White male job seeker in India- how easy/quick would the job search be?

In My Humble Opinion
1

So my serious girlfriend (we recently began living together) is Indian and has been here in the states for a little over a decade. She is about to complete her doctorate in psychology- all the classes and credits have been taken- only the dissertation and its defense are left to complete, but they likely will take many months.

She escaped from India back then, and although she has always venerated her country and her culture, she explicitly expressed the desire to NEVER return there for more than a few weeks at a time for vacation when we first got together. All of her blood family is there, and this is both the reason to visit and (at the time) the reason not to spend more time there.

After a recent visit there, the situation has changed.

She now wants to move back to India together.

I have never been out of the US save for very brief trips to Mexico, and I have an active imagination, so from the first date I have indulged in little thought-fantasies of living in India. I have always said that I wanted to be an expatriate, although I haven’t even traveled, so, in that vein, I asked her what it would be like for me to live there. Most importantly, how would I, as a chubby white male, mid thirties, USA-ian American, do in the job force? Without the job, no income, like every other place, I wouldn’t be able to make it.

She said that the most important thing would be the fact that I am white, male, and USA-ian, and that due to those facts she believed I would be hired almost immediately. Very likely I would not even have to bribe anyone for the job, which would for most people be the norm to acquire the type of supervisor/manager role for which I would be in the market. She also said that I wouldn’t even necessarily need to bring a skill-set to the table, so desired are white male Americans in the job force.

***I am not asking WHY this is. I am not looking to start a heated debate and to lose this thread in one of the discussions over racism that are so common here at the SDMB. If you want to address the racial aspect of this post, I would welcome the information, but please stick to the topic at hand. As race is so sensitive, I would like to leave it out, but the issue of me being white in the South Indian job market is central to the question. ***

My skill set might be just about perfect, judging from popular mythology about the job market and organization about call center outsourcing to India, etc… I have been in various forms of customer service throughout my life, including telephone call center jobs. For several months I worked as a cellular phone information operator, and the last several years have been working as a 311 (local government information and services) customer service rep for a California city. I also spent several years in the last decade as an assistant manager for a global office services retail chain as the technology manager for several different locations around the country (one at a time, but different states), responsible for low level network mantainance and general computer repair and installation, etc, etc…

From everything I have seen in movies, read in newspapers, heard in angry mutterings, and experienced on my own tech support calls to Microsoft and other tech companies, call center management ought to provide a perfect niche for me over there.

The thing that concerns me most is quitting/losing my current job without a guarantee of employment. If I leave this job and somehow fail to find another, or India doesn’t work out, I will never find a replacement position with the pension (almost unheard of these days), the cadillac benefits, the job security, etc, and I wouldn’t be able to come back to this job.

The actual questions I am posing:

So, for those of you who have experience or direct knowledge, how easy would it be and how long would it take, for me to find a decently paying job in India, in or around Bangalore?

And, second question, what amount of rupees would a decent paying job pay?

From a couple brief job sites, the jobs I seem to be quality run a huge range, from 4 to 15 lacs. That ranges from the low end (seemingly ridiculous to me) of $14K USD to nearly what I make now with 15 lacs = about $54K USD. About how much would I need to continue to support a basic middle class existence for a family. Let us define basic middle class as meaning cable, cellphones, home, cars, kid’s activities, movie nights, eating out, etc. Not maids, cooks and chauffeurs, but not scrimping for pennies or being totally broke with 4 days left before payday, either.

Thanks to all who answer for taking the time to read the long post, for your responses, and for keeping it to the point!

I believe this belongs in IMHO, but if it would be better in GQ, I would understand- Just not sure if the responses could be purely factual…

2

Uh no, the biggest question isn’t “how do I get a job in India” it’s “Why am I considering moving to a country I’ve never visited with a girl who previously “escaped” her family ten years ago? Why am I considering moving to a place where I would have no discernible support system, don’t speak the language, don’t know the culture and customs, and would only know my girlfriend’s family, who won’t be cool with the white dude who just showed up?”

This whole post is maddening. I’m half brown half white, my dad emigrated in his late 20’s, and while my parents are madly in love with each other (and have been for nearly 30 years), there is no way in *hell *it’s normal for someone who has been here for ten years and hates their family to decided, randomly, one day, to go home. I don’t know anyonein an interracial couple who has a great relationships with their in-laws (especially if they’re actually in the home country), and it sounds like they’re the only people you know when you go there. Big, big red flags.

Your whole post really speaks to how naive you are about the social structure of India to say you wouldn’t want “maids or cooks” et al. IMO, being middle class in India means you have help. Private schools are pretty common as well for the middle-class. It’s also not the greatest idea in the world to be living with someone you’re just dating (and not married or engaged to), especially since it sounds like her family is conservative.

