Hunting and keeping jobs in mainland India

Tarun Nongthombam *

We were all brought up with parents working in government offices. Manipur being a state with no industry and entrepreneurship culture, our exposure to the world of private sector jobs is very limited. As a child, what caught my eyes, in a Hindi movie, actor Jeetendra would attend interviews, company after company and after getting a job, he yelled "Ma_muj'she naukri_mil_gaya!!".

With increase in population and fewer government jobs, Manipuris have started venturing outside their state searching for work. But, we are faced with innumerable difficulties, be it language barrier, alien culture, different food habit, acclimatizing with the city life; one could carry on adding to the list.

Unable to find a job back home, like many others, I too have been wading through this uncharted territory for more than a decade. One thing which I heard positive when I started working was, private sector do encourage talent and hard work. But does this really happen? Let me take you to my journey, 'working in private sectors.'

Our time was before email, naukri.com and cell phone. We would send job application letters to about 50 firms by post and would get call from a couple of the firms. My first job interview was with a big MNC consulting firm, three of my non Manipuri friends also attended the interview and one of the three got selected.

Other two started to quibble that the third one got selected because the interviewer and their selected friend were from the same minority community. I was young and took little interest in what they were trying to tell.

Private sector firms can be broadly classified into two. One that is owned by an individual or few people who are related, generally they are small firms. In North Indian slang, they are called "Lala Type Company". The second one is the bigger lot, they have board of directors, and most of the MNCs fit into this category.

My carrier started in a "Lala type company" where the managing director was "be all and end all". As a young apprentice, I would follow my boss like an obedient calf that follows the mother cow. I was falling into the trap along with all my young office friends.

Young graduates need to understand the difference between a teacher and a boss. Teacher's duty is to teach, the more he teaches us in our college, the better he becomes. Boss duty is not teaching, his main duty is to get work from us. Every boss will always maintain few steps ahead from his subordinate. Most of them don't like juniors who questions and are unsecure about their job because of the cut throat competition in private sector.

It is also important to keep a check about oneself in comparison to one's colleague every sixth month. If you find yourself stuck for long, try changing your boss, your job profile and even your firm. One is not going to have a single boss in life. Boss will come and go and only the skill which we pick up in our job will remain with us.

If you are a young Manipuri trying to find a job in mainland India, be prepared for the hurdles you would face. As you don't belong to a big linguistic community or a big state, you should have some luck for your CV to be picked up for an interview call. During the interview you can be dead sure that the interviewer will be a non Manipuri and finally when you join the firm your boss will still be a non Manipuri!

Why would a person from mainland India select and groom a Manipuri who looks different, speaks accented English and little knowledge of Hindi, when he can still get a good candidate in the same salary from his community? So, we have only the hard work, honesty and intelligence to keep our job even if we are selected for the job.

Picking and Choosing is widespread in private sectors in India. One can find this even among big media houses. Firms dominated by a particular community are to be avoided. Even if you get a job there, you are very likely to get disheartened.

The first sign of a good firm is not those good looking cubicles or tiled floors but having staff that represents various parts of India. You can also find about the firm in employee's blog, as website of the firm is likely to give a rosy picture. Another thing which one has to check is whether the firm gives salary in time. Many of the small firms have salary backlog.

One can find this even by having a friendly chat to the office boy of the firm. You don't want to find yourself working for a firm that pays every 3 months after having travelled thousands of kilometers from Manipur. Young Graduates should never underestimate college seniors or Manipuri seniors. They could get you a job through reference or provide valuable guidance and suggestion.

One should take initial five years of work seriously. This is the time that will determine your future field of work. You should not shy away from taking up challenging assignments as one is allowed to make mistakes during these initial years. When you reach middle management, say 5 years of experience, you are expected to perform professionally and many factors like interpersonal relationship, personal egos will come in. It becomes difficult to learn new skill or change job profile at this stage.

