by Emily Sabo

With the growing popularity of publications like Thomas Friedman's The World is Flat, Americans, in particular, are awakening to their own tenuous position in a globalizing world.  Reading popular business magazines and journals, there's been a heavy focus on growing markets, predominantly in Asia.  It's a shifting world.  And it certainly feels like a rapidly changing one. 

Many top corporations (including some of those based in Boston and the greater New England area) are really becoming international companies, in terms of where they do business, whom they're looking to reach, and who they'll be pulling as a talent pool.  Consequently it's something important to try to grapple with and understand (and quickly).  There are a fair number of commentators who have taken up this topic-with approaches that range from academic to instructive, to Monster.com, which has also been featuring a series for job-seekers on more general advice, about how the job search may be changing, and what they can do to adapt to the global economy. 

Rusty Weston, a writer and journalist with an interest in the globalization of work and social networking, writes in "Gear Up to Compete in the Global Economy" that "expatriation or foreign business travel is a viable career path for less than 1 percent of us.  These days, most of us are thrust into global careers without having to learn another language or leave the comforts of our hometown." Many large businesses are no longer "American businesses." Components of the business take place elsewhere, and more likely than not, the company is looking to do business outside the US as well.  BusinessWeek's Ben Steverman underscores this point in "The Dollar's Decline: Opportunity Knocks": "Many stocks, especially those of large-cap, international companies, get much of their profits from abroad.  Paul Larson, equities strategist at Morningstar, points to companies like Colgate-Palmolive or Coca-Cola that, though headquartered in the U.S., rely heavily on foreign consumers."

In his piece, Rusty Weston offers up an ultimately hopeful diagnosis and some helpful prescriptions for what U.S. workers can do to best function in this rapidly accelerating environment.  But it is a process that can feel unnerving and one where the only constant seems to be change.  Weston writes, "Suddenly, we find ourselves dealing with or supporting customers, suppliers or coworkers located in other countries. We call an 800 line for computer support, reach a call center in Bangalore, India, and become flustered when the communication falters. In a way, that breakdown underscores our lack of preparation to deal with other cultures, languages, work styles and global standards. But a lack of preparation should not be confused with an inability to compete in global markets."  However, Weston also makes it clear to his audience that the U.S. will not necessarily dominate that global market, and that individual determination will play a large part.  He finds a metaphoric illustration of this in a pop culture anecdote: "In 1971 a popular Coca-Cola commercial brought together fresh young faces from around the world to perform a catchy song that pledged, "I'd like to teach the world to sing, in perfect harmony." Trouble is, it conveyed the impression that the rest of the world should sing Coca-Cola's (read: America's) tune. The lesson is clear: The global economy doesn't work like that and neither will your career. Globalization is about learning to harmonize with others."  And even this example is telling; while Coca-Cola is still headquartered in Atlanta, they're truly an international business.  Their business has certainly changed since 1971. 

Individual determination will play a large part in a person's success in this globalized world.  It is a time to take personal responsibility for professional development.  In Weston's "Gear Up" article, he notes "most knowledge-based jobs can be conducted anywhere Internet service is available. In this tough new world of global competition, the safe bet is to think about globalization and your career this way: Your mission is to master new skills and smoothly adapt to new people, places and processes. If you stay on top of your game and sharpen your skills, you will remain marketable both in the US and abroad. "What you want to have is a situation not of job security, where you have your job for life, but employment security, where you know that if you lose your job, you can always find a new one," says Jacob Kirkegaard, research associate at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington, DC." This approach relies on having both a toolbox of transferable skills and taking personal responsibility for your professional development.

There are a number of steps that you can take to try and ensure that you are one of the citizens with employment security.  Part of this entails keeping your mind open and curious--and being eager to learn all the new information that this world has to offer.  There are also some concrete steps that you can take to feel more confident and secure in this global environment:

• Learn a new language--it's never too late.  If you're no longer in school, research adult and continuing education classes in your area.  You can also buy teach-yourself programs or borrow them from the library.
• International experience--if you're still a student, high school and college study-abroad programs are a terrific opportunity to experience another part of the world, and enrich your understanding of another culture.  If you're currently working, jump at any chance you have to travel overseas, either for business or as part of a personal vacation.
• Flexibility--this is an important personal trait to cultivate.  As this article has sought to demonstrate, this is a rapidly-changing environment, and as such, it's important to stay flexible and ready to accommodate those changes that are inevitably going to arise.  Your personal adaptability is something within your control that can have a big impact on your career.
• Humility--in this changing work environment, what's worked in the past isn't necessarily going to be sustainable in the present and future.  So this may be the time to let go of some pride and be even more willing to listen to new ways of doing things.  This can be a really tough process, but it's one that I think will eventually pay dividends as you become more comfortable with where you are headed and convinced that you are capable of steering your own ship. 

After graduating from college, I unfortunately was persuaded into a job that claimed it was "marketing," but turned out to be door-to-door sales. After 3 months I decided I did not want my career to be in sales, so I quit, but did so without having another job to go to. I decided to find a temp agency, so that I would at least be working, and hopefully would be working with people my own age.

I met with Julie Sheehan at Laufer and Associates the following Wednesday, and she told me about this great architecture and engineering consulting firm. Julie was able to place me in that firm by the following Tuesday with the understanding that I would be there for a week, possibly two, if they liked me.

Well, I liked them as much as they liked me, so two weeks turned into three, and by the beginning of the third week the company offered me a permanent position as Assistant Marketing Manager, which I gladly accepted.

My initial assignment of one, possibly two weeks, ended up turning into a permanent position in the marketing field, which was exactly what I wanted to enter into.