My guess would be that a lot of non-Indians at these companies are rejected on the basis of "vibes"; which is slightly different from racism as I explain below, although it probably ends up having the same net effect as overt racism.
As an Indian, I've observed that collectivism and subservience towards authority figures are taught as virtues; this obviously makes it quite easy for employers to extract unreasonable demands such as long working hours, transgressions of ethical limits, things that are "bad", but that generates benefits for the employer.
On the other hand, European and American societies generally focus on individualism and autonomy, which obviously causes a conflict when an Indian hiring manager sees anything other than complete deference to them as a threat, and proceeds to reject such candidates.
There's probably a really interesting, bit potentially controversial topic to be discussed here.
As a Non-Indian, I'm quite aware/familiar with this kind of culture you speak of within Indian culture in the workplace and, to be blunt, if I were applying for a role as say a high level product manager (my current gig) and there was a native-born/raised Indian person as the hiring manager, I would at the very least be very cautious about this risk.
But in this situation, given the power dynamic is in favour of the other party, does this make me "biased"?... Or just "careful"?
The article says explicitly that senior software developers were fired to replace them with less qualified Indians. This is not about vibes, this is a mix of racism and greed. If roles were reversed, you would be crying about racism.
I guess it could be construed as a kind of a racism - they were fired or forced to resign because cheaper, younger and more subservient workers were available.
This obviously not true as there are plenty of other Asian countries where " collectivism and subservience towards authority figures are taught as virtues", but most Indian managers mostly hires Indians nevertheless.
It is a very observable and simple fact, why spin it?
>My guess would be that a lot of non-Indians at these companies are rejected on the basis of "vibes"
Are you sure it's not just money ? You can pay Indians on H1B less and keep them tied to you. At a place like Cognizant, you aren't trying to get the best talent. You want the cheapest talent that gets the job done.
> these subjective judgements often reflect an unconscious bias
Are you sure it's unconscious?
Say it's conscious (eg "I like my hires to be scrupulously polite and deferential") and that overlaps with a cultural norm - is that problematic?
How about "I like my employees to be extremely punctual". Or "I like my employees to be dressed smartly". Is correlation with any subset of people sufficient to be illegal? Should it be?
Liking your employees to be extremely punctual is pretty objective, but the other two are potentially problematic if you do them wrong.
One example where this comes up a lot is hair. People from backgrounds where straight hair is the norm envision "well-dressed" to include neat and orderly hair, often more neat and more orderly than people with type 3 or 4 hair can actually achieve. So many areas where both straight and curly hair are common have found it necessary to stipulate in law that any grooming expectation you impose has to accommodate the full range of natural hair textures.
You’re not wrong, but that bias is not stemming out of Racism imo. Also I’m not saying that the bias is acceptable, but it shows a different kind of social problem that often transcends classes and gender.
These "vibes" extend further than that. Region/district/city/town/village/neighborhood/familial relation is the breakdown that I've seen. I've known of qualified Indians not applying for new roles because the hiring manager is from a different part of India (Tamil Nadu vs Uttar Pradesh, for example). They know they're not going to get it. There's also the caste system to take in consideration. The ones at the top are all inexplicably Brahmin and would never promote a non-Brahmin to their level.
I've seen all this OUTSIDE of the US, in a non-Indian Asian country that had a high number of Indian software developers in a shared service centre.
As an Indian, I've observed that collectivism and subservience towards authority figures are taught as virtues; this obviously makes it quite easy for employers to extract unreasonable demands such as long working hours, transgressions of ethical limits, things that are "bad", but that generates benefits for the employer.
On the other hand, European and American societies generally focus on individualism and autonomy, which obviously causes a conflict when an Indian hiring manager sees anything other than complete deference to them as a threat, and proceeds to reject such candidates.