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A lot of people all over Asia are very interested in getting a good job at a Western company. There is a lot of competition to get good jobs at these companies. Unfortunately for many people, they have no idea what is important in getting these kinds of jobs. I live in Shanghai and hear people talking about this all the time. They are so worried about their educational credits like passing CET or other well-known English tests. They are concerned that the university they went to isn’t good enough. Education and tests might be important for many of these jobs, especially if you are just sending in a resume. However, there are many other things that may be even more important that are often overlooked. For example, when a westerner chooses a suitable person for a job, they are looking for someone they can trust, who they can communicate with without major problems, a person they believe is capable of learning new things, and a person who is capable of dealing with things and thinking about things in a Western way. When they interview or talk to a person, they are already judging what kind of person they are, how good their English level is, and if they think you can understand their way of thinking. For example, when I talk to someone, I will automatically evaluate their English level and communication skill. I really don’t care what tests you have or haven’t passed. I know what your English level is from talking to you. It doesn’t matter what tests you say you have. I also will evaluate how capable I think you would be working in a western environment based on our conversation, not based on which university you went to or anything else.

Building trust is a hugely important thing, especially when dealing with different cultures. The boss needs to trust his or her employees. There are so many differences in Western and Eastern cultures. In Western culture, it’s extremely important to admit your mistakes. It’s normal to make some mistakes when you are working. The boss wants to see that you will learn from the mistake and won’t make it again in the future. If you don’t admit the mistake, or make excuses, the boss will see you as a liar, or a person who doesn’t understand why it was a mistake. They will be afraid you will hide other things or make the same mistake in the future. You must apologize for your mistakes and work on correcting them. Making a mistake is not a big deal. On the other hand, hiding a mistake is a huge deal.

I come across this all time in my daily life in China. Yesterday I went to buy a DVD. I called the store first to see if they had the DVD and they said they did. Then when I got there they didn’t have it. The woman in the store wasn’t the person I spoke with on the phone so she didn’t really know what happened. I told her my story about calling for the DVD and how the person said they had it. She told me “impossible”. She said that maybe I didn’t speak clearly on the phone. Or maybe I didn’t say the name of the movie clearly. This is interesting because of course she doesn’t know the truth. She wasn’t on the phone with me. She was only guessing. I am 100% sure that I said the name of the movie clearly. I think that the person on the phone didn’t really check to see if they had it and just thought they did. Basically this woman tried to make me feel that it was my mistake and not the mistake of the store. In western culture, this woman should have apologized to me on behalf of the store. She should have said something like, “Oh, I’m so sorry you had to come all the way down here for this. Please give me your phone number and I’ll call you as soon as the movie comes in. I’ll make sure this won’t happen again. Again, I’m really sorry about this.” Instead, the woman tried to make me feel it was my fault. This made me even angrier than them not having the movie. I would have been ok with an apology. Instead I decided I would never go to that store again. This is the way of thinking of Western culture in this situation.

I’ll try to think of some more examples and situations for how Westerners think and would handle a situation. The better you are at understanding this, the more job opportunities you will have.
Please share your comments.

Andrew

Business English East West Cultural Differences

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 1st, 2007 at 5:40 am and is filed under Business English, East-West Cultural Differences. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.