In a Twist, Americans Appear in Ranks of Indian Firms

In a Twist, Americans Appear in Ranks of Indian Firms By SOMINI SENGUPTA NYT, Published: October 17, 2006

MYSORE, India — Talk about a reversal of fortune.

Nayan Sthankiya for The New York Times A training class at the Infosys campus in Mysore, India. The outsourcing giant counts 126 Americans among its trainees for the first time.

Where once the brains of India left for more lucrative pastures in the United States, today a handful of fresh American college graduates are sampling the fruits of the Indian economic boom.

The recruits from America and elsewhere are not expected to fill the looming labor pinch. But they do illustrate the efforts by Indian companies to extend their global reach and recognition.

David Craig, 23, is one of the new American imports. He had never left home in Tucson when the Indian outsourcing giant Infosys Technologies came calling at a job fair earlier this year at the University of Arizona, where he was majoring in engineering management. Encouragement came from his career adviser, who, as it turned out, had just bought Infosys stock. Stinging reproach came from his uncle: Why, he wanted to know, would Mr. Craig want to work for an Indian company that might take jobs away from other Americans?

In the end, tucking away his apprehensions, Mr. Craig took the plunge. International experience, he decided, would look good on his résumé. And Infosys would put him through a six-month training course on its campus here in southern India before dispatching him to its development center in Phoenix. Mr. Craig would be one of its American faces.

Infosys is not alone in its quest to draw talent from abroad. A handful of other Indian companies are also making an effort to add foreign faces and accents to their rolls, though it is hardly a flood.

Only a small handful of Americans and others have been wooed by Indian companies so far.

Infosys, for instance, has just 126 in its first batch of American trainees this year.

Roughly one in 10 of the 72,000 employees of Tata Consultancy Services, India’s largest software firm, are foreigners. Many trained here before being sent back to one of the 35 countries where it has operations.

Air Deccan, the country’s second largest carrier, is growing so fast that it simply cannot find sufficient numbers of trained Indian professionals; nearly a quarter of its pilots come from abroad.

For the job seekers, India represents a new kind of ticket. Katrina Anderson, 22, a math major from Manhattan, Kan., accepted the Infosys offer because, she said, it provided the most extensive training of any company that offered her a job. An added bonus was the chance to travel halfway around the world. “Some people were scared by the India relocation,” she recalled. “But that pretty much sold it for me.”

When she finishes the training in January, Ms. Anderson, a graduate of the University of Notre Dame, will return to the United States, to work in the Infosys office in Phoenix.

For the Americans at Infosys, culture shock combines with surprising discoveries. Mr. Craig and Ms. Anderson admitted to having their stereotypes of India quickly upturned. Mr. Craig expected elephants and crowded sidewalks; Ms. Anderson expected stifling heat and women who covered their heads.

The Infosys training center, with its 300 acres of manicured shrubbery, is a far cry from the poverty of much of this country. There is a bowling alley on campus, a state-of-the-art gym, a swimming pool, tennis courts and an auditorium modeled on the Epcot Center.

Mr. Craig, who still calls home nearly every day, says he has made an effort to teach himself a few things about his new, temporary home. He has learned how to conduct himself properly at a Hindu temple. He makes an extra effort to be more courteous. He has learned to ignore the things that rattle him in India — the habit of cutting in line, for instance, or the ease with which a stranger here can ask what he would consider a deeply personal question.

“I definitely feel like a minority here,” he said, sounding surprised at the very possibility.

Ms. Anderson has tried to ignore what she sees as a penchant for staring, especially by men. She has donned Indian clothes in hopes of deflecting attention, only to realize that it has the opposite effect. She has stopped brooding quietly when someone cuts in line. “I say, ‘Excuse me, there’s a line here.’ ”