Disclaimer: My Post will be useful for people in Pharma Analytics only
Dear all
Today I just felt to pour my heart (emotional and otherwise – you could easily gauge pros and cons of Canada from this). I migrated to Canada in April 2016 (I believe I was the first batch of Express Entry in 2nd year).
Background April 2015 – Express Entry Came in Jan 2015 if I am correct
I was a Senior Manager (30 yrs old) in a Big Pharma Company in Hyderabad, India earning > INR 3,500,000 (close to CA$ 70,000 - by PPP it would be CA$ 250,000 in Canada) in Pharma Analytics. My wife (27 yrs old) was persistent and wanted to move to Canada as she was in dead end IT job, where, salary was < INR 1,000,000 (close to CA$ 20,000 - around CA$ 67,000 by PPP). I was not in favor of moving to Canada, as my company would eventually make me move to Singapore / United Kingdom. I reluctantly applied for PR and we moved in April 2016 (I was 31 then, however wife was still 27) after resigning from my high paying job in India (all in name of QoL, etc and wife pushing me to move)
Struggles after PR (April 2016 – April 2017
For my wife, it was a cakewalk, she got job immediately after moving here within 1.5 months for close to CA$ 70,000. She progressed quickly afterwards by learning Python, etc and became Full Stack Developer
For me, God I cannot even tell the struggles I had to go through. Let me define Pharma Analytics for nonprofessionals- it involves Market Intelligence (CI/MI), Business Analytics (BA), Sales Analytics (SFE) and forecasting (FC). People with good pharma knowledge could also add insights and become specialists. In EU, UK, US, all these functions (CI, BA, FC, SFE) are necessary and are done to support US, EU-5 and Global Offices (Brand Directors, Global Directors, etc). In Canada, little I knew, all these are done as part of Brand Management (Sales Management) due to very small market. In India, I was in CoE (Centre of Excellence for Analytics) for Big Pharma. Given I had no experience in Brand / Sales Management; I was getting roles of Analyst levels (that too after 9-12 months of struggle, working in gigs / call centers / retail jobs / upskilling (“Downskilling” myself). I took up role of Analyst in small biotech company in Mississauga at CA$ 55,000 in April 2017. I was working in Excel and reporting to very young Brand Manager. By the way I used create dashboards and models in Tableau, PowerBI and Sporfire in India for US offices and reporting to US Brand Directors in my previous roles and now I was back to Excel. This could be either due to lack of resources or no pharma company having Analytics CoE in Canada (At present 10 Pharma companies have their CoE / Advance Analytics in India). At last I tried applying or using my transferable skills in Food Companies, Finance, Insurance, however, in Canada (unlike US or EU), you need to be specialized in Analytics in your field. Therefore, job of Manager for Sun Group or TD or CIBC or Kelloggs (Market Intelligence and Forecasting) will not even look at my CV as I was from Pharma. Let not even get me into this as I have seen this for 4 years now). Now I had close 25+ coffee meetings applied to close to 200+ jobs via LinkedIn, referral, Indeed.ca. I used to customize my CV / Resume / Cover Letter. Look for LinkedIn contacts everything....
After 3 years, (April 2019 I was 34 now and Wife was 30 yrs old)
Time went by; life was more or less similar to India as I used to go at 8 AM return at 7 PM by working 9-5 PM. Wife was progressing and became Sr Manager earning more than CA$ 100,000 now, whereas I was stuck in CA$ 60,000 as Analyst. Time passed by love we had also started to fade away as I was feeling disgruntled, as I was not successful as my wife.
I found another job as Senior Business Analyst in Sep 2019 / Oct 2019 at CA$ 77,000 and wife even went higher became Director in top Bank CA$ 150,000 and up. Applied for Citizenship, my wife was already getting offers from US and I was like low hanging fruit. Started to share this with one my colleague in Canada who was going through the same struggle. My bad I started an affair with her as I was getting emotional support from this colleague, which was kind of missing in my life. In fact, in all house parties or office parties, I was portrayed like househusband who takes care of house and I had no issue with that. I never had issue with wife earning more, but lack of empathy for utter disrespect to me for my career where I left the high paying job in order to move to land of opportunities.