My notion of nepotism in private sector was further strengthened when a very senior person in my company start selectively calling candidates for interview from his native state. One should note that most of the candidate's interview and selection process in private sector is not fair, government candidate selection process is much better. In private sector, it is left to the sole wisdom of the interviewer.

Once my college mate went for a job interview with a formal call letter and was made to wait for an hour at the reception. Suddenly, a lady arrived, she was interviewed before him and he was then asked by the receptionist to go. The firm didn't have the courtesy to talk to him for 5 minutes even if he was not going to be selected. That firm was notorious for selecting candidates only from a particular community!

Nearer home, you would be surprised by the number of staff; the contracting firm for the capitol project in Imphal has, from an eastern India State. Does that means that only people from that state can handle work and are intelligent? The answer is a big "NO"; it is only because of rampant Cherry Picking.

My initial years were sweet and sour. Having had the experience of working in small firms, I got an opportunity to work in a big MNC. I was called two times in a day to join for work and asked to reduce the notice period to my earlier employer. I innocently thought that they must be in desperate need of manpower but when I joined, I was not given even a desk for a month.

I was just made to sit idle. Their only intention was to make me join so that I don't look for another firm. This practice is very common in the software industry. What is this trying to tell? It tells that there are people who do nothing but recruit people. They have been doing this job for the last 20/30 years and will use all tricks in the book to impress you or fool you! Just only by the realization that they exists in the trade will make you little attentive when you exercise your choices.

It didn’t take long for me to realize the rot that had set in to this MNC. Entire senior staffs were from a south Indian state, it had only young graduates and middle level management was entirely absent. It was surprising, as it is the middle level that does the work and drives a company forward.

What was happening was interesting! Senior management was only encouraging middle level staffs from their native state to come up. So people from other parts of the country leave and when their native mid level staffs leave due to personal reason or high jump in salary in other firms, they are left with no one in middle level!!

When senior staff start developing the attitude that they will live and die in a firm, this type of rot sets in. They start forming cartels inside the office so that their positions are never challenged or questioned, they will surround themselves by cronies and yes man and this will make other's life miserable. What I felt at that time was senior staff using their right hand to pull up their cronies and left hand to push down others. I finally left that MNC with a bitter taste!

Let me also narrate my experience in working with overseas' colleague. We are all obsessed of white skin. This was evident in the amount of reports, schemes, budget and designs that overseas' staff would get approved from their Indian client without much questioning. But, one cannot take away the professionalism that most overseas' staff has.

Another good thing about overseas' boss is they don't come with my state, my people, and my caste. Selection of their support staff will be based on talent. This is the main reason of having increasing number of foreign coaches in Indian sports besides their expertise.

One accusation of others is "Manipuris are hot headed". Are we really hot headed? Can't we have any decent negotiations by sitting across table? To answer this, we have to first understand the mainland Indian society. Indian society is still feudal, highly divided into caste and class.

Mocking and making fun of other people who is different from their class and caste is very common. They will do, not behind you but do right on your face. I was greeted by staff calling me 'Tango Charlie' when I entered my last firm. I can list countless number of such incidents.

In Manipur we have no caste and class, all are equal. One will think twice before calling names to someone. So, when we are exposed to the insult for which we are not prepared, we are bound to get agitated. This is also compounded by us being racially different from mainland Indians. One should learn to handle these taunts without getting agitated. Even Anna Hazare acknowledge this by making "ability to bear insult" as his fifth guiding principle to become an Anna (perfect person).

Manipuris need to improve their spoken English; mainland people have Hindi to fall back when they are stuck, we have none. Working outside the state will test one's adaptability, we should never forget "When in Rome do as the Romans".

It will be wrong to paint everything with a single brush. One would find many successful Manipuris working outside the state in good organized private sector. The intention of this article is to make young Manipuri aware of the possible pitfalls when they venture outside the state looking for jobs or when they start working in those uncharted territory.

If you are a Manipuri, be ready to hunt like a tiger; we don't have the luxury of hunting in group like lions.