Archive for the 'Perfect Job' Category

In a weak economy the tendency is for workers to hold onto their jobs a bit longer than they would otherwise prefer. Is it possible that in a downturn the best thing to do is counterintuitive - quitting corporate America to freelance, start a business or return to college?Better now than never - even if you don’t succeed.

In her recent book, Escape from Corporate America, Pamela Skillings, a career coach and blogger, says that moving back and forth between solo ventures or startups and corporate jobs is “really the only way to develop, learn and grow.”

Why not take a break from corporate life? Skillings reasons: “So what if you fail? Or what if you discover that solopreneurship isn’t your calling after all? Sure, it would suck. But you can probably always get a job similar to the one you’re thinking about quitting.”

Beyond the razzle-dazzle of beer bashes and company play days, “every company needs a signature experience that sets it apart.” That’s the thrust of a new Harvard Business Review article called “What It Means to Work Here” by Tamara J. Erickson of the Concours Institute and Prof. Lynda Gratton of London Business School.

In other words, why spend the prime time of your life at Hyundai when you could be at Honda? Or at Novo Nordisk when you could be at Pfizer? True, it helps focus your decision when one company wants you and its competitor does not.

The authors state that “people also choose jobs-and, more important, become engaged with their work-on the basis of how well their preferences and aspirations mesh with those of the organization.” I’m not sold on that thesis, however. It is difficult at best to both assess corporate culture before we take a job and determine whether it meshes with our sensibilities, too.

In his new book Punching In Alex Frankel a journalist and “brand observer” recounts his recent experiences working entry-level jobs for some of America’s best-known employers: UPS, Starbucks, the Gap and Apple among others.

Unlike those of us who prefer to learn about companies by reading academic case studies or magazine articles, Frankel discovers firsthand how employees are indoctrinated into becoming brand evangelists. He gets his hands wet by whipping up Frappuccinos, delivering packages, folding merino sweaters and selling car rental insurance.

“Whenever I neared the UPS building in San Francisco I felt a strange pull inward, a longing for something I couldn’t articulate,” he writes. Frankel decides to experience “what it felt like to be part of an interconnected global workforce by becoming a piece of it.”

Does a hive-like mentality pervade American retail jobs? If so, many of the worker bees appear to be drones, but according to Frankel the chain stores look for certain types of employees. The Container Store, for instances prefers compulsive neat freaks.

Back in the day, enterprising housewives earned “lipstick money” peddling beauty products to their neighbors. Men were relegated to lugging around brushes, Bibles and vacuum cleaners.

Flash forward to 2007. That knock on the door is your Avon man.

One of Avon’s more successful male sales reps is Bobby McKinney, a 58-year-old fire code inspector from Winter Haven, Fla. Last year the dual-careerist tallied $800,000 in sales along with his wife. They reportedly have an astonishing 170 sales reps working for them.

A beauty career is in the eye of the beholder. Consider the fact that Yankee baseball superstar Derek Jeter recently teamed up with Avon to create “Driven,” a $25 cologne, sure to be a hit with all genders. Maybe it will open doors for Avon salesmen.

Okay, I kid, but beauty is big business. Last year Avon, the global beauty and consumer products company - with nearly five million independent sales reps - earned $8.7 billion in revenue. Men can’t afford to gloss over this career path anymore.

One of Silicon Valley’s cleverest blogs, Valleywag, features a special report called Tech’s 10 Worst Entry-Level Jobs.  How bad are the jobs? Not that bad, really, and at about $50,000 - $80,000 a year they pay way above the national average for 2008 college grads.

“Soon America’s most bright-eyed graduates will enter the workforce and make their workaday homes in cubes at Google, MySpace, or Amazon.com. And they will suffer not just the indignity of having to work for a living, but also the dispiriting realization that a job at a cool company isn’t always that hot.”

The reader comments made this series come alive. My favorite concerns what’s missing from the job description for the exec assistant to Mashable CEO Pete Cashmore. Meanwhile, an $80,000 a year support engineer job at Amazon.com also made the list. One wag reader commented that, for that salary, “I could afford anti-depressants.”

Amid the billions of dollars China has accumulated by underwriting our national debt comes a new initiative - a giant investment fund to be staffed in part by western financial services professionals seeking a global career opportunity.

The China Investment Corp.’s $200 billion sovereign-wealth fund is looking for “global talent” to join them in Beijing. Apparently cash isn’t an issue. In May the new fund sank $3 billion into the Blackstone Group, a private equity firm.

Here are some of the two dozen available positions:

• Compliance Manager
• Risk Control Manager
• North America and Japan Market Equities Portfolio Manager
• Emerging Market Equities Portfolio Manager
• Fixed Income Portfolio Manager
• Public Relations Manager
• Senior IT Project Manager

Here’s a profitable way to mine your static social networking connections. Morgan Stanley’s Rainmaker program takes mid-career professionals who travel in upscale social circles and trains them to become financial advisors.

Rainmaker’s stated “goal is to transform you into a successful financial advisor running your own profitable practice in just three years.”   

On the other hand, in three years you could become a PhD, an MBA, go to med school or become a master chef at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris. But being a stockbroker is kind of cool. If my stockbroker is reachable by phone past market close on the west coast it’s only because there’s an office party that day or he’s required to be there. Otherwise, one assumes, he has a regular 2 p.m. or 3 p.m. tee-time.

The payoff is appealing.