Your tone also takes on one of adventurous white boy, who has fantasies (your words, not mine) of being an ex-pat. You also allude to basically having a higher position than average in a place there, just by virture of being white and your experience with call center people whose English isn’t good. Do you expect to just wind up a supervisor by being different? Have you asked yourself why you want to be a stranger in a strange land in the first place? Have you considered first making a long visit out there to meet her family and the area you’d be living in and seeing how it all shakes out?

3

Do you even have any desire to move back? This seems like a huge deal to me. I am almost exactly like your girlfriend and would never want to move back. Are you two getting married? Will you be dealing with her family? Have you even met her family? Family support structure is VERY important there.

I wouldn’t do it, not without thinking about it a great deal. Maybe she can go ahead and get settled and you can follow later?

4

Even Sven might know something, I remember her writing about how finding jobs managing call centers in India was fairly easy.

I didn’t know the wages were that good though (14-54k). I always thought the wages would be $200-300/month which would probably provide a sustainable life (by Indian standards) but not in the US. I thought the ‘middle class’ in India was household incomes from 5-20k. Also the PPP to GDP ratio is about 3:1, so wouldn’t a 15k/yr income result in a 45k/yr lifestyle by western standards since many services would be far cheaper? I’m sure PPP is more complex than that but on issues like health care you don’t need 54k a year to have decent health care in India.

5

As an aside note, I have to gently disagree with Lindsaybluth’s observation that no one in a interracial couple has a good relationship with their inlaws.

My daughter-in-law is Japanese-Chinese, She was born in China, and moved to Japan when she was 12. Then she moved to the US when in her early twenties. She gets along very well with my wife and I, and we adore her.

As far as going back to Japan…not going to happen as far as I can see. They’ve just bought a house together in the Bay Area south of San Francisco. Even though my son is fluent in Japanese (especially for a very tall very blond white guy), he does find it a strain to maintain himself in Japan. And my DIL is very into American culture on top of her Japanese culture, so I expect they would never immigrate.

6

I assumed she was speaking of interracial couples in India, the truth of which I’d have a hard time assessing.

But anecdotally I agree with you in a more general sense - both my step-siblings are in interracial marriages without any real fuss. The Anglo-Chinese pairing did get some initial pushback from the Chinese side of the family ( the immigrant parents from Taiwan, anyway ), but I think the adorable grandkids have long since softened that blow.

Of course, they too are residents of the uber-liberal SF Bay Area :D.

7

Why? What’s changed?

8

Is her knowledge in this area reliable? If she’s been out of and estranged from India for much of her adult life, how much does she know about Indian business culture?

Apart from finding a job, won’t you need a work visa of some sort from the Indian government? How difficult are those to obtain?

9

When engineering jobs were first getting outsourced to India ,i investigated moving there. They said Americans were welcome if they brought jobs and businesses with them but they did not allow you to take a job an Indian could do. They ,unlike us, were protecting their jobs.

10

Don’t know about the job market in India for a white American, but I am married to a Canadian born lady whose parents are from India, and I get along great with them. The reason they came around to liking me is that I put to rest their fear of white guys not being serious about making the marriage last, of white guys not being particularly religious, and of white guys being kind of lazy. Turned out this white, French Canadian guy is fairly conservative, a practicing Catholic Christian, has an enginnering background, and takes family values pretty seriously (and I do love indian food). So even though I wasn’t Indian, they pretty much got the moral feature set they were hoping for. I don’t know how much of that applies in your situation, but the fact that you’re currently cohabitating suggests there may be problems with the in-laws.

Also, do not underestimate how different, even alien, a place like india can feel, especially if you haven’t travelled much. How well would you deal with 12 months of:

-toilet paper being pretty rare, you being expected to wash the poop from your but with your left hand and a pitcher of water?
-observing Mexican-levels of water precautions to prevent diarhea?
-rice & spicy food for breakfast?
-kids begging everytime you go out of your house?
-frequent power outages?
-a corrupt bureaucracy that makes the IRS seem the very model of speed and efficiency in everything?

So, do yourself a BIG favour. Go there for a 4-6 week trip. Visit the family. All the family; it’ll take you that long to meet everyone anyway. See how you both feel when you come back. If your reaction when you get off the plane on your return is on the order of “Oh thank God I’m back!”, you will have saved yourself a lot of unhappiness. There are many things one can tolerate for a short “adventure” that can drive you to tears of despair if you’re faced with living with them.

11

Look, I would jump at the chance to live in India for a while, and this sounds like a bad idea to me.

12

Oh man, this. A thousand times.

I spent four days in Delhi for work, for something that ended up being a complete waste of money (not mine, thank goodness) and time, but that’s another story. Anyway, talk about culture shock. I can’t tell you how happy I was when my meetings were finally over and I could leave. **

trupa** mentioned kids begging and, let me tell ya, he is not making that up. There are kids, everywhere you look, begging in the middle of the street! They walk up to you as you leave your hotel. They stick their hands in your car window as you drive down the street. It’s crazy.

