My Chinese radar really perked up last week when I read the Economist article about Alibaba. This Chinese company is the largest online business-to-business marketplace in the world, and it just purchased Yahoo! China, which makes Alibaba the12th most popular site in the world.
I checked out the site right away, and, guess what? It looks just like eBay, except that the testimonial on the home page is from someone who lives in Vietnam. Moments like this make me think career advice really needs to address the China issue: How will you survive in China? But the answer is, of course, that you probably won’t. Which is why I don’t write a lot of advice about it.
Some people will do well in China, though. So let’s take a look.
There is a brisk business in Chinese nannies for American babies. New York Magazine reports that, “The lycee is passe (old Europe has no trade surplus), and some parents are scouring Craigslist and placing ads in the China Press for sitters who speak Mandarin, China’s official language.”
One of those parents says, “Even if my little girl weren’t very smart, she’s always going to get a job because she’ll be totally fluent in Chinese.”
This is not true. It takes a lot more than speaking Chinese to succeed in China.
China is among the easiest countries to attract outsiders to work but is also one of the hardest places for them to succeed, according to David Everhart, regional practice leader for Asia at the recruiting firm Korn/Ferry International.
Everhart gave me this list of five traits of people who succeed on a Chinese mission:
1. You are generally a very patient person, with a high tolerance for uncertainty and ambiguity.
2. You already have a certain knowledge of Chinese culture — not only societal, but also the business culture.
3. You have evaluated your company’s China strategy and are empowered to manage expectations at the home office about what it will take to meet your goals.
4. You have researched and secured extra support so your family will be able to adapt socially in China.
5. You arrive in China and immediately begin thinking about succession planning: how to develop the leaders of the future who will allow the firm to localize its management team.
Most of us will never work in China, but there’s a lesson in this list. You need social skills and a big-picture strategy for any job you take. In China, because of a cultural gap, you need them even more. But don’t kid yourself: If you can’t tolerate a certain amount of uncertainty and ambiguity, you will flounder in a leadership position anywhere, not just in China.
Finally, check out Melanie Parsons Gao’s blog. She is a Sun employee who blogs about making the transition to China. She posted a list of what to bring that is interesting even if you never go.
I was checking out the information about the upcoming conference Office 2.0. I wanted to get a sense of what the future workplace would look like. There’s not much information there, but I got a bit from the list of speakers:
1. There are two links next to every speaker name: blog, and profile. If you think you don’t need a blog, you need to look at this list. It’s long. And every person on it has a blog. Blogging is essential for big thinkers, serious careerists, and anyone who wants to be part of a wide-reaching conversation.
2. The list of photos is pretty unremarkable, mostly men, mostly headshots. There are a lot of visions for what the future of the office will be. Our computers will have no client application other than a web browser, for example, and virtual collaboration will be easy.
But maybe the most wide-reaching vision of Office 2.0 emerged before the conference even started. The image is on the speakers page, where David Young, CEO of Joyent, makes room in his own small square headshot for his baby’s head, too. Because Office 2.0 must make room for children.
Are you worried that you have no idea what you’re doing with your life? A lot of how you feel about yourself stems from how you look at the world. For example, instead of worrying that you are not on a track, consider that the tracks are not viable.
It’s a hard mental shift that might require some tricks. Here’s one to try: You can draw things more accurately if you turn them upside down before you put the pen to paper. Artist (and my aunt) Judith Roston Freilich says, “That’s an old trick. Also, people often suggest that when you are drawing and you’re stuck you turn your page upside down.”
The work world corollary to that might be to take a closer look at the people who pull their whole life together by age 24. In fact, they are the exception to the rule, and they are probably not that innovative. Wayne Osgood, professor of sociology at the University of Pennsylvania, told me these people are “fast starters,” and he says that they are only about 12% of the population. This group typically does not finish college and appears to have conventional personalities and expectations.
Before turning yourself into a pretzel to fit someone else’s mold. Try turning the world upside down and then take another look at yourself.
Here’s some career advice I’m sick of reading: “Don’t have typos in your resume.”
If you need to read that advice to know you shouldn’t have typos in your resume then you are unemployable.
