Comparative Analysis

There’s no doubt of China’s growing importance to the global economy, with a massive domestic market still possessing a lot of growth potential and their manufacturing prowess driving down production costs. While there are huge differences between population sizes, political systems and levels of industrialization, both China and Canada currently have closed domestic telecom industries.

China has legitimate national security issues with letting Western telecom companies play a major role in developing Chinese infrastructure, in addition to the desire to maintain stricter control of communications for political purposes. China seems mostly interested in investment capital and technology transfers from Western companies, with very little strategic input and management control. Canada worries about letting foreign-controlled companies invest to help shield our smaller, domestic companies from larger competitors and for, lesser, cultural protection reasons.

My hope is to continue learning a little bit more about Chinese domestic telecommunication reform and apply that to my understanding of Canada’s telecom landscape.

Spectrum Issues

I remember reading an article during the latest round of spectrum auctions and allocations north and south of the 49th parallel that focused on what having more open spectrum would mean for technological development. WiFi, cordless phones, and Bluetooth devices were examples of technology that was made possible by people taking advantage of unlicensed spectrum. The article noted that these innovative technologies had a strong positive effective but were limited by the fact that the spectrum they used was so limited, with smaller ranges and an inability to penetrate walls.

I’m curious about what the potential economic benefits are of having more unlicensed spectrum and the impact it might have on a more innovative society. What are the limitations to such a system and the technical/safety concerns?

This area is likely to contain the most remedial learning portion of my research areas — I took chemistry in high school, not physics — but I think will play to my interest in startup communities.

Canadian Telecom Policy

Related to the comparative analysis, my intent is to deepen my understanding of domestic telecom issues. Entrance of new cellular companies to the Canadian market. The ongoing battle between broadcasters and cable companies. Potential changes to foreign ownership rules. Copyright issues and net neutrality. Mergers and acquisitions involving big ISPs and telecos. Canada’s global standing in connectivity rankings. And how are all levels of government looking to harness the power of mobile computing and telecommunications to deliver social, political and economic benefits to Canadian citizens.

One of the things that really struck me during my reading was her observation of small players that launched telecommunication services illegally to meet consumer demand. For instance, Internet cafes started offering cheap VOIP for people looking to make long distance calls using their Internet connection. Local officials would look the other way, as prices were falling and customers were able to access services with virtually no waiting period. Eventually the regulator would legalize the technology but generally penalize the company, forcing the incumbent to roll-out the alternative technology.

Something about the whole thing just felt so punk rock when compared to more mature telecom markets, like Canada’s. Although reading this article from IT World Canada on a Mobile Monday Toronto event seemed to say others in Canada may also possess a little bit of punk spirit.

Asking questions after a talk by Globalive chairman Anthony Lacavera, “One person in the audience went so far as to ask Lacavera why, with spectrum licences in hand and a network partly up, he didn’t just defy the CRTC and start selling phones.”

Senior Management
The C-Suite is focused on setting strategic direction, along with establishing waypoints and measuring success. Your search will be more effective if you have clear employment goals, a road map to get you there and are consistently evaluating progress.

Operations
This is the actual job search and applying for positions, along with collecting resources or documentation required for applications. Look for ways that you can increase productivity through email alerts, RSS feeds and other tools so you can spend more time on the things that generate a better return on investment.

Marketing
Covers everything from promotional materials (resumes & cover letters), interactive campaigns (social media) to events (networking). You’ve got to raise your brand awareness to be successful in a crowded labour market and its very crowded these days.

Sales
Needed for closing deals at networking events to land informational and employment interviews. In interviews, you’ll want to identify your prospect’s concerns and counter them effectively. Remember to focus on benefits (what’s in it for the employer) and not the features (no company thinks simply adding more MBAs will grow the bottom line). You’ll also need to embrace your inner-salesperson to help pick up that phone, deal with rejection and be diligent with follow up.

R&D
Skills a little out of date? Workshops, short-term courses, (re)certifications and self-directed learnings can add value to your product, which is you. In some cases — declining industries or personal desire — a more radical investment may be required, such as another diploma or degree.

Finance
Evaluating your financial position is important, as  you want to make informed decisions about your options. Do you have enough savings to look for a job you want or are bills piling up and you need to find a survival job immediately? Reviewing your expenses, can you reduce your burn rate to give yourself more options? If you need to take some training or look at buying new tools, software or other items for a new job, do you have the savings necessary or have ideas to access funding through credit or perhaps training grants?

Human Resources
Searching for work, especially in a recessed economy, can get discouraging at times, so make sure you’re keeping up morale.  Small rewards for hitting milestones, relationship building with your personal network and talking with a career coach or mentor can be helpful in developing a career plan. It’s also important to maintain a strong (looking for) work/life balance with friends and family, as relationships can become strained or ignored due to financial hardships or negative feelings around loss of employment.

