INTERVIEW with "Science's Next Wave"
(Singapore)
http://nextwave.sciencemag.org/sg/
Full Interview by Dr. Jennie
Wong
Topic: Preparing Oneself for an
Ever-Changing and Increasingly Tight Job Market
January
18, 2002 issue
with
ART's Managing Director
Interview Date: 12 January,
2002:
Question 1: In an increasingly technology-driven
economy, is there a trend towards preference for multi-disciplinary
trained personnel in industries?
Yes, and this is
what people often are referring to when they say, "I wear a lot of
hats." It used to be that startup firms, due to lack of resources,
required a single person to fulfill several managerial or technical
tasks. But now, that culture has crept into large multinationals, as
well, and it is not uncommon to see people with multi-disciplinary
experiences or training. In fact, these people often are those who are
promoted through the management ranks. For example, in an
electro-optics engineering group, a person whose training is in Physics
(Optics) might also have a Mechanical or Electronic Engineering degree.
That person might be considered a good candidate for Manager of an
Optics group, because it is thought that such a person could better see
all sides of the technology, and therefore be able to relate to all
groups in the department. Now, taking this further, if that same person
chose at some point to move into a manufacturing orientation from a
purely R&D role, then that person might later be seen as a good
candidate for a Director or VP of Engineering and Operations, and this
as a stepping stone to COO. Now, on the other hand, if the R&D/
Engineering Manager had a particular flair for understanding customers
and was a very good communicator, perhaps that person might go into a
technical marketing role, even perhaps picking up an MBA, and advancing
later to head a Sales and Marketing group. In many technology firms,
technical people who become heads of Sales and Marketing are often
prime candidates for CEO or CTO roles. In a very large number of firms,
the resumes of the CEO's, COO's, CMO's and CTO's belong to people who
tend to be "multi-disciplinary" in their education, work experiences,
markets or job titles.
This is not to say that one who wants to focus on being "the best" in a
very specific field or technology should derail their dreams simply for
the sake of trends. Multi-disciplinary backgrounds often help provide
more job opportunities, but it all depends upon the person. The best
advice that I could give would be for one to follow one's own interests
and abilities, and always keep an eye on current job trends. It's
important to keep some sort of perspective on reality, and to also know
that it is possible also to become so over-multidisciplinary that one
might be considered "a jack of all trades and a master of none" -- that
is, a person with so many varied experiences with thin experiences in
each, and then be considered less desired in the job market. "More
isn't always better." Quality is what really counts.
Question 2: Do you think that getting an
additional qualification in another discipline, rather than in one's
primary discipline makes a graduate more employable?
This
greatly depends upon the field and the industry. Sometimes an employer
wants to see a very intensive and narrow specialization, while others
might like to see diverse experiences. For example, if you are applying
for a scientist job at an electronics firm that specializes in signal
processing, that company might not like to see that person spend time
during the interview talking about their business or accounting
training. They might wonder if the person's best interests would be
served in that job in the lab. But, say, if that same company did
research that required significant customization and visits to sites
around the world, a suggestion that that person had both a mind for
science and for business might be very well received.
Question 3: Is super-specialization out of favor
in today's increasingly cross-disciplinary approach in science and
technology?
Clearly there are
more requests for people with a cross-disciplinary approach, but there
still are needs for really good "super-specialists," - the
"gurus." Sometimes in fact an industry might seem to be recruiting all
at once thousands of people who only know one very narrow specialty.
This is especially true in the software world. But in a business and
technology environment that is changing very rapidly, there are more
career risks with hoping that one's specialization will forever be in
demand.
Question 4: In your view, what type of skills set
will be in greatest demand in the next five to ten years?
Since it would take too
much time to discuss each technical specialization's innovations and
promises, and since technology-guessing would also require a crystal
ball, I'll restrict myself to a discussion of general skills.
