International Business Practices
Hi all,
I hope this midweek post finds you well. One really rewarding thing about working at APT has been its growing international presence. I’m yet to take advantage of this by visiting any of our offices in other countries, but I have gotten to interact with people in these offices online and in person. Today I’ll start by passing along some interesting stories I’ve heard from them.
First, we have India. Our office is in Gurgaon, a city just outside of New Delhi. The head of our data team, who would typically be named a lead/principal/senior database analyst in America but is simply named “Leader” in India, was visiting our office and told us stories about, among other things, campus recruiting in India.
For starters, the candidates know much more about the jobs they are applying to before they interview. Salary, benefits, etc. are provided for all positions that the companies at the career fair are hiring for. At the specific university he was telling us about, the career fair is 3 days. It’s not really a career fair, though, it’s just actual interviews. Companies offer interviews to candidates, who then accept or deny the interview. A company will interview any number of candidates, but we’ll say 10. After they are finished interviewing all 10 of them, the candidates all sit in a waiting room while the company deliberates very briefly. Someone from the company will come out to the waiting room and point at however many people they want to hire and essentially say, “you got an offer, are you taking it?” and the candidate has to answer on the spot. If the candidate turns the offer down, the recruiter can choose to offer a job to one of the candidates they initially did not give an offer to.
It follows that once a candidate accepts a job, he or she must withdraw from the recruiting process for all other companies. This structure means that the earlier slots are very coveted, and companies must pay the university more and more the earlier they