Re: Why are we excluded???

[Bob Johnson <bob -dot- johnson -at- CELERITYSOLUTIONS -dot- COM>]

Kalpana asks why South Asian Indians might be excluded from US tech
writing jobs.  You don't make it clear, though, whether you are talking
about doing remote work from India, or emigrating to this country.  I
can see significant problems with either.

First, though, I can see a generic problem that might influence either.
While English is a significant language in India (after all, it was a
British colony for between 150 and 300 years, depending on how you want
to calculate), tyhere are significant differences in the way English is
written and spoken in India and how it is written and spoken in the US.
For that matter, dialectical differences are still significant within
the US.  An American company might question how "user friendly"
documentation written in India would be.

If you are talking about doing US documentation from Inda (as you
already do; I assume you would be talking about a contract situation), I
can see significant problems of communication and supervision.  My
company has a small programming unit in Russia.  They are ending their
day in St. Petersburg when we are beginning ours in Boston.  The time
difference with India would be even more significant, regardless of
while American coast we are talking about.  And while there is always
e-mail for transmitting the product, I can still see some issue
regarding compatability between your equipment and a potential US
employer.  I spent some time doing word processing for a biotech company
that worked with European partners.  A major issue we faced was amking
sure file were always set to the proper paper, since Europe uses A4
paper and we use US letterhead; the difference is significant.

As for emigrating, the attitude towards emigrating has changed
significantly in the past 20 years or so.  Congress has mandated limits
on immigration, and these have been lowered in recent years.  And there
is a lot of dissention about how much foreign talent is really needed in
the American high tech job pool.

Which brings up my own spin on this, bringing back the employment thread
from several weeks ago.  I'm not sure how much of a shortage of talent
there really is, and how much is companies looking for very specific
things, and not being willing to pay for them, and HR not being able to
see past the job specs.  In my case, I've made a career transition from
higher education.  I had a published book under my belt, a completed
(but not approved) doctoral dissertation, and a familiarity with a wide
range of technology.  No one in HR (and I answered newspaper and
electronic ads, went to career fairs, and did a bit of networking) could
see past my not having two years of actual tech writing experience, or a
certificate.  In fact, the company I'm working for doesn't even have
anyone doing HR.

I don't think the racism implicit in Kalpana's message is really there.
I think there are some real practical problems companies have to face.

Bob Johnson
Documentation and QA Specialist
Celerity Solutions
Dedham, MA