We’ve devoted considerable space (such as on February 28, 2023, October 28, 2022, November 30, 2021, and elsewhere) over the past few years regarding the takeover of high tech (and government) by natives of India and first-generation Indian-Americans.
The SiliconIndia website, published jointly in India and the U.S., in 2015 reported that out of nearly 20,000 Silicon Valley startups, fully 25 percent were at that time run by Indians. The article published the top 100 of those companies.
Last November, LinkedIn published an article titled “Why So Many Top Tech Companies Have Indian CEOs.” The author, one Ankita Dhakar, answered that question this way:
- Indians have “high qualifications”
- They are “humble”
- They are “passionate about their work”
- They are “resilient”
Oh, by the way, Ms. Dhakar is an Indian herself, currently living in New Zealand.
One of the advantages enjoyed in high-tech advancement by Indians and those of Indian extraction not mentioned by Ms. Dhakar is this: Indians, known widely for nepotism, have obtained something of a stranglehold on high-tech HR departments and recruiting companies.
A report published in 2019 by Brightwork Research and Analysis examined the takeover in an article titled “Why Dealing with Indian Recruiters Is Futile for Domestic Workers.”
- According to the article, Indian recruiters often request resumes from non-Indians, not to consider the individuals for employment, but to “harvest” the resumes for items that they in turn use to “spice” Indian applications.
- Another practice, designed to add to the recruiter’s apparent legitimacy, is to invite some number of non-Indians to pursue a job that an Indian invariably will get.
- A scam sometimes employed by Indian recruiters is to inflate the salary of an applicant. If the hiring company agrees, the recruiter then strongarms the applicant into kicking back all or part of the inflated portion.
- Yet another technique sometimes used can actually neutralize an applicant in his job search. The recruiter initially asks the applicant to sign a “Right to Represent” form. Once that right is given away, the recruiter disappears and makes no effort to find a job for the applicant, who is left at sea with no legal path open to continue his job search.
The article continues in this vein and, in the words of a Center for Immigration Studies author, it becomes flawed “by its consistent and strongly stated bias against all things Indian.”
The CIS author does admit this, however:
The report echoes what I have been hearing for years from U.S. tech workers: that inevitably jobs in the IT sector are in the hands of Indian HR people, that it is hard for citizen workers to compete with Indians (and H-1B workers), that it is sometimes difficult to understand the HR people, and that sometimes they appear to be in India. In one case reported to me recently, the phone interview went nowhere as the HR person could not speak English.
It does appear, on careful reading, that the Brightwork article seems less than unbiased, but sometimes personal experience can create a bias hard to overcome. Let the job seeker beware.
For more, see CIS.org.