April 2020 (Now 35 and wife 31)
Planned to have child, but my love was negligible as I was feeling not so attracted to my wife anymore (neither emotionally, mentally nor physically) with her taunts, and condescending behavior. Lockdown had severe turn on my mental health. Lost my job in May 2020 and again went on lookout for job, and after two months found good job again, but this time joined big company as Senior Operations Analyst (CA$ 80,000). Another toll was all my colleagues in India were either Director / Senior Director or sitting as Associate Directors / Director in US / UK / EU and here was I as Senior Analyst at 36 with Director Wife. I know I should not be jealous or envious but my career went nowhere in this country. I was Senior Manager and now Senior Analyst as of August 2020 and guess who I am reporting to. – My colleague in US (who used to be Manager in India in 2016 and functionally was reporting to me and now Associate Director in California for this Big Pharma).
Affair is still ongoing and my wife simple chooses to ignore this. Now she has friends who all are greatly successful with House Husbands and I might be one among them. We rarely talk, but we went for couple therapy (white people problems) twice or thrice. Depression was high (in fact still I feel low), but she simply ignores this. Taunts and patronization has been norm nowadays, which was not the case when I was earning good in India. Anyhow, I stay within my limits of whatever I earn in Canada. I feel this relationship is not going anywhere and few days back I asked to be separated from my wife and she made all drama out of it (Family drama, In laws Drama, Friends / Relatives Drama), that she supported me in 1st and 2nd year in Canada and how can I forget that. Anyhow, I have chosen to go live separately as I do not want toxicity in my life of being failure.
Insights I could draw for Pharma Analytics people from 4.5 years of Canadian Experience I have
Do not come if you are earning above INR 2,000,000 in India
Currently in Pharma Analytics success rate is 35-65 and odds favor you if you are below 28/29
IT professionals mostly use TN visa. Canadian passport will not help you push up in GC queue until your place of birth is in India. I rarely see Pharma / Healthcare workers going on TN. TN is time bound nonimmigrant visa and in order to get to GC you need to be in L1 or H1B route, which you can get in India
Canadian companies do not pay much for e.g., if Senior Operations Analyst in Roche in US will get US$ 120,000-150,000. In Canada this salary is halved and that too in Canadian $s – so it would be CA$ 75,000-90,000. Moment you will say $100,000 here, it’s a big shock unless you are giving interview for Senior Manager or Director level role
Companies are choosing India as CoE for Analytics in Pharma due to high labor skills, strong presence of vendor companies and middle – high income (much high by PPP compared to Canada). At present 10 Pharma, companies have their CoE in India and with two more planning to build, (Sanofi is hiring in Hyderabad and AstraZeneca in Bengaluru). India has moved to automation and using Qlik, PowerBI, Coding, etc in Pharma Analytics and Canada is still stuck on enterprise solutions in Excel / Access
Lastly, transfer to other industries is very rare, it would be very rare to see people from Pharma / Biotech moving to FMCG, Oil & Gas, Insurance and Finance (as last resort Medical device companies may call you for interviews but at last Canadian experience in Industry is required to give Insights as Specialist).
Conclusion
At LAST before feminists stare abusing me, I didn’t separate due to her higher designation or higher salary – Reason is lack of empathy, lack of recognizing my struggle, lack of respect for my career, lack of communication, lack of emotional / mental support, sheer patronization and condescending tone used to guide me to shift to IT. Trust me I have given 3 years of my life to improve and I feel not only career wise but also personal life is not going anywhere. In fact, this emotional / mental abuse is making me feel depressed. This obviously is coupled with all my colleagues doing great putting me in depression, and anxious state of mind.
NO WHERE I am saying do not come to Canada, please come if you are young (it would be great for you guys if single and if coming as couple both should be on same page).
This was my story 2015 – 2020. Year 2021 will bring new beginnings and I am already feeling slightly better as I am living in my own 1BHK with self-respect.
Dear all
Today I just felt to pour my heart (emotional and otherwise – you could easily gauge pros and cons of Canada from this). I migrated to Canada in April 2016 (I believe I was the first batch of Express Entry in 2nd year).
