Aussie looking to move to India... job advice anyone?

shaggers_jr

Hi there, my partner and I are thinking of moving to India for no better reason than we love the place and are at the stage in our lives where we're looking for a bit of adventure and are bored by the Europe/US three years in [insert financial capital here] option.

I'm 31 and my partner is 34. I'm Australian and he's English and we live in Sydney. The biggest obstacle we would face moving to India (I think) is him finding a job. He's a senior art director in advertising with lots of experience and awards etc. (he specialises in direct mail but can do any graphics-related stuff) but I don't know what the employment situation is like in India. Presumably he could be sponsored by a big company and do, hopefully, pretty much what he's doing here. Does anyone know what the situation for advertising is like? We realise he might have to take a pay cut (currently on about A$90K - approx US$80K), but he's not worried by that - we're not in it for the money but for the experience.

I'm a journalist who writes travel, so I would have no problem freelancing back in Australia and the UK. I'd like to live in Mumbai because it's my favourite Indian city, but we haven't ruled out other cities.

Any suggestions or tips would be most welcome. If we finally make it, we'll have you over for dinner to say thanks.

singsub

welcome to indiamike. about your moniker.........

vandy

Good day,

Yes he will need employment if you want to stay for a lengthy time frame.

I suggest you go there for another holiday and have a sniff around, put your name down and see how
you go.

rgds

vandy

Hymz

Hello Shaggers,

Welcome !

Didnt quite get what you meant by Direct mail and can work in Graphics Design. I am assuming that your partner has great Art Visualization, Execution, Direction and people management skills.

• Advertising and Media in India, as of today looks very good. But overall Indian economy is slowing down, and travel and advertising bear the face brunt of it as corporations / businesses rationalise their travel and media spend budgets. I see both of you represent both the industries
• Companies in India will ask him for atleast few years commitment as they will be very wary of him leaving back.
• Should not be difficult to land up a job, but it may take some time before the right one comes up. Ideal opportunity will come through Advertising agency, Offshore Production /development arms of an US/UK offshore Production houses, Indian Media Houses or Dot Coms. Try for the offshore arm of an US/ UK advertising MNC. They will pay you better and may even take care of the sponsorship.
• Also you can look at the possiblity of your partners existing company allowing him to work remotely from India (with some paycut as a sweetener to the employer). Have seen most of expats doing this.
• Float your resume with leading Corporate recruitment consultants and specfically tell them what you are looking in for.
• Creative salaries are not very high in India. Indian Salary although would look less but would have a high purchasing power parity in India.
• Salary is function of your partners profile to the need and fitment to the employers requirement. Assuming that he has around 10 years of experience working in International art direction. So salaries could be in the region of 30k USD to 80K USD. If still you are not getting the salary that you look for, then ask for add ons such as housing, higher bonus and incentives.
• Looking at your partner's profile job opportunieis will be best in Bombay and New Delhi. Bombay, if i have to choose one.

Should you guys be here, Have a nice time. Its a great place.

Cheers
Hymz

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kristinm

Well my partner is a a photographer so if you DO find work - can you take us with you!!!!! I know where you're coming from - we'd love to live there for a bit too, I've been dreaming of living in Udaipur for 6 months and writing a book - or thesis - if only I could think what to write about!?

shaggers_jr

Thanks... "Direct mail" is a fancy term for junk mail. He runs campaigns that involve everything except TV and print. eg. Flyers, in-store displays etc. Advertising people know what it's about.

• I wouldn't work in India. I'd freelance back home, doing Indian stories and other areas of Asia. But you're right - advertising is often one of the first cut backs.
  
  
  Quote:

  Companies in India will ask him for atleast few years commitment as they will be very wary of him leaving back.

  Yep, we'd be there for three years, I think... then see what happens.
  
  
  Quote:

  Should not be difficult to land up a job, but it may take some time before the right one comes up. Ideal opportunity will come through Advertising agency, Offshore Production /development arms of an US/UK offshore Production houses, Indian Media Houses or Dot Coms. Try for the offshore arm of an US/ UK advertising MNC. They will pay you better and may even take care of the sponsorship.

  This is the concept at the moment - find an interested MNC and get them to do the hard work of visas etc. In Australia this is pretty common. I assume it's the same in India (then again, having travelled widely in India I've learned to assume nothing) I guess I'm really trying to find out which advertising MNCs are in India. Anyone know?
  
  
  Quote:

  Also you can look at the possiblity of your partners existing company allowing him to work remotely from India (with some paycut as a sweetener to the employer). Have seen most of expats doing this.

  May not be feasible, but worth looking into. Thanks.
  
  
  Quote:

  Float your resume with leading Corporate recruitment consultants and specfically tell them what you are looking in for. Creative salaries are not very high in India. Indian Salary although would look less but would have a high purchasing power parity in India. Salary is function of your partners profile to the need and fitment to the employers requirement. Assuming that he has around 10 years of experience working in International art direction. So salaries could be in the region of 30k USD to 80K USD. If still you are not getting the salary that you look for, then ask for add ons such as housing, higher bonus and incentives.