I stayed at Le Meridien and there were 2 extended power outages, that I knew of, during my stay. The thing that ticked me off was there seemed to be no sense of urgency to resolve the problem, as though loss of power was a normal, daily occurrence. Maybe it was, I don’t know. I would have expected a large hotel to have some kind of back-up generator.

I won’t get into it, but I can attest to the corrupt bureaucracy. It is very real and, from what I experienced, seemingly pervasive.

What really got to me while I was there was the abject poverty that was everywhere I went. I’d never before seen so many people living without proper shelter or sanitary facilities. It was a bit much to take in.

Another thing I was quite shocked by, which is really getting way off the topic of this thread, is that Indians with darker complexions are treated differently, and seem generally less well-off than those with fairer complexions. I didn’t expect that at all. You can tell me it was just my hypersensitivity, but there’s no mistaking what I saw.

The entire experience left me sad and angry and, I have to say, I don’t look forward to ever going back there, as bad as that sounds.

13

What the others said. The question about your job prospects is about number 10 on the list of things you need to be concerned about at this point.

RE the “white guy get hired” thing, this does exist in China and there was an extensive post on it some time ago. The basic scenario is that you are a decorative piece for companies seeking foreign investment.

Re actaully getting hired on your merits is something else again. India is full of very bright, well educated, hardworking people in technical postions who make a fraction of what they would in the US. Unless you’re bringing mad skillz to the table, if the company doesn’t need a white boy fronting for them there’s no reason for them to be paying you three to four times what they pay their own workers, especially one who doesnt speak fluent Hindi.

14

I was in Delhi for 4 weeks for work and it was a huge culture shock. I will try not to repeat what has been said above, but I wanted to add my American sensibilities were shocked by the filth. Just as an example: I spent time at a lovely call center. It was completely immaculate - surrounded on all sides by a fence. There was a huge pile of stinking garbage (my mind remembers it being 10 feet tall) piled against the fence. On the other side of the stinking pile of trash (complete with flies and dogs eating out of the trash) was a rickety little outdoor cafe.

Driving (even as a passenger) was terrifying. There are no lanes, there don’t appear to be any rules, just honking and weaving. I have always wondered what it’s like for people who move from India to here do they prefer our driving rules or do they miss the mayhem?

On a cultural note - many of the people I worked with in India had a difficult time saying “no.” It was maddening and took me awhile to figure out “we are working on that” translated to “hell no, crazy lady.”

I was also surprised by how many men relieved themselves outside. On a public city street, you could see waist high splash marks from urine and often saw men peeing. Also, public pooping. If there was a field, there was usually one (or a group!) crouched down pooping.

I got to see a first hand look at corruption. My coworker’s bag did not arrive with us, so we had to make a trip back to the airport to get it. We were there over 2 hours. We had flown KLM and they gave my coworker a voucher to make up for the inconvenience of the lost luggage (I forget, some small sum - 20 bucks US?). My coworker ended up having to hand the money over to the guy working the desk to get his suitcase back.

I did suffer some intestinal distress. I had been careful with the water (and avoided raw vegetables) but I did drink the delicious tea at the call center, figuring it was hot so I would be fine. I think I got stomach problems from the tepid water left in the cups when they were rinsed. It wasn’t too bad, I had taken some powerful medicine with me and a few doses fixed me up. I carried a little roll of tp in my purse, so I never ran into the bucket of water issue.

And the poverty, as mentioned above. Skinny, hungry children, filthy and begging (lots of tears, mostly fake), skinny hungry cows with their hipbones jutting out eating trash, skinny hungry dogs, women with babies, cripples with deformities… Lots of tent cities.

There were positives - all of the people I worked with were exceptionally nice and there seemed to be a good sense of humor. India is colorful, beautiful temples, lots of flowers, brightly colored clothing. I adore Indian food and I had a good time visiting markets and shopping.

If you have never been to India, you must go and visit before you make this huge decision. I am very glad I visited India, but I would never live there!

15

I met many foreigners living in Bangalore that were living a middle class existence. Most of them were younger, and worked in education or for their government, but one or two were in private enterprise. It seemed to me that yea, being white and foreign is enough to be middle class.

However, I’d echo what other people have said in this thread. You have no idea what you are getting into. I don’t know what your fantasy of living in India entails, but I’m reasonably certain it has no bearing on reality. Even the “western” cities like Bangalore have hellacious traffic, horrible air quality, gut wrenching poverty, a tremendous amount of filth, and the usual India corruption, inefficiency, and general madness. Dealing with a family of Indian in-laws on top of that would drive me crazy.