Background April 2015 – Express Entry Came in Jan 2015 if I am correct
I was a Senior Manager (30 yrs old) in a Big Pharma Company in Hyderabad, India earning > INR 3,500,000 (close to CA$ 70,000 - by PPP it would be CA$ 250,000 in Canada) in Pharma Analytics. My wife (27 yrs old) was persistent and wanted to move to Canada as she was in dead end IT job, where, salary was < INR 1,000,000 (close to CA$ 20,000 - around CA$ 67,000 by PPP). I was not in favor of moving to Canada, as my company would eventually make me move to Singapore / United Kingdom. I reluctantly applied for PR and we moved in April 2016 (I was 31 then, however wife was still 27) after resigning from my high paying job in India (all in name of QoL, etc and wife pushing me to move)
Struggles after PR (April 2016 – April 2017
For my wife, it was a cakewalk, she got job immediately after moving here within 1.5 months for close to CA$ 70,000. She progressed quickly afterwards by learning Python, etc and became Full Stack Developer
For me, God I cannot even tell the struggles I had to go through. Let me define Pharma Analytics for nonprofessionals- it involves Market Intelligence (CI/MI), Business Analytics (BA), Sales Analytics (SFE) and forecasting (FC). People with good pharma knowledge could also add insights and become specialists. In EU, UK, US, all these functions (CI, BA, FC, SFE) are necessary and are done to support US, EU-5 and Global Offices (Brand Directors, Global Directors, etc). In Canada, little I knew, all these are done as part of Brand Management (Sales Management) due to very small market. In India, I was in CoE (Centre of Excellence for Analytics) for Big Pharma. Given I had no experience in Brand / Sales Management; I was getting roles of Analyst levels (that too after 9-12 months of struggle, working in gigs / call centers / retail jobs / upskilling (“Downskilling” myself). I took up role of Analyst in small biotech company in Mississauga at CA$ 55,000 in April 2017. I was working in Excel and reporting to very young Brand Manager. By the way I used create dashboards and models in Tableau, PowerBI and Sporfire in India for US offices and reporting to US Brand Directors in my previous roles and now I was back to Excel. This could be either due to lack of resources or no pharma company having Analytics CoE in Canada (At present 10 Pharma companies have their CoE / Advance Analytics in India). At last I tried applying or using my transferable skills in Food Companies, Finance, Insurance, however, in Canada (unlike US or EU), you need to be specialized in Analytics in your field. Therefore, job of Manager for Sun Group or TD or CIBC or Kelloggs (Market Intelligence and Forecasting) will not even look at my CV as I was from Pharma. Let not even get me into this as I have seen this for 4 years now). Now I had close 25+ coffee meetings applied to close to 200+ jobs via LinkedIn, referral, Indeed.ca. I used to customize my CV / Resume / Cover Letter. Look for LinkedIn contacts everything....
After 3 years, (April 2019 I was 34 now and Wife was 30 yrs old)
Time went by; life was more or less similar to India as I used to go at 8 AM return at 7 PM by working 9-5 PM. Wife was progressing and became Sr Manager earning more than CA$ 100,000 now, whereas I was stuck in CA$ 60,000 as Analyst. Time passed by love we had also started to fade away as I was feeling disgruntled, as I was not successful as my wife.
I found another job as Senior Business Analyst in Sep 2019 / Oct 2019 at CA$ 77,000 and wife even went higher became Director in top Bank CA$ 150,000 and up. Applied for Citizenship, my wife was already getting offers from US and I was like low hanging fruit. Started to share this with one my colleague in Canada who was going through the same struggle. My bad I started an affair with her as I was getting emotional support from this colleague, which was kind of missing in my life. In fact, in all house parties or office parties, I was portrayed like househusband who takes care of house and I had no issue with that. I never had issue with wife earning more, but lack of empathy for utter disrespect to me for my career where I left the high paying job in order to move to land of opportunities.