Strong communications skills are and will continue to be very important
for technical people. In the "old days," there was a big chasm between
the "engineer's mind" or the "scientist's mind" and the "mind of the
businessperson," those people that scientists and engineers usually
derided as "the talkers." Those were the days when literally, technical
people and sales and marketing people rarely interacted, and they might
actually have been housed in separate buildings or cities. Scientists
in R&D and marketing people rarely spoke, and engineers never got
to meet customers. During the '90's these walls really started to break
down between departments. In manufacturing industries, it became clear
that product excellence didn't come about by having sales and marketing
in one place conceptualizing a product and telling engineering to design
it, and then for engineering to design it and to tell manufacturing to
make it, and then for manufacturing to throw the product over the wall
at the end and to tell the quality assurance people to "inspect it and
make sure that it be passed on to shipping." Now, with costs of new
product introductions and R&D being so high, and sometimes with
razor-thin profit margins, companies want technical and business people
to work together, to communicate frequently, to build quality in at the
front end, and to think in terms of pleasing the customers. It is not
uncommon for engineers in large companies to be rotated among
marketing, sales or finance groups, in part to train them to be the
multidisciplinary managers of the future, but also to provide immediate
technical input to non-technical departments. In the case of startups
or medium sized companies, it is now very typical for technical and
business people to be working together intimately and constantly. A
saleswoman might herself be an engineer who is overseeing product
design, and an engineer might be sent out to a trade show to meet
customers or investors. So as part of being a technical person, just as
you might need to have taken calculus, you need now to expose yourself
to making formal and informal presentations. This could be in a formal
classroom setting, such as taking a foreign language course, including
conversation modules (not just recitation of grammar rules), literature
courses (which force you to read a lot and write a lot), or going for
an MBA. Even extracurricular activities such as participating in a
debate club, radio station, or business club could help expose you to
opportunities to make formal presentations that will prepare you for
your future career as a technical person.
International business will become ever more important, and in the case
of Singapore, an ability to understand other cultures well will be more
critical than ever. Solid English speaking and writing skills will
continue to be important, as will solid Mandarin speaking and writing
skills. And other Asian languages could be very useful for business,
such as Japanese, Korean and Cantonese. Bahasa will become very
valuable as Malaysia steps up as a major technology producer (and an
employer of Singaporeans) and as Indonesia stabilizes as a major
manufacturing center. Thai and Vietnamese might also become
particularly useful as their industrial development moves forward. In
Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America, French, Spanish,
Portuguese, Arabic, Turkish, Hindi, Tamil, German and Russian each will
be spoken by tens or hundreds of millions of potential future customers
who need to be reached by expanding Singaporean businesses. Beyond
learning languages, understanding the countries that speak these
languages could be very valuable, and that might mean taking a summer
session in another country or a year abroad. Not only would the
experience be invaluable for personal enrichment, but also employers
would see a greater receptivity to working with colleagues and
customers. Not only in five to ten years, but right now, many companies
are structured intercontinentally, with design or research or marketing
or manufacturing groups spread across many countries.
This trend will continue, and Singaporean technical people who can
communicate effectively with neighbors and people in faraway countries
will be critical to Singapore's success. Once employed, it might be a
very useful experience to seek an international posting. And it might
not even be the most desirable thing to get a posting to Silicon
Valley or Shanghai - where everyone else might be going. Imagine being
the only Singaporean posted with a multinational in Brazil or South
Africa? These experiences could provide you with insight that
most other Singaporeans will never have, and in the process, you could
make yourself potentially very valuable to employers. If you are
looking for a marketing job in China or California, how much competition
do you expect to face? But what if you are one of only a few in your
field who really knows Latin America or Africa? In the next five to ten
years onward, Singaporean industry and employees will face a lot of
competition, particularly in the easy or obvious markets explored so
far. Soon it will be critical for Singaporean entrepreneurs to have
employees who really know the entire world. Simply knowing English and
Chinese will not be enough, because millions of mainland Chinese will
also be bilingual in English and Chinese in ten years. It's what you
can do with these language skills that will matter. And it's important
to always remember that yesterday's underdeveloped country is today's
industrializing country and tomorrow's technological country, and at
each stage of development, they are your potential customers.
Nowadays there is a lot of soul-searching about Singaporean
competitiveness, because the discussions usually end up going for the
line that "everyone is a competitor," but really, there are tremendous
opportunities for Singaporeans if one's workforce is prepared to look
for what is not so obvious. Singapore's potential customer base is
vast, and that only a tiny percentage of them have been yet reached.
Whether it's stringing solar arrays across the Sahara to electrify
Africa, or selling tomorrow's version of multimedia products to
entertain several billion world teenagers in the next decade, there are
lots of opportunities for Singaporean technical people who see the
benefits of communicating with their customers.
Question 5: Under what
circumstances would switching fields in early or mid-career be
advisable? How should one prepare for the ultimate move?
Sometimes you have to switch fields in early or mid career and
sometimes you just want to do so. It might be that your first job out
of school was in a field or company or product area that you simply
dislike. Perhaps it was an offer that seemed hard to ignore, or perhaps
family or friends suggested that you take that job. If you really
dislike the situation you're in, you need to leave it as soon as
possible, because the more time that you spend in that job, the greater
is the chance that employers will "type cast" you as being only good
for that field, market or product. Similarly, if you are stuck in a job
in a field or market or technology that is dying out or that is
offering few good opportunities in the place where you want to live,
you need to change jobs before it is too late. It might seem that the
likely move is to go to a headhunter to hear about other opportunities,
but since most search firms are paid by their client companies to find
people currently experienced in the target job, not just people from
other fields desiring to enter that field, you might find that
headhunters cannot be of much help. The solution in that case is to
look for a transition job, which will get you out of your current
situation and toward your new goal, while still capitalizing on your
strengths and current experiences. In these cases, headhunters might be
of valuable assistance, because often their hardest to fill jobs are
for jobs requiring a person with one foot in one field, and one foot in
another.
