Through many sessions, courses and conversations at CHI2010 in Atlanta, I got insights into the 'American' perspective to things.
- There were practitioners who were younger than me, with far lesser experience than me, but were 'Directors/ Vice President' of User Experience in different companies. Many of them left university just a year or two ago and are already in such positions.
- I heard university students speaking of 'strategic' projects...
- A lot of 'job' oriented networking compared to 'sharing/learning' oriented networking
- I heard, 'given the economic situation for the past many years, it is perfectly fine to look at resume of people who had switched jobs every year.'
- People switch jobs very often and it is not seen in negative light
- The learning and experience of having worked in different companies in their different styles, is seen as a 'growth' for a professional. Having a long list of company names in the resume is seen in positive light.
- I heard, 'if a person has not been promoted in their last job, it’s something to investigate. There could be a reason.'
- I’m not sure, I wonder if there is a sort of pressure resulting of all this on a professional to move fast, grow (vertically) fast, make more money, be more visible...?
- One should get rid of the ‘bad apples’ (in a team context) rather than spoiling a box of good apples.
All through, I was comparing such insights to Germany and to India. Many of these things will not hold true when set in Germany.
- It’s not common to find very young professionals at senior positions like Director/Vice President etc.
- Promotions happen at a very slow pace. People spend between 5-10 years (could be more) in the same position/levels.
- People do not switch jobs as much
- Things are lot more hierarchical,
- 'strategic' work, is most often restricted to senior management.
- A professional's growth within a company is a long term plan - in the range of 10-30 years.
- Depending on the level of the professional, there could be legal implications to asking them to leave.
Looking at India, I think it is closer to the American style.
- Professionals do switch jobs often (maybe not every year)
- 'Titles' are important part of one's job, self esteem, social contexts
- People want to grow fast, make more money...
Given these 'localized' flavors of a job, I’m wondering what it means in a global context. While people take up international jobs, beneath the surface there can be lots of impacts. Lots of socio-economic aspects related to work practices, labor laws, HR policies; etc that come into play – things that need to be considered while hiring / searching for jobs / settling in a new job. It is important to have the right expectations.
This also highlights the fact that while working in multi-national, culturally diverse corporations, it is important to be aware of such differences; stop looking at things at face value and stop expecting some ‘universal’ policies. We need to accept the fact that there is no leveling ground – a ‘job’ is indeed deeply rooted in it social and cultural contexts.
interesting I was going to write something on this topic too...
ReplyDeletespeaking as an 'outsider' on germany, i do think that there is more of a bay area job vibe in e.g. berlin and hamburg or even e.g. the design/ux scene in cologne. The more old school companies like Siemens, Daimler etc definitely work like you describe, though, IME
ReplyDelete@Daniela, I dont know about Hamburg, but in Berlin and Cologne, I agree. I also get the feeling that Munich is perhaps in the same league. However what I hear is, in these cities, the smaller, focussed 'design consultancies' are doing well.
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