My friend Ben pointed out that when Colin Powell resigned, he typed his own letter at his home computer to keep the resignation a secret. But the White House sent the letter back because it had a typo. I wish the lesson here were that you always get a second chance. But no one will give your resume back to you to fix. So instead the lesson is that everyone makes typos. It’s human.
It is near impossible to not have a typo in a resume at some point because we’ve all read our resume five hundred times, and it’s ineffective to proofread something you’ve reread so much. On top of that, job hunting is often a repetitive, boring task, so it’s no surprise that people copy and paste and put the wrong employer name in the salutation all the time.
So there’s nothing you can do to fix a typo if the resume is sent. You look bad resending a resume to a hiring manager and saying “I had a typo in my resume.” Most likely the person won’t notice the typo anyway unless it is in his name. Even if you are applying for a proofreader job, it’s not going to help to resend the resume. The job of a proofreader is to catch the error before he hits send.
A lot of polls say recruiters will dump a resume in the garbage if there’s one typo. I don’t believe it. First, all typos are not equal. But also, a sales person with a typo is different than a technical writer with a typo. While a technical writer should be detail-oriented, the skills that make a good sales person don’t necessarily make a good proofreader.
So if you send a resume with a typo, hope the recruiter doesn’t notice, and try not to do it again. Move on.
But you should consider hiring a resume writing service to write your resume. You can trust a top company to not have a typo. There are a million reasons to hire someone to help you with your resume. It’s a very important document and it’s very hard to write yourself because you’re too close to the information on many levels, not just in terms of spelling.
That said, I hired a top resume writing company and then later made some changes in my resume and, of course, sent it out a couple of times with typos. Maybe it was a good thing, though. Because to be honest, if anyone ever hired me for being detail-oriented, they would be disappointed. It’s important to know your strengths. I know who to hire to compensate for my shortcomings. And now, years later, I know not to mess with what those experts come up with.
At some point in their work life most people start wondering about the bigger questions: How can you support yourself with enjoyable work and still make the world a better place?
I have had discussions about this topic with my husband. He was working at a grassroots agency that struggles to save people from poverty and prison. I told my husband that since I was supporting our family while he worked for a nonprofit that pays peanuts, I was doing enough to save the world.
He said, “You're not saving the world. You're saving us.”
“I know,” I said. “I'm an enabler. I'm enabling you to save the world.”
He said, “You can do what you want. But grassroot action makes an immediate difference.”
Grassroot action. This is the kind of language you hear all the time if you live with an activist.
To be honest, I wouldn’t be able to handle seeing the sadness my husband saw every day: Like the juvenile offender who was not going to school because the prison forgot. But I still want to make sure my work has meaning.
And I am not alone. In the book, The Altruism Question, psychologist Daniel Batson reviews approximately twenty-five studies that all show that people have an inherent need to help others out of a sense of altruism — to make other people feel better. And Stephan Bodian, who often writes about Buddhism, explains, “Each of us must find our own right livelihood by following our hearts while facing the reality of our unique situation.” What I take this to mean is that we all want to do good, but you have to take care of yourself first, then your family, and then the world. Most of us have enough trouble with the first two.
For some people right livelihood will mean a life of environmental activism. For other people, it might take the form of creativity. “For many of us, it might simply involve doing what we can, at the jobs we currently have, to add to the world’s collective store of peace, love, happiness and material well-being,” writes Bodian in Yoga Journal.
In case you are wondering, my husband is typical of social activists in that he has a spouse working in a more lucrative sector. We found this out the hard way, when we tried to depend on his job for insurance. The human resource person actually told my husband, “The premiums are sky-high because no one here needs to use the insurance.”
Fortunately for those who do need insurance, the business world offers a surprising range of opportunities to honor one’s need for right work. I have mentored people who have been able to make huge changes in their lives, and I have changed corporate policies to accommodate single mothers and gay job applicants. These have been high points in my career because I felt like I was doing good.
But you don’t actually have to make a monumental contribution to the world in order to feel good about yourself. Small acts of kindness add up.
