Advice for China Job Seekers
September 25th, 2010
Several have stopped by in connection with this year’s trip asking about what it takes to find and get a job in China. We will continue to touch on and explore this topic later in the course and trip, but for now, the best resource I can refer you to that hits much of the nail on the head is David Wolf of the always excellent Silicon Hutong’s blog post, Some Advice for the China Bound Job Seeker and his Quora post, What Are the Key Skills Needed to Succeed Working for a Company in China as as a Foreigner?. David is a top notch person, professional and a seasoned and successful China hand. If this is of interest to you, start thinking about his ideas and suggestions now, and we can build on this later in the course and trip. See also this Aimee Barnes’ blog related post, Falling in Love with China and Your Career. In short, this is possible …. but not easy. It takes the right kind of person and mindset to make something like this happen.
Your thoughts? Anything they have missed and you would add?
Entry Filed under: Pre-Departure, China
2 Comments Add your own
1. Dan N | December 10th, 2010 at 11:52 pm
Chris,
I really appreciate all of the thoughtful and valuable advice that you’ve given concerning ways to incorporate China into our careers. After sitting down with you a few weeks ago for my much needed “reality shot”, I put a lot of thought into how international business might still be an option given my values and circumstances. I’ve come up with an idea that I’m curious to get your feedback on. I am thinking that if I were to pursue a career in supply chain management here in the states for a company with a global supply network, sourcing assignments might give me the opportunity to visit places like China often enough for me to “get my fix” without uprooting my family and completely alienating my in-laws. Thoughts?
2. Chris Carr | December 20th, 2010 at 12:44 pm
@ Dan –
My own view and admitted bias is that there is and will continue to be tremendous job and career opportunities for competent people in the areas of global procurement, supply chain and logistics. But the challenge is that said jobs are very demanding, and are sometimes not viewed by today’s young people as being as “sexy” as saying to your buddies, “Hey, I work in consulting for Deloitte.” So a certain type of person tends to be drawn to one versus the other.
Ethical issues and cross-cultural gray areas and differences also abound even more so in the procurement field than others, in my view. Over the years I have seen some Westerners who only accept absolutes in life have a very hard and frustrating time working in the procurement field.
I have additional thoughts to share, but it would be easier for me to share in person rather than a lengthy email, so come see me during office hours sometime.
Step one might be …. get involved in the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals organization (CSCMP), develop those relationships, go to some of those conferences, network like crazy, etc.
One thing I appreciated about your thinking is that you seem to be honestly evaluating your own value add and what it would be. In other words, as I have seen others do, you are NOT erroneously assuming that because you are a smart, good looking, hard working, a well educated American, blah, blah, blah …. that you are automatically able (entitled?) to bring value to the table that an equally smart, good looking, hard working, well educated (and much, much cheaper by the way) Chinese or Indian, cannot. Such an admission and realization can often be the first step to success for a Westerner who desires to successfully work globally and over the long term.
Sometimes we may also find that our value add is being the go-between or the bridge between two places/countries/cultures, and not the main stability tower at the edge of either promontory.
We will also meet people on the trip that you can explore this issue more with and obtain their on-the-ground perspective. In the meantime, continue to invest and you will likely gather more info than you may have time to process and act on ….
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