April 2020 (Now 35 and wife 31)
Planned to have child, but my love was negligible as I was feeling not so attracted to my wife anymore (neither emotionally, mentally nor physically) with her taunts, and condescending behavior. Lockdown had severe turn on my mental health. Lost my job in May 2020 and again went on lookout for job, and after two months found good job again, but this time joined big company as Senior Operations Analyst (CA$ 80,000). Another toll was all my colleagues in India were either Director / Senior Director or sitting as Associate Directors / Director in US / UK / EU and here was I as Senior Analyst at 36 with Director Wife. I know I should not be jealous or envious but my career went nowhere in this country. I was Senior Manager and now Senior Analyst as of August 2020 and guess who I am reporting to. – My colleague in US (who used to be Manager in India in 2016 and functionally was reporting to me and now Associate Director in California for this Big Pharma).
Affair is still ongoing and my wife simple chooses to ignore this. Now she has friends who all are greatly successful with House Husbands and I might be one among them. We rarely talk, but we went for couple therapy (white people problems) twice or thrice. Depression was high (in fact still I feel low), but she simply ignores this. Taunts and patronization has been norm nowadays, which was not the case when I was earning good in India. Anyhow, I stay within my limits of whatever I earn in Canada. I feel this relationship is not going anywhere and few days back I asked to be separated from my wife and she made all drama out of it (Family drama, In laws Drama, Friends / Relatives Drama), that she supported me in 1st and 2nd year in Canada and how can I forget that. Anyhow, I have chosen to go live separately as I do not want toxicity in my life of being failure.
Insights I could draw for Pharma Analytics people from 4.5 years of Canadian Experience I have
Do not come if you are earning above INR 2,000,000 in India
Currently in Pharma Analytics success rate is 35-65 and odds favor you if you are below 28/29
- 35% within 6-18 months (patience is the key in this industry in Canada with young age being favored e.g., they will prefer to hire Analyst with 2-3 yrs of work ex then me who has 9-10 yrs of wok ex),
- 20-25% are mostly underemployed, stuck at Analyst / Sr Analyst levels even with 9-15 yrs of work ex,
- 35-40% are in call centers / packaging industry / retail jobs / Uber / Tim Hortons / Shoppers Drug Mart with fancy tittles and very low salary
IT professionals mostly use TN visa. Canadian passport will not help you push up in GC queue until your place of birth is in India. I rarely see Pharma / Healthcare workers going on TN. TN is time bound nonimmigrant visa and in order to get to GC you need to be in L1 or H1B route, which you can get in India
Canadian companies do not pay much for e.g., if Senior Operations Analyst in Roche in US will get US$ 120,000-150,000. In Canada this salary is halved and that too in Canadian $s – so it would be CA$ 75,000-90,000. Moment you will say $100,000 here, it’s a big shock unless you are giving interview for Senior Manager or Director level role
Companies are choosing India as CoE for Analytics in Pharma due to high labor skills, strong presence of vendor companies and middle – high income (much high by PPP compared to Canada). At present 10 Pharma, companies have their CoE in India and with two more planning to build, (Sanofi is hiring in Hyderabad and AstraZeneca in Bengaluru). India has moved to automation and using Qlik, PowerBI, Coding, etc in Pharma Analytics and Canada is still stuck on enterprise solutions in Excel / Access
Lastly, transfer to other industries is very rare, it would be very rare to see people from Pharma / Biotech moving to FMCG, Oil & Gas, Insurance and Finance (as last resort Medical device companies may call you for interviews but at last Canadian experience in Industry is required to give Insights as Specialist).
Conclusion
At LAST before feminists stare abusing me, I didn’t separate due to her higher designation or higher salary – Reason is lack of empathy, lack of recognizing my struggle, lack of respect for my career, lack of communication, lack of emotional / mental support, sheer patronization and condescending tone used to guide me to shift to IT. Trust me I have given 3 years of my life to improve and I feel not only career wise but also personal life is not going anywhere. In fact, this emotional / mental abuse is making me feel depressed. This obviously is coupled with all my colleagues doing great putting me in depression, and anxious state of mind.
NO WHERE I am saying do not come to Canada, please come if you are young (it would be great for you guys if single and if coming as couple both should be on same page).
This was my story 2015 – 2020. Year 2021 will bring new beginnings and I am already feeling slightly better as I am living in my own 1BHK with self-respect.