Sonja Lyubomirsky, professor of psychology at University of California at Riverside, found that being kind makes you feel more positive about yourself and the world. She has an exact prescription for how to be kind that reminds me of my husband doing good at the grassroot:
“In our daily lives, we all perform acts of kindness for others. These acts may be large or small and the person for whom the act is performed may or may not be aware of the act. Examples include feeding a stranger’s parking meter, donating blood, helping a friend with homework, visiting an elderly relative, or writing a thank you letter.” In order to optimize the good feelings that come from good acts, Lyubomirsky’s research indicates that you should load up your acts of kindness so you do five in one day.
You can follow these instructions from any job, no matter how big or small. Write a note to yourself on one day each week, and count your deeds until you get to five. Your job will bring deeper meaning to your life because you will be using it to directly cause positive feelings in the world.
As for me and my husband, I am never going to work in a prison, and he’s never going back to corporate life. But we are striking a balance. Winston Churchill once said: “Make a living by what you get, make a life by what you give.” The best careers can combine both, and this is true of a marriage, too.
While everyone was watching for the telecommuting trend to explode, something else exploded right next to it: The virtual company. The business with no office to telecommute from.
These companies give new opportunities to entrepreneurs to get started with no money down. But a virtual business also gives people the opportunity to create the personal life they want. “The future is likely to be the age of virtual businesses,” writes Anita Campbell, founder of Small Business Trends. “Forget three guys in a garage that was your father’s startup. Today it’s three people spread out across the country or even across continents, each in their home offices or back porches with laptops, mobile phones, and WiFi.”
Pamela Slim, who blogs at Escape From Cubicle Nation, says there is a “perfect storm” of factors converging to make virtual businesses more popular, and easier to start:
1. Workers will quit regular jobs to get control over their time.
Both men and women are increasingly willing to leave the work force to create personal time and family time, according to Jacqueline Luffman, a labor analyst for the government of Canada. In light of that, a virtual office ends up seeming like a compromise rather than an extreme solution.
2. Technology levels the playing field.
It has become so cheap and easy to use that someone who doesn’t have a lot of resources can create a web presence that looks established and professional.
3. Retail businesses can be virtual.
Of course, there’s always eBay. But you can also set up a shop with Amazon, where you create a storefront (which could even be a blog) and Amazon handles all inventory and fulfillment issues — and then sends you a check for the sales you make. Or you can work with a slew of smaller online wholesalers the same way.
4. The rise of telecommuting.
Established companies such as Sun Microsystems realize that telecommuters are happy, appreciative and cost-effective, so they encourage people to telecommute. Smart companies provide essential training and support so workers are productive at home from the start. The side effect is that location-based companies are training workers on how to set up their own virtual companies.
This trend means that it’s easier for you to have a work life that you can control – whether you’re working at your own virtual company or at someone else’s. The benefits are flexibility, efficiency and little overhead. The drawback is that time management is difficult, and not everyone can adapt.
Dennis Yang works at Techdirt, a virtual company that provides daily news and analysis to corporate clients. While Yang does not sit with co-workers, he is never lonely. He typically has about seven conversations going on at any one time on his computer screen, and he can work anywhere he wants — for example, his grandmother’s living room.
A typical day involves constant instant messaging, occasional emails with clients, and Skype for Internet-based phone calls, which are free – though Yang adds, “We don’t like to have phone conversations because it’s difficult to have more than one at a time.”
Techdirt’s 14 employees hang out in a virtual conference room, which is really a chat room, and when the once-a-week phone call happens, someone types in the chat room that it’s time to move to the conference call.
Not surprisingly, members of Generation Y populate many of the virtual companies. “The younger generation is very attracted by the virtual companies because they are used to it. Skype and IM are normal to them, and it is not weird to work with people you rarely see when most of your friends are people you rarely see.” says Chris Yeh, co-chair of the Founders Forum for entrepreneurs, and founder of his own company, Targetfirst.
But virtual companies have a lot to offer Generation X as well: “We want a career that gives us control over our schedule and our life,” says Yeh. “I want a work environment where I can also focus on my kids. Working from
home is not a panacea for everything because the kids take time and they are always calling for you, but at least there’s no commute time.”
The virtual business community is huge, so there’s room for everyone. In fact a whole economy has developed in which virtual companies do business with other virtual companies. Sharon Sarmiento, founder of Streamline Virtual Office Solutions, offers project-based, administrative assistance to companies that do not need a physical presence. So it is no surprise that a major client is Andy Wibbels, the king of promoting blog-based businesses.
