Testing Time

Job Market is terribly down but most often, on an average, I receive around 5 mails seeking Technical writers in various Software organizations. Some of the organizations have sent mails umpteen times for the same position. I wonder these organizations are really hiring writers in this down time. But looking at the advertisements and consultant’s mail it looks that there is demand for Technical Writers in the market. At the same time I look at two of my friends who are searching for a position as a technical writer for past two months but so far they have no offers in hand. Weighing both the sides I am bit confused and not able to conclude as what is happening in the market and is there really a demand for the technical writers.

However, this reminds me of the situation when there is no hope organization conducts interview to keep job seekers hope alive. To a certain extent it seems alright but if there is absolutely no hiring then this fake exercise becomes counter productive. But who knows what Ramlinga Raju did in Satyam, some other CEO might be doing in other organizations. Interview the Job seekers and keep them in the fake payroll and siphon the money on the part of their salaries. Otherwise, two of my friends running pillar to post for past two months and attending more than ten interviews would have had at least one offer in hand. They both have more than 3 years of experience in Technical Writing. If I recall, till October 2008, if you get 3 calls you could be having 2 offers in hand. Message seems to be loud and clear, but to believe in this, is to leave the hope of future. It is not only my friends alone, it could be even me …….. I am scared, disappointed, and worried.

But looking at the questions what one of my friends in one of the interview was asked, it looks as if it is pass time for the recruitment department of the organization. To keep the recruiters busy, job seekers are grilled without any outcome. The real requirement is difficult to analyze. At this point of time when the interviewer’s future is itself in dark, they shoot question such as ‘What is the future of Technical Writing in India?’ Another one asked, ‘Are American writers better or Indian?”

My friend, who faced the interview, did not know how to answer these questions. Nevertheless, till now a facade is created in India especially in software industry that technical writing has very good career and suddenly technical writers are to face this reality. When you do not have job in hand, can you say that this industry promises lots of opportunity for you. Secondly, American and Indians alike are on the firing line and every one may be in the hit list to be fired. Finding out, who is better, that too from a perspective job seeker is utter foolishness. One of the friend rightly once said, ‘Recruiters are now looking for Pankaj Mishra, Arvind Adiga and Arundhati Roy to be technical writers. May be they might ask even Salman Rushdie to do this job.’

I can understand, it was seer frustration but the way he has been treated makes him say so. The postmortem of these interviews presses you hard to do the soul searching, whether you have a place here or not. Well, to say a little about the recruiters, they are nuts and they can pose any sort of questions to you without they themselves even knowing the answer. At a time they feel they are great and they can screw any person during the interview. But tide will turn, if you don not realize the value of good assets now, in the good time they will not recognize you. I mean your organization. These are passing phases and good turn in economy is expected. The crux is how well you can help job seeker contain their aspiration and motivate them to keep their hope alive. Of course technical writing will remain existent even though some of the technical writers find it tough or struggle to get a job. India is emerging as a promising destination for software industry and it will continue to evolve even in documentation. These are just testing time.

Recession and the pink slips

My last post was a personal view on the technical communication in India and how would it take a turn in the recent economic recession. I could not really make an inch forward from then to see a clear picture of my profession in which I am employed. The impact of economic downturn became more evident as the time passed by. And it literally made me think about myself, my job, and my career. A kind of uncertainty prevailed which made me docile and prevented me from being creative, analytic and bold enough to face the challenge and see a way through this.

The pink slip saga is a common practice in any economic crises. I have faced a career recession and so I can understand how it feels when you are threatened. When you are threatened you are challenged but you do not know how to win over the challenge. Many a times we feel certainly we lack certain skills because of that we are laid off and we need to sharpen our weak areas to improve upon. But most certainly it is not always true. There might be most deserving people with most appropriate skills losing job somewhere. The fact is their skills and talents are not in demand. The entire human resource requirement to pull up the cart is driven by the business demand. And when the speculation takes over the real scenario in business, uncertainty always looms large. We never know what is going to happen.

The worst part is that there is no mechanism by which we can predict and analyze much before it hits us. There is no way a common person can have some kind of access in the public data or right of information based on which they can prevent certain unwanted situation. However, this can not apply valid to the economic downturn where the entire business philosophy is runs on the wrong machine. When you start showing the profit and losses much beyond reality, sooner or later you land up in a mess.

It’s a big shame when a business leader of reputed excellence turns to be a cheater, a burglar, who steals the public money to fill his coffin. He puts our career, our future on stake for his own benefit. Its shame on the public machinery also which can not detect the fraud. Who knows how many of them might be involved in the episode. At the end numbers of jobless people are on the rolls. So far the number has crossed 4 lack mark and its continuing everyday. Policy is to cut jobs to survive. Blows are on; you never know who is receiving where. Major Job cuts make news that too of public limited companies, the LLC’s laid off never makes any news and that forms even bigger chunk in totality. These LLCs are contractors and subcontractors for Public limited companies. So the indirect impact can be even more severe.

The software and hardware computer industry boomed because of the prospect of serving all walks of business and the negative impact of any business would indirectly hit this industry too. It is related.

Few of my Technical writer friends have lost their job. We all are scared because we do not know our own status in terms of value and the demand at the work place. We are also just speculating about the things and living one day at a time. All said than done, tough people have tough work at hand to save the job if they have. If not, then to get another one. Each passing days is real testing time. We wish to be the survivors but would we. I don’t know. Let the time answer this question.