Job security matters more than better pay: Indian pros

The once jumpy, job-hopping Indian professional, restless to keep pace with a booming economy and happy to switch employers for every raise, has become more sensible, as he now prefers job security over better pay, when looking for a job, reports LiveMint.

When sales professional S. Raghavan interviewed for a job with an information technology (IT) firm in November, he asked most of the questions. Raghavan wanted to know about the relevance of a new business unit the firm was creating, its importance in the larger scheme of things, strategy and road map.


"I wanted to know how serious they were about the business," says Raghavan, 35, who moved out of a sales role at his previous job when his team lost its prominence in the aftermath of the global economic crisis.

Interviews have now become a two-way process, according to D.K. Srivastava, Corporate Vice-President and Global Head, HR at software services provider HCL Technologies. Srivastava says that candidates now ask him and his team about job stability, career growth, training, projects in which they would be deployed and post-project plans, among other things.

The downturn created an element of job insecurity that young professionals hadn't experienced, and money alone may not be a sufficiently attractive blandishment. "Earlier, money was the only driver," says Cherian Kuruvila, Director of operations at Manpower Services India, the Indian arm of U.S. based Manpower.

The fallout of all that wariness is a talent crunch, especially for new firms. "Newer telecom players are finding it too difficult to get talent," says Manish Kharbanda, Chief HR officer at Sistema Shyam TeleServices, the Indian mobile services arm of Russian conglomerate Sistema Group. He says that it takes a lot of convincing to get people on board. "Prospective employees ask about business plans, which was unheard of." Kharbanda says that he was lucky to have hired 3,500 people last year when the firm entered India; he plans to hire an additional 1,000 in 2010.

Many HR executives welcome the new-found caution, but Rajiv Srinivasa, Marketing and Sales Director at recruitment firm Talking Heads, says that he is not sure if the sobered progression of career growth and salaries will last. "There are chances things could well reverse, say, in the latter half of 2010, once demand for people really picks up."

Source: http://www.siliconindia.com

Date: 16th Jan., 2010

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