Over on Bloomberg, Morgan Stanley wants to take downgraded collateralized debt obligations (gambles they made and lost on), backed by leveraged loans (possible, in part, through capital injections by US taxpayers), and repackage the CDO into new securities with AAA ratings. Isn’t this how the financial crisis began in the first place? Taking incredibly risky assets (sub-prime mortgages) and repackaging them as AAA investments? The article notes, “Moody’s reduced the $365 million top-ranked portion of Greywolf in June by six levels to A3 from Aaa as the default rate on the loans in the CDO rose to 7 percent.” Seeing as Morgan Stanley is repackaging a Greywold CDO, this doesn’t speak well to me about a AAA rating.

What’s more worrying to me is that, “While the Morgan Stanley deal is the first to involve CDOs of loans, banks have been doing the same with commercial mortgage-backed securities in recent weeks.” Defaults on US commercial property loans are climbing. How can you spin off two thirds of an offering as AAA even with the other third the second lowest ratings?!

In a somewhat related vein, Michael Lewis has an interesting piece on that looks into how A.I.G. Financial Products, one of the epicentres of the Great Recession, “whose financial ineptitude is widely suspected of costing the U.S. taxpayer $182.5 billion and counting”. It caught my attention because of the name Jake DeSantis, he of NYT resignation letter infamy.

Typically, these countries are in a desperate economic situation for one simple reason—the powerful elites within them overreached in good times and took too many risks. Emerging-market governments and their private-sector allies commonly form a tight-knit—and, most of the time, genteel—oligarchy, running the country rather like a profit-seeking company in which they are the controlling shareholders. When a country like Indonesia or South Korea or Russia grows, so do the ambitions of its captains of industry. As masters of their mini-universe, these people make some investments that clearly benefit the broader economy, but they also start making bigger and riskier bets. They reckon—correctly, in most cases—that their political connections will allow them to push onto the government any substantial problems that arise.

Because these elites have so much influence over the political institutions that theoretically govern and regulate them, the oligarchs are able to successfully prevent meaningful reforms and instead transfer losses onto the state and citizens.

Squeezing the oligarchs, though, is seldom the strategy of choice among emerging-market governments. Quite the contrary: at the outset of the crisis, the oligarchs are usually among the first to get extra help from the government, such as preferential access to foreign currency, or maybe a nice tax break, or—here’s a classic Kremlin bailout technique—the assumption of private debt obligations by the government. Under duress, generosity toward old friends takes many innovative forms. Meanwhile, needing to squeeze someone, most emerging-market governments look first to ordinary working folk—at least until the riots grow too large.

It’s a great non-partisan article and certainly paints Wall Street in an unfavourable light. Why it resonated so much with me is shortly before I read it, I had been reading Money For Nothing, an article on Forbes by Glenn Harlan Reynolds of Instapundit fame.

Reynolds argues that current Wall Street political donators might want to reconsider where their financial contributions are headed because of the backlash surrounding the AIG bonus fiasco.

If these donations had been given out of love and admiration, Wall Street donors would have reason to feel jilted. But if–as is generally the case with political donations–they were more in the order of protection money, then Wall Street donors may instead feel duped. They might want to ask themselves what protection, exactly, they got for their investment.

…

Perhaps folks in the financial industry should tell them no and consider donating to candidates who believe in free markets–and who possess a bit of backbone–instead. If incumbents’ offers of “protection” are illusory, you might as well support people who believe in what you do. A Congress with a sense of decency and a respect for markets would be better protection than the questionable gratitude of politicos anyway.

Now I agree with Reynolds when he says that a lot of political elites are pandering to the electorate with their attacks on Wall Street and conveniently forgetting the role government and regulators played, or lack thereof. But I don’t think the answer is making sure that politicians who are bought, stay bought.

Perhaps the answer is to limit the overwhleming influence that the financial elites have over political institutions and strengthening democratic institutions so the US can prevent the riots from getting too large.

I currently have two mentors that pull double duty, as I knew them personally before I worked for them professionally. The relationship that developed was quite organic and moved through several phases before it’s current state. Recently though, I gained a new mentor through the Business Mentoring for the Arts program and have attempted to build the relationship in a much more structured and self-aware manner.

Having someone that wants to help with your development but isn’t already personally invested is a great opportunity. Working with my mentor, I’ve been a lot more effective at carrying out my career exploration as I have someone to be accountable to for the tasks I set for myself. She’s also been helpful in managing my own expectations, especially vital when you have so many competing priorities for attention and an overwhelming desire to deliver outstanding work in all areas.

