A returnee's tale

I came home with a view to help the country and myself with the knowledge I gained over the years in Canada. The telecom industry was booming with no boundary and impediment. At least that's how it seemed from Canada.

Working with networking as a complimentary employee for GlaxoSmithKline, one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world, definitely kindled the fire inside me to go back to my homeland and apply what I had learned.

I firmly believed that a Canadian degree with work experience would definitely put me into the gear to resume my career in Bangladesh without too many problems. Not even in my wildest dreams could I anticipate how many surprises were waiting for me.

I had been trying to contact several potential employers in Bangladesh while I was in Canada. Surprisingly enough, they never even replied to my application or e-mail. When you send nearly 10 e-mails to a single HR manager, you can expect at least a courtesy response from him, can't you?

Still I was hopeful. I came back and started applying for jobs like crazy; anywhere and everywhere. Seven days passed by and I didn't get any call. A week is definitely not enough to get a call from a potential employer given that a first-class 2nd from the national university has to wait nearly 18 months to get a decent job.

I decided to call some of the companies to see what they thought of my resume and my experience in IT. I won't be using any names here. I wish I could, though. An HR manager of the biggest mobile phone service provider addressed the issue of my undergraduate GPA. It took him no more than one minute to look at my on-line resume and articulate the sentence: "Your GPA is … not good."

Certainly he was efficient enough to look at GPA before paying any attention to work experience, degree, and soft skills. I acknowledged his statement with due respect and pleaded with him to look two inches below and address another fact, that I had more than one year of work experience in Canada following my graduation.

He then mentioned that the company he works for takes students from the best engineering school in Bangladesh and from some other government engineering colleges and universities. I asked him if he cared for North American degree and work experience. He mumbled for nearly 15 seconds and said both yes and no. Having understood the fact that I am not good enough to work in this company, I thanked him for giving his valuable time and hung up.

On a beautiful November morning, I got dressed for success and went out with copies of my resume and cover letter. The first company I went to informed me that they only consider on-line submission, for any hard copy of resume is garbage. Fair enough.

I moved on to the next one. The next potential employer was kind enough to accept my submission. I asked the front desk officer if I could talk to the HR manager. He told me to just leave the resume and pray. No one is allowed to see the HR manager.

I went to see the first HR manager I had spoken with. I was not lucky enough to meet him. However, he kindly asked me to leave my resume at the front desk and informed me that on-line submission would be good enough. I was pretty sure that my resume would be in the garbage within five minutes of my leaving the office.

I dropped off my resume to many potential employers, hoping to get a call. One month went by. No one called. Whenever the telephone rings, I ran to grab it. But alas! It is my friend who called, not anyone offering an opportunity.

Finally, the call came in! The interview was on the next business day. I went to the interview and it lasted for three minutes, resulting in a waste of Tk 120 for my transportation. Having understood my shortcomings, I started studying with new technology, hoping to ace the interview by any means.

I am tempted to say that I applied to a company through a channel. But I guess, there is still a maintained hierarchy when you apply for jobs even through a reference. Such as, one resume is referred by the managing director and another resume is referred by the technical manager. By default, the resume referred by the managing director will definitely get preference, no matter what.

Anyhow, my channel in that telecom equipment vendor company called me the other night. I must admit that I had been bugging him via phone and e-mail for quite a long time. As a result, he couldn't resist but to give me a call. He is a very smart guy, and he smartly explained the following scenario.

The job seekers tend to blame the HR people. But I guess the HR guy is just a scape-goat. My reference mentioned that sometimes the HR couldn't do anything except ignore potential candidates. The HR in Bangladesh is there just to call the guy to come for an interview. The technical manager or the managing director does the main selection. If the techno guy says yes but the head says no, it is a no. In terms of references, obviously the more powerful the reference is, the less chance it has to be rejected.

I guess that is a universal truth. What baffles me is that we, the returning Bangladeshis with foreign degree and work experience have to work so hard for a job where our overall percentage is not even 0.1% of the total job seekers.

If we have to struggle for survival in our own country, how come we are expected to come home and work? It infuriates me when I see that being a foreign national was not an impediment to start my career in Canada with close to zero work experience, whereas I am unemployed people in my own country.

Anyway, the smart guy, my reference, was so smart that he cleverly made it clear that I should not waste time on him. I am a smart guy as well. It clicked! I smartly understood what he meant, and moved on.

I didn't want to publish this, nor did I intend to when I first started writing. I write to bring an end to my pain through my writing, also to prevent others from the same mistake. No wonder brain drain has been an issue in this country.

The author is a freelance contributor to The Daily Star.