Remember, always assume that you are competing with candidates who have
done exactly what the employer needs. This isn't always true, but it's
better to assume the worst when you are changing careers. From most
employers' standpoints, no matter how desirous you are of changing
careers and no matter how experienced you are in your departing career,
if you have not done the job required, you are considered an "entry
level" applicant. So if you have been working in engineering at a top
computer company for five years and have a high salary, but you want to
go into sales at a telecom services company, for example, you are
really competing at the level of a person fresh out of school with the
salary requirement that is way out of line for your experience in
sales. An easier approach to entering the sales world from engineering,
for example, is to seek jobs as a sales engineer, applications engineer
or technical marketer. An employer then might really appreciate your
technical training, even if it is in a different field, and they might
like the fact that you want to be with customers in a sales
environment. After a few years in this new role, you might apply
internally for a job in sales, or you might be able to look elsewhere,
now with some relevant sales credentials. By taking these transitional
paths, you can avoid the pitfalls of unemployment or having to take pay
cuts to get toward your goal. Also, by taking gradual steps toward your
goal, you can gain actual exposure to your target career, and you might
actually discover that years ago you made the right choice going into
engineering or going for your Ph.D. And because your move wasn't a
drastic one, it still might be possible to go back to your original
career path, and this time, you might have even more options because
employers often like technical people who are risk takers.
Question 6: With rapidly
changing economic trends, widespread restructuring and job cuts in the
private sectors and an increasingly competitive job market, how could
one stay relevant and competent?
It is
important to always listen to what your colleagues are doing at other
companies in your industry, and to be aware of what might be happening
to them. Sometimes headhunters also can give some insight into industry
trends in your field. It is typical to find oneself submerged in one's
daily work, to the point that is seems that there never is time to chat
with old classmates, to attend industry conferences, professional
organization meetings, or user group meetings, but these
extracurricular gatherings might be the best way to hear specifics
about industry changes that could be affecting your career even if it
isn't obvious at your workplace. You could be working at a small
company or even a large company that appears to have their own unique,
almost insulated, business culture, and your boss could assure you that
"you are a member of the family and will be taken care of." But in
reality, no company, no matter how good or well-funded it is, can
remain aloof forever to world trends in their industry. Your company
might value you tremendously, but even if they wish you the best, your
particular on the job training and exposures might limit you career
opportunities. Remember, most companies view their employees as "parts
of a whole," as a team that together are to produce profits. In this
simple formula, few companies seriously contemplate that by narrowly
defining their employee's daily duties and experiences, they could be
limiting that person's professional growth, and ultimately, creating a
person whose skills could become too narrow, overpriced or outdated.
When many companies decide to lay off such an employee, they usually
only look at their justification for laying off a "square peg for a
square hole" in an increasingly pegless world, rather than examining
their own years of neglect or short sightedness that never gave that
person a chance to adapt to the new work environment.
Even if you love your boss and your boss loves you, you are the captain
of your own career, and it is necessary to not assume that your company
will train you or keep your skills up to date or will pay you what you
are really worth. Try to request that your employer give you new
challenges or assignments that could help you gain valuable experiences
and exposures. Other times you might need certain state of the art
equipment, instruments, or software that might keep your skills
relevant and your marketability high. Further training or university
studies might be valuable to keep skills fresh. In many cases, simply
being around people who know more than you, or whose professional depth
synergizes well with yours, can help keep you at your best. This might
mean asking for a transfer to another department or company
location.
In many cases, however, it simply is difficult to really grow
professionally, and to keep your skills up to date, without taking a
job at another company, sooner or later. In this job
environment, it is difficult for most people to stay more than five
years at any one company. In fact, even if one wanted to stay more than
five years, most companies do not seem to last in their current
configurations for five years. Mergers, acquisitions, product
sell-offs, technology changes, and financial shocks, might suddenly
cause an otherwise happy employee to suddenly be "on the market."
That's precisely why one needs to keep one's skills high. And that's
why it's always a good idea to have your best resume up to date and for
you to be willing to consider superior career opportunities at better
firms even if you have a job. As headhunters will tell you, "The worst
time to look for a new job is when you need a job." But that's another
story.