For some people, such as Yang, virtual companies present a continual mix of work life and personal life where neither begins or ends. For others, such as Yeh and Sarmiento, a virtual company is a way to discover optimal methods for dividing a day.
Last week Sarmiento was experimenting with a four-hour workday. “I’m trying to be really productive,” she says, and then defines what she means by that in a blog post aimed at helping other virtual entrepreneurs manage their time. “You cannot work harder,” she advises, it’s more about prioritizing. “Just turn off the computer at the end of four hours. This experiment is almost entirely psychological.”
It might seem that in the land of virtual companies, in a virtual economy, there is virtually no work getting done. But Yang and Sarmiento both exemplify the work ethic that typifies virtual offices.
“In a small company where people know each other and are dedicated to a cause or a calling, you can count on everyone to be productive,” says Yeh. But even a technology cheerleader such as Yeh doesn’t foresee a workplace devoid of stupid meetings and wasteful schedules. “The virtual office can cut down on the BS,” he says, “but BS is part of human nature.”
Learn about nice from Paris Hilton
We all know that networking is the way to build a career. It’s the how-to that’s so difficult. Today, most of the advice about networking says: Be nice, and people will be nice back. And, building a network helps a career because you can ask for a favor when you need one. But you can’t call in favors if you’re not giving them out all the time.
Chartreuse has a great post on this topic: Why Paris Hilton is Famous: Understanding value in a post-Madonna world.” Paris Hilton is the queen of giving out favors. She understands the value of passing along information. So she builds her business (herself) by giving out favors (publicity). You need to do something similar in your career. Like Paris, your job is to network: be nice, give people information they want, do favors whenever you can. That’s what networking is.
Job hunters, choose networking over keyword optimization
Here’s a little reminder that you probably won’t get a job by emailing your resume to a large human resources department. The article, Sorry, no one’s reading that resume you sent, describes the automation of the corporate hiring process. Bottom line: It’s very automated.
One of my most popular columns was 6 tips for job hunting online. This is because sitting at your computer trying to figure out how to get past someone else’s computer is less stressful than connecting with real people to build a network. But really, you’re better off spending your time building a network than optimizing the keywords on your resume. When you have a network of people you’ve already helped, someone will push your resume past the automation process.
Two tidbits about etiquette
I think I’m pretty good about workplace etiquette, which, by the way, is everywhere etiquette, because the bottom line in etiquette is be considerate everywhere. But there are some times that I falter.
Geoffrey Fowler writes in CareerJournal how annoying it is when someone in the US says to someone working outside the US, “What time is it there, anyway?” I confess to having done this before. But I won’t do it again.
Another rule I have broken: Asking the unanswerable question via email. Guy Kawasaki wrote a funny and insightful post about this problem:
“Do not fabricate unanswerable questions… the open-ended question that is so broad it should be used in a job interview at Google. For example, ‘What do you think of the RIAA lawsuits?’ ‘What kind of person is Steve Jobs?’ ‘Do you think it’s a good time to start a company?’ My favorite ones begin like this: ‘I haven’t given this much thought, but what do you think about…?’ In other words, the sender hasn’t done much thinking and wants to shift responsibility to the recipient. Dream on.”
This is a piece I wrote for the new leadership section at Forbes.com.
Of course a good education and talent are keys to building a successful career, but for most people, school is over and the parameters of their talent were set on the day they were born. So what can you do now to get ahead? Get a mentor. In fact, get a stable of mentors for guidance on multiple aspects of your career.
“Executives who have had mentors have earned more money at a younger age,” writes Gerard Roche, senior chairman at the recruiting firm Heidrick & Struggles. Additionally, his research shows “those who have had mentors are happier with their career progress and derive greater pleasure from their work.” The majority of executives had mentors in their first five years of their career.
But finding a mentor is not easy. For a lucky few, mentors can be found through a privileged network of relatives, family friends or your parents’ business associates. For everyone else, the search requires patience, a clear focus and the self-confidence to be a nudge. “Not everyone can depend on nepotism,” says Alisyn Camerota, New York-based correspondent for Fox News. “I got where I am by turning reluctant people into active mentors.”
