Summer in Gurgaon

I had been to Gurgaon recently on an official trip. I was there to conduct interviews. It was not exactly the peak of summer as it had rained a week back. But the temperatures were sent soaring due to the presence of several head honchos of the bank I work for. All of them had descended to screen candidates for the most ambitious off shoring project that our bank has undertaken in the recent past.

In a span of 3 days I met about 30 candidates. It was a great experience. I had heard about young and hungry India and there it was on full display. Most of them were graduates with postgraduate management degrees. Some of the institutes were obscure but the confidence displayed by the candidates was amazing. They could sell a refrigerator to an Eskimo!!!.

90% of them were from small towns of India, the names of which I have read about only in textbooks. Panipat, Dwarka, Allahabad etc. I could see the arrival of the small town to share the prosperity that India has been churning out which until now was restricted to big cities of India.

During interviews I would recall those days when I was their age, fresh from college, dreams to make it big but not enough opportunities. In 10 years things have changed. The guys were job-hopping; the maximum time any one would have spent is 2 years. The standard answer given by most for a change was “more challenge” though none could convincingly define the challenge they were after.

Driven by habit I could not stop lecturing this young India on the importance of building a career. They all agreed, but I have no clue how many of them would take that seriously. Monetary jump is more important to them and the least a candidate is expecting is around 25% increase. This made me wonder where I was when god was distributing this kind of destiny.

I could not help but notice the skewed male-female ratio. It is prevalent in North India. The girls we met could impress any one. To me they represented a glimmer of hope that daughters can survive in this rough terrain.

The interview session was successful. We could manage to issue offer letters to 60% of the candidates interviewed. For some of them it would be a sea change in monetary and career terms. Their dreams are about to take flight, the take off was from small towns and cities of India, the place of landing only time will tell.