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Gone fishing

Nitish S Rele

It had to happen sometime soon -- firms in the US coming over to pick up the brightest IT sparks from India. And so it has.

Invitation-only career fairs are being organized between July 17 and 29 in Bangalore, Bombay, New Delhi, Hyderabad and Madras for just this purpose.

The career events are being organized by NextBase Corp, an Internet recruitment, consulting and training firm that provides need-based services to several high-tech and multinational corporations in the US.

Based in Bowling Green, Ohio, with a small office operation in the Silicon Valley, NextBase has been around for about two years now.

"We are primarily a contingency recruitment dot com with a large database of applicants," said CEO and founder Vinod Jain. "We have run seminars and conducted work on Internet strategy in the past." The firm has four employees.

During these career fairs, NextBase principals and recruiters will conduct interviews on camera and provide reports and video interviews to their corporate clients who make the final hiring decisions.

Individuals select at these events are expected to be able to start work on H1-B work visas by fall.

NextBase expects that the US companies will pick about 10-30 job applicants for specialized positions.

"This is the first time someone is holding high-tech career fairs in India," said the 56-year-old CEO.

"India graduates about 75,000 IT professionals every year, more than twice the number in America. For years, companies have been going to India in search of high-tech talent. The NextBase fairs will facilitate and simplify the process." Companies in the US pay NextBase a regular recruitment fee for the purpose.

Jain is also hoping the US Congress quickly acts on the proposed H1-B visa bill and raises the cap from 115,000 visas annually to 200,000.

"High-tech jobs will be in big demand for the next 5-10 years," he said. "The number of people in the 25-45 age group continues to decline. Second, the number of high-tech degrees awarded by US universities is also going down."

Educated in India and the US, Jain has a master's degree in management from the University of California-Los Angeles and a doctorate in business and management from the University of Maryland at College Park.

Before he started NextBase, he taught at business schools and worked for major multinational corporations in India, Europe, the Middle East and the US.

He is the president of the Toledo Area International Trade Association, a membership organization with more than 300 corporate members in northwest Ohio and southeast Michigan. He also is on the board of governors of Ohio's IT Alliance and the advisory board of the Information Technology Alliance for Northwest Ohio.

Applicants who want to be invited to the career fairs in India can e-mail their resumes at india@nextbase.com and employers looking to use NextBase's services can reach Jain at ceo@nextbase.com.

RELATED SITE:
NextBase Corp

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