The easiest way to create allies is to build a reputation as an overachiever. That’s what Camerota did during an internship early on in her career at a Washington, D.C. —based news bureau. After earning the respect of her boss throughout the summer, she came to rely on her for advice and support. Eventually Camerota felt empowered enough to walk into her office and say, “My internship ends in a week and I don’t have a job. Can I have all your contacts?” She said yes. Camerota copied the whole Rolodex onto a legal pad by hand and cold called the contacts until someone agreed to interview her. Those calls later led to a full-time job.
Mentors aren’t just important for those starting out. They’re essential to rising through the ranks, too. “Obtaining a mentor is an important career development experience for individuals. Research indicates that mentored individuals perform better on the job, advance more rapidly within the organization (i.e., get promoted more quickly and earn higher salaries), and report more job and career satisfaction,” says Lillian Eby, professor of applied psychology at the University of Georgia.
As Camerota’s career progressed, she realized her main goal was to be a broadcast journalist. More specifically, she wanted to be in front of the camera. But for two years, she was stuck behind the scenes for America’s Most Wanted. That changed when Lance Heflin, the shows executive producer, became her mentor.
Camerota’s tactic of working hard and asking specific questions made Heflin aware that she was coach-able and focused on her career, attributes that attract the best sort of mentor. So by the time Camerota asked Heflin to help her get on-camera, he told her that if she was willing to do the work, he would help.
Camerota spent the next six months making terrible tapes. Heflin’s coaching started with her appearance: “Do not wear green ever again. Do you ever see people wearing green on TV?” Then he moved to more nuanced tips: “Treat the camera like it’s your friend,” he told her. And he showed her a tape from a broadcaster he liked, walking through a house as he talked to the camera, making the audience feel like they were right there with him.
The duo went through countless such show and tell sessions. And every now and then, Heflin would say, “Stop. Rewind.” And he’d go back to where Camerota smiled at someone or looked at the camera and raised an eyebrow. “That’s where you threw a nickel through the screen,” Which was his way of saying, “Something came alive here.” You can’t ask for advice like that. You have to inspire it.
Camerota’s hard work and raw talent earned her an outstanding mentor who devoted a large amount of time and energy to showing her how to become a television reporter. Keep your eyes open for someone who loves to help people grow.
There are more of those people than you’d think and they may need you, too. “Both mentors and protégés report benefiting from mentoring relationships,” writes Eby. Make your move now. Test the waters with a few people who seem like they might be good mentors. Ask specific questions, and heed the advice. You might find you get more than you asked for.
It’s hard to find a list of large, stable companies with good perks that will let you tour with your rock band once a month. So here is a very useful list with a very bad title: 100 best companies for working moms. For one thing, the title is insulting to dads. But also, these companies have qualities that apply to a much broader spectrum of workers than just parents.
Things like flextime, stable paycheck and good insurance plan are actually hard to come by and are also great for someone like Bill Hewett, a guy I interviewed a while back who had been in a rock band for years living without insurance and needed to get his diabetes under control but didn’t want to give up his music.
It is no secret that most workers want a job that accommodates their personal life. And it is no secret that people like stability in their lives. Sure there is a huge trend toward entrepreneurship, but many people, like surfer Matt Rivers, are starting their own companies so they can live the life they want.
This is a list of companies that might allow you to live that life without having to accept the instability of starting your own company. This is a list for people like yoga maven Sarah Kenny who focus on a passion that is necessarily outside of their work.
So take a look: You don’t need to have kids, you just need to have a dream.
What’s the problem with most managers? They are so involved in getting their own tasks done that they fail to manage. Bruce Tulgan writes that undermanagement is an epidemic, and Adecco reports that half of American workers think their managers don’t take performance reviews seriously.
Continue this behavior at your own risk. The Financial Times (subscription) says:
“Generation Y grew up rating peers’ physical attributes, pop culture creations, teachers’ style and grading practices, and products. No surprise, then, that there are websites drawing decent traffic for people to rate their bosses, their clients, and their customers. The tone of online commentary is often racy and retaliatory.”
I was not able to find any of these sites. Leave it to the Financial Times to tease us with this information and provide no links. But still, you’d better Google your name right now, just to make sure your underlings haven’t started rating (or berating) you.
Hat tip: James in the UK