to only confused those others who showered special treatment on me. My Indian friend whom I was visiting was of no help in being how she thought I was crazy to not take advantage of it! Anyway, thank you so much for what you wrote - brought back lots of feelings and memories and yes - I understand what it means to be an American! I will be returning to India soon in a few months, a little wiser to certain rules this time around.
ReplyDeletePeggy, I feel you. India is an amazing country. While some of the cultural differences can be challenging, I love living here. I love my work here and have amazing friends and co-workers. Where have you visited in India? Where are you planning to travel when you next get here? If you need advice or want to share, by all means, contact me. And please visit my new blog at http://american-in-pune.blogspot.com!
ReplyDeleteI am very curious and also slightly apprehensive of the services that are provided by indian offshore recruiting companies. As with the bad customer service phenomenon, recruiters from india are in an even worse situation to recruiters in the US. I have worked in the SF silicon valley tech recruiting industry for over 8 years and am from the UK where I also worked in tech recruiting. In SF the recruiters are young and inexperienced also and many have difficulty relating to developers such as Ruby or IOS devs which are some of the toughest jobs to fill. The main complaint i get time and time again is candidates telling my how they are called by an indian recruitment firm and are not only difficult to understand but the approach is how some recruiters worked 10+ years ago. I got a call this morning, i could not understand what she was saying apart from do i want a job as an account manager when I'm an owner of my own consultancy firm that sets up recruiting departments for startups and do vendor selection. I am sure your fees are cheap but it is highly unlikely that you will be able to fill key IT positions when you cannot network and meet candidates face to face. If you guys want some help in recruiting and business development and how to manage, create trust, and work with US hiring managers and also how to talk to US candidates. Please email me mynetsol.inc@gmail.com. I'm looking at vendors and am intrigued to see how your model could actually work. I can provide your young team with key training to enable them to understand the US tech industry.
DeleteRuby Bhattacharya Advisor and Principal Consultant MYNET Solutions.
ps My roots are Indian though i am british so there's an added interest to help.
Ruby: You SHOULD be apprehensive. I had a conversation with a well known CEO in the telecom sector who said to me, "Why should I worry about customer service? There are a billion of us here. I'll just get another customer." There are lots of unethical, unresponsive RPOs out there. To be blunt, they are far cheaper than us because we invest in our employees. Our turnover is far lower than industry averages due to our training, support and empowerment of our employees. This translates into far better performance than other RPOs.
DeleteiPlace is different in many ways, but primarily because of our business model and our "iPlace Way" behaviors. We have effectively transitioned an American company's values, work ethic, and best practices to India. We find fresh graduates from international colleges and provide them with intense months-long training. We impress on them how important ethics, honesty and professionalism is when working across borders. We locate NRIs (Non Resident Indians returning from the US to India) with in-depth experience in American culture. We hire experienced BPO (Business Process Outsourcing) staff in India that are familiar with American service levels. We have an American Senior Vice President (me!) who is here full time, working with our Indian staff to increase customer delight (we want to EXCEED expectations, not just meet them). We focus on finding "placeable candidates", not just submittals. We love transforming lives - finding the right candidate so that every one is successful - from the candidate, to the client, to us.
I will contact you directly, but I want to encourage you to visit our web sites:
iPlace USA: http://www.iplaceusa.com
This site is for American companies looking for RPO services.
iPlace India: http://www.iplaceindia.com
This site helps us recruit great talent in India. Check out our unique Video Campaign (http://www.iplaceindia.com/episode-1-the-story-of-new-india/) that helps tell the story of iPlace and how we are different from other RPOs.
iPlace Connect: http://www.iplaceconnect.com
This site is a new service for US small business. If you are a small business owner and need to fill a position in your company quickly, you can pay $59, submit a job order, and get 12 qualified local resumes, typically by the next business day.
Cheers,
Jeanne