No offense intended, but 30 somethings who’ve never really traveled and are worried about their “Cadillac benefits” aren’t the type of people who are going to enjoy living in India. Frankly, the idea of wanting to move from the States to India is crazy, and the ones that do it and enjoy doing it are a little bit insane, from my experience. They are the type of people that had to be rescued after cannonballing into the deep end when they were 3.

You definitely need to visit a couple of times before even thinking about moving.

16

You can always go back. I can’t think of any reason not to go. You have a chance to live in a different culture, experience a different part of the world, live in a place that is very different from the USA and non-Western too boot.

Go for it. You can always come back. So what if things don’t work out exactly? How are you gonna feel 20 years from now, are you gonna be wishing you went or are you gonna be telling stories about your horrible time in India?

Either way it doesn’t matter, as you only get one shot in life. Life should be about doing different things, experiencing new ideas and venues.

So what if it’s a disaster, you’ll live and you can always go back home. Don’t let fear or a desire for the status quo stop you from having an “adventure” in your life.

When I was young I had a fear of flying and it stopped me from doing a lot things and I regret not at least trying to get over it. Now I can fly and I wish I had done it decades earlier.

People like to say “It’s never too late,” but in reality not only is that not true, but often “it’s later than you think.”

At worst you’ll come back home, without a girlfriend and a greater understanding of world events for having lived in a third world country. Or you’ll get nuked by Pakistan :smiley:

17

I have never been to India, but I am an American who’s worked outside the US a little bit. Most of the advice & comments upthread would be generally applicable to the Third World place I did work. IMO, the OP is waay clueless about the reality of what he’s thinking about trying.
Another point not yet mentioned, and my small contribution here …

Every country’s immigration laws are different. And India does have a reputation for lax enforcement and corruption in general, but …

Just being married to an Indian native & citizen is almost certainly not enough to give you legal permission to work there.

Do you have any idea what the laws are on immigrants working? What sort of visa or work permit(s) do you need? How many years (not days) does it take for the bureacracy to issue them? At what cost in legit fees and illegit bribes? etc.
ETA: Working off Markxxx’s comments: I agree with the sentiment, but it sounds like our OP is not that kind of guy. With luck we’ll see some more when he returns to the thread.

18

I was speaking of interracial couples in general, but from conservative families. The blowback is always from the more conservative culture. In my parents’ case, both families were fairly conservative. The Bay Area is in its own little world, not that it’s a bad thing, but it shouldn’t be recognized as par for the course by any stretch. And yes, grandkids soften the blow substantially - both sets of grandparents refused to come to my parents’ wedding, but when I came along, suddenly Everything Was More Than Okay Because We Now Have The First Grandchild.

Right, but you and your spouse are pretty socially liberal, right? You priority list for what you want for your kids is something like “healthy and happy and able to support themselves financially, grandkids would be nice”. Which is great; that’s what I want for my (theoretical) kids. But it represents a very socially liberal worldview. I’m sure her parents were none too pleased initially (and their list went something like “marries a nice chinese boy, has nice chinese babies, has a well off husband…and health and happiness too”), even if they didn’t let on to you two. Plus, again, she’s firmly in the US (and it sounds like she also respects the strain you son feels in Japan). My father was firmly here since before he met my mom, so that’s big deal as well.

I also noticed trupa saying he calmed his in-laws’ fears by being devout in his spouse’s same faith. That’s nice, but most interracial couples I know (and of course, YMMV, but I do know dozens and dozens that are in their 50’s and 60’s, the parents of my friends, which is a big difference) aren’t religious and their families are, which makes the whole “I’m seeing someone of a different race/ethnicity/ AND religion” seem like a gigantic “fuck you guys” to the families. It really sounds like that’s what the OP’s girlfriend’s family is like.

And I’m thirding (or fourthing) people’s observance of how filthy the whole place is. New York on a hot summer day has nothing on Delhi. I remember being completely terrified of the whole place; that being inside the family compound’s walls were the only place I felt safe and secure.

Of course, there’s also the “won’t somebody think of the children!” angle. As an interracial kid, I really only accepted who I was a few years ago, at 20 or 21. It’s tough not looking like anyone else and being teased, and it’s tough having one foot in each culture. I see my youngest brother struggling with it right now. The truth is, you are not just how you define yourself, but how the world sees you, which always shatters the little worldview you’ve constructed yourself.

19

Just seconding all of this.

20

I would suggest going for a four week vacation.
Then, you could see how you like it.
Perhaps you will not return to the US and just stay.
Perhaps you will return to the US and think about it, and return to India a few months later.
Perhaps you will never go back.

I know Germany is no comparison to India, but I went to Berlin “just for a weekend”.
Stayed 14 years.
Loved it and have no regrets - to the contrary, best thing I ever did was live as an ex-pat for so many years! Gave me a whole new perspective on life.