My current month’s mentorship goal is to identify potential candidates for informational interviews for four self-selected careers: policy analyst, public relations, local government, and career development. Through taking with people doing things that interest me, I’ll hopefully get a better idea where I’m going to be the most successful and happy. Coming out of our last session, we identified the need to be challenged and have an opportunity to grow as being the most important aspects of a job for me, so I’ll have to tailor my questions around answering that.

Once I’ve made contact and set up interviews, I’m going to be keeping some of Penelope Trunk advice at hand. I’ve really benefited from her article, “How I Got My Current Favorite Mentor“, which has already helped give me some ideas about the role of a mentee and will I think add another component to the informational interviews — the chance to interview for new potential mentors.

All this studying of mentorship roles should really come in handy when I become a mentor for the next BMA group. Delivering a workshop on my area of expertise, I think it’s clear I’ll be able to help out a mentee with making the transition from school life to career life. And if I need to, I can always ask a mentor for advice.

You can often find what the market will pay by looking at similar job postings for in your area or checking out salary guides like Salary Expert or Monster’s salary guide. This should give you a rough band of wages that they’ll offer and you’ll be able to get an idea of how good the offer is. Go through your costs and figure out what your ideal wage is, what you’re expecting for, and what you’re willing to take. These 3 numbers should create your negotiating band and you should have a rough idea of what they translate to in appropriate measurements — per annum, monthly, hourly, etc.

Also, try to think of what non-salary things you’re willing to accept if they have a strict pay structure — things like extra vacation time, better health care, paid training/ education vouchers, flextime scheduling, etc. Another item could be accepting a lower starting wage but having faster scheduled increases, either benchmarked to time or targets. Make sure that these are in your contract when you sign, as performance reviews always seem to slip on the importance scale for busy managers. The more prepared you are, the better your bargaining position.

If you’re going to bring it up, first make sure you’ve talked about the position and what the duties are and what you’ll excel at — you don’t want to position yourself as only being there for the pay cheque. But at the end of the meeting, if it hasn’t been brought up then it’s okay. Try to place it in the larger context of the job, “So now that I have a better idea of what you see as the job deliverables and feel comfortable about my ability to really add value to COMPANY XYZ, perhaps we should discuss the compensation package.”

It’s generally better to have the other person bring up a number first but if you have to, always start with your ideal or perhaps a bit above and give it as a band. Refer to the fact that your market research suggests $XX,000 – $XX,000 is the industry standard to improve your position.

When negotiating, remember to focus on the value you add. “Based on my past success at reducing costs over 300k for COMPANY XYZ, I feel that $XX,000 – $XX,000 is a good number.” Be honest, both with the company and yourself, and you should do fine.

Having worked in employment services for a number of years, I see a lot of clients that really dislike the job search process. They simply throw a few broad skills and recent employment history on a resume and think that’s going to cut it.  A year ago when just being a healthy body and having a willingness to show up was enough to get you a job, that might have been fine. But in today’s climate it shows up for what it is — you’re hoping the employer will do your job search for you.

If you’re looking for work in kind of related fields, say automotive repair and general handyman, as well as anything that will pay the bills, then you should have three resumes.  While a mechanical aptitude may be a skill that you list on all three, knowing how to fix a transmission is probably not important to an employer who’s looking for someone to do small plumbing repair jobs in an apartment complex. Knowing how to do maintenance on various landscaping equipment probably doesn’t help the employer desperate for a new brake technician.

What’s worse are those resumes that make things really general, like listing a skill as a vague “Automotive Repair”. The thinking behind this is “I can do it all and if I put something specific, it might limit me.” But that’s not what this tells employers, it actually says, “I’m not sure how I can help you but I need a job.” Employers aren’t looking to give you a job, even if they’ve posted a job ad. They’re looking for someone to help solve their problem, whether this is to sell more dental equipment to dentists, quickly ring through customers at the supermarket or handle the overflow of repairs coming in as customers decide their old jalopy can last another year. You need to be telling employers how you can solve those problems and do it well.

Finally, some job seekers say, “I don’t want to write three resumes. I don’t like computers and it takes me forever to do just one. Besides, when I get an interview than I can tell them all that stuff.” But, of course, getting that interview becomes less likely if when looking at a resume an employer doesn’t know how you’ll best help them.

And not wanting to spend the admittedly hours it takes to write a good resume means, “My time is more important than yours and you should just give me a job.” The average employee costs about $150,000 to hire, once you count wages, training, overhead and lost productivity.

That bare bones resume that you feel is “good enough” has got to compete against a whole lot more candidates in this economic climate. I’m not saying you won’t get hired with it and there’s no guarantee that an excellent resume will land you the position. But if you’ve sent out a ton of resumes and you’re not getting the response you want, try taking a look at the message you’re sending.