Technicolor India
Shiva Adloori
08 December 2021
Following is my experience with some female HR employees at Technicolor India after I had applied there for an Animator position.
This is the biggest animation studio in India.
You’ll see how….
In November 2020, I applied for an animator position at Technicolor India.
Few weeks later, I get an email from a HR person from the studio asking if I’d be available for Interview that day.
I reply saying I can be available. And because I don’t pickup calls from random numbers, I ask for the phone number from which I’d be receiving the call.
The HR person confirms the interview, and shares the phone number of Department Director who is going to call me.
Later that day, I get the call from the Department Director. More than like an interview, we end up talking about other things and the places we are from. He tells me this call is just a formality, as usually there is a test given for animators, and considering my experience and my portfolio, there was no need for a test or a technical interview. He tells me he’s looking forward to working with me, but it was entirely up to me if I’d be accepting the offer or not, because the salary they might offer probably would not match to what I’m usually paid outside of India.
Next week, I get the following email from an HR person from the studio. Let’s call her “Miss A” for now.
I reply to the email giving her my local phone number and WhatsApp contact information. I got no phone call that day after my email.
Since she said in the email she tried to reach me, I checked if I had gotten any calls from the phone number listed in the email. I had not gotten any phone calls from that number. I thought, now that I have the email with her phone number listed, if she tries to reach me, my phone would pickup the caller name from the email, and it shouldn’t be a problem.
Two weeks go by, and I get the following email from another HR person from the studio. Let’s call her “Miss B” for now. (Note that it wasn’t specifically addressed to me, as the “To” field is blank. Also, the two email addresses mentioned are of “Miss B” and “Miss A”)
It looked like the email was meant for someone who’s been hired, but is yet to start. I reply to the email asking for clarification. Below is the email.
About 20 mins or so later, I get a call from a random number. I ignore the call. I get an email almost immediately following this, from “Miss B”. Here’s the email.
Note that phone number she asks me to call back is different from the one mentioned in the signature. I check my phone, and she had called me twice before on that day from that number.
I try calling her back, and she doesn’t pick up the call. I then sent her the following email.
Immediately following my email, I get a call from “Miss B”.
I pick up the call. We start talking. She tells me she wanted to discuss salary. She asks me what my salary was at my last job. I tell her sorry, but I don’t give out that information, and that I can only discuss my expected salary. She tells me that they need that information as it’s a required field, which they have to fill out in their database. I tell her again that I can only discuss expected salary. She asks me what is my expected salary then? I tell her my expected salary, and she asks me how can they give that salary if they don’t know what my current salary was. I tell her that’s up to them if they want to offer me that salary. She says she has to put some number for the current salary field. I tell her if any number works, then to put zero in that field, as I don’t give out my current salary information, and I haven’t given that information in a very long time. She tells me she can’t move forward without my current salary. I tell her that I understand, and that it is absolutely fine with me if we can’t move forward, and we end the call.
Though we couldn’t agree on the requirement of the current salary, the conversation was, at least, very civil.
Within 5 minutes after the above phone call, I get a call from a random number. I don’t pick up.
My phone rings again. It was from the same number
I pick it up, as I figured it must be from Technicolor India. It was from “Miss A”. She tells me she wanted to discuss salary. I tell her that I had just spoken to “Miss B” less than 5 minutes ago, and that we had agreed to not move forward with it. She tells me she has no idea about the call from “Miss B”, and that she was calling me on her own. I laugh to myself.
She tells me she had tried to call me before. I tell her sorry, but I don’t pick up calls from random numbers, and also a call was never scheduled. She tells me if I want the job, I should pick up anytime they call. I just laugh.
She asks me about my current salary. I tell her that I don’t give out that information, and that I can only discuss my expected salary. She asks me about my expected salary. I give her the information, and she asks me how can she offer that salary without knowing what I’m getting paid currently. This went on for some time, as it was exact repetition of my conversation with “Miss B”, but this time, “Miss A” was being more aggressive.
I tell “Miss A”, that I had discussions with Technicolor India many times before over the years, and the current salary was never a requirement. They had even made offers to me which I couldn’t accept for various reasons. Even the expected salary I gave her was something that they themselves had offered me before. She tells me things have changed since then at Technicolor. I say OK, but I can’t give my current salary information, and I’m OK with not moving forward with this.
She now starts asking me if I ever worked before. I tell her I’m sure she has seen my resumé. She questions me again if I ever worked professionally in my life before. She was trying to accuse me of lying on my resumé.
I see that she is starting to change the narrative, since things are not working out for her. I ask her if we can end the call. She says she’s not going to end the call. (It’s a very common scenario which you’ll learn about, on Day 2 of the course)
I tell her I’m not interested in continuing the conversation, as I had this discussion already. She then tells me not to bother applying again at Technicolor India, as she was going to blacklist me. I tell her “Very professional!”. Haha. And, as she was starting to saying something, I end the call.
Later that day, I message the Department Director on WhatsApp saying something like “I am amazed by your HR! When I said No, they said they’re going to blacklist me! Haha! Amazing!” He replied back saying, since he wasn’t there, he can’t say anything about it. I replied saying “But still, your HR is amazing! “
I later checked my phone for call history. And, “Miss A” had tried to call me before, after one week of me emailing her my contact information. She had called me from the number which was different from the number listed in her email signature. Had she called me from the listed phone, my phone would have picked up her name from the email.
******
If you just read through this without any idea about the Female Dating Strategy, it would look like it as if “Miss A” was just unhappy about me not giving out my current salary. But that is never the reason for blacklisting someone professionally!
She had to do that because she didn’t use proper professional channel of communication by scheduling an interview before calling. She wanted to find out how interested I am in working there by calling me at random times from a random number, so that she has leverage when discussing salary.
The more high value the other person is, the more they’ve to pretend as if they’re not very keen, if they use the strategy. If you’ve read the “Rocksteady Studios” example, in that, the girl was realising how high-value I am over a period of time, at different stages. In that example, at first, she was the one talking to me and showing interest. The second stage, after she realized I’m of higher value than she initially thought, she was giving open hints by hovering in front of me, but not showing interest overtly. At a later stage, after realizing I’m of even higher value, she resorted to pretending like she doesn’t want me at all, while still trying to find out if I like her.
In this case, “Miss A” already knew I was of high-value, professionally, most probably from the Department Director’s review of me. For her, being from HR, a WIN would be if she can get me at a lower salary than I’m actually worth, that which they can afford. For that, she has to know how interested I am in working there.
When calling at random times from random number didn’t work, they sent an email, not asking for an interview, but an email which is meant for someone who’s already hired, so they can pretend it was an unintentional email if things don’t work out. When I replied asking for clarification, they tried calling again instead of replying. Only when I didn’t pick up, I got a reply telling me they wanted to discuss salary.
And when even discussing didn’t result in a favouring outcome, she had to say she was going to blacklist me. Most probably, she’d have to make up some excuse, probably of misbehaviour on my part during the call. They’ll HAVE to do that or else the blame will be entirely on her part for not going through proper communication channels in the first place.
******
Though the Rocksteady Studios experience made me want to figure out what the exact Female Dating Strategy was, it was this experience that made me want to teach it.