  Yeah, as I said, we're not looking at India for the money (if that was the case we'd go to the US or back to the UK). There's no doubt he's highly qualified, but whether it's a qualification needed in India is a different question. Also, I'm concerned that the work culture there might be very different, particularly in respects to corporate hierarchy.
  
  
  Quote:

  Looking at your partner's profile job opportunieis will be best in Bombay and New Delhi. Bombay, if i have to choose one.

Thanks mate, as I said - it's Bombay for me. I'm not a huge fan of Delhi and I doubt there would be the advertising jobs in other centres. Does anyone know of any Advertising MNCs based in Mumbai?

birds

Many of the advertising MNCs have offices in India now. For example Lintas is in Mumbai, it is run by Lynn d'Souza (she is from Goa) and then there is Ogilvy & Mather Ltd. A listing of the top 50:http://www.indiantelevision.com/indu...adagencies.htm

Hymz

Hello Shaggers,

• Direct Mail: Looks a specialized job to me. The specialized the job, the fewer is the requirement, but then hey.. better is the compensation
• Advertising MNCs: Most of the large ad houses are already here. Dont know which specifically you want to know. Some operate on a low scale and some on grand. You can look through this 2005-06 AAAI (Advertisment ***** Association of India) link. You will find many MNCs amongst this list (their are two pages in this link) http://www.aaaindia.org/membershiplist.htm
• Former employer: It will be just great if you can work for a former employer especially if its a creative work. It requires individual skills which can be executed at an off site location too. I am pretty sure that their are captive Advertising processing outsourcing centre operating within India for specialized advertising artwork and designs
• Work culture: Indeed here is different. The office does not get over at 5. Thats the First rule! Hierarchies, bureaucracies, documentation, communication, sentiments, emotions, standards and processes all might require some mental adjustment.

Hope this helps.

Cheers
Hymz

mazha

Almost all of them. In fact, Indian ad houses have won some international awards. Not sure about your friend being able to contribute to concepts, as the current trend is to "Indianise" the messages. A good example is the ad for Idea cellular.

Not an easy field to break into, but Mumbai is the right place if you are in this industry. The best strategy would be to go there for a couple of weeks and do walk-in interviews with the agencies.

Check out these:

http://www.afaqs.com/perl/advertising/index.html

http://www.youtube.com/results?searc...rch_type=&aq=f

crvlvr

Unfortunately your skill sets are not the kind India is currently looking to fill with foreigners. So, you will have to compete with the local talent, which will not be easy. I don't know what you mean by "partner" . But, if you mean same sex relationship, I hope you know that homosexuality is illegal in India.

carlaeb

Technically, it is illegal. It's a law left-over from Victorian days and there have been exactly ZERO convictions in the past two decades. The chances of Indian authorities suddenly enforcing the law, especially on foreigners, is so rare that you'd better worry about getting run over (which is a real concern if you plan to cross the street in Mumbai!).

Still, CRVLVR is correct in that India is not the easiest place to be gay, but if you are gay and travel around a bit, then you already know that. Just be careful about what you do where and where you live, use common sense. Mumbai has an active gay scene, and there was the first gay rights march through Delhi just a few weeks back. It passed without incident, and the media coverage was much more accepting and tolerant than you'd have expected.

I even read an article about the rising number of openly gay men in certain regions where the ratio of men to women is unbalanced. Besides, with all the men walking down the road with their arms around one another or holding hands, I don't think anyone would notice a gay man and his partner out on a date so long as they use basic common sense and refrain from public displays of affection. This is pretty much the rule for straight couples too though.

skk

You know, I hadn't thought of that, all these decades - when my brother or cousin casually put his arm round me on visits, I automatically flinched for a long while even after seeing that it as "quite ok, no sexual meaning intended"! And of course if the visual cues ARE different enough, then I'd guess that those who pick the differences are likely to be highly sympathetic if not empathic and will simply mind their own business - I've never heard of sting operations carried out in India - the police have better things to do, I suppose.

-skk

Nick-H

You never know what "morality" the police are going to start enforcing next.

Is there any law against young couples chatting in the park? I doubt it. Do they get hassled by police? yes!

Ridiculous, but true.

machadinha

I thought it a bit of a strange inference when OP has hinted no such thing, however I was thinking if this is the case, it would obviously and likely prove hard (as in impossible) to work or even stay for a prolonged period on the basis of being someone's partner.

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shaggers_jr

Yes, crvlvr, I do mean boyfriend. Well-spotted, but seeing's your location is "Hollywood" I doubt that you meant anything snide by pointing out the fact that homosexuality is illegal in India - it would be difficult to be homophobic on the Sunset Strip.

Actually, from my experiences in India people in big cities are as indifferent to my sexuality as they are in most other parts of the world. (Although the gay clubs I went to in Bombay were rather hush-hush and could do with a scrub) I could go on about the topic of secretive homosexuality in India and many other parts of Asia, but I'm not here to write a thesis. The visa issue is one I would need to consider, however. Presumably there are visas allowing me to live in India and not work.

As for the skill set not being required - well, we'll see. I tend to think that there are always skills required from highly qualified professionals who are leaders in their field. My boyfriend would have no trouble competing with the locals to get a job in New York or London, so I don't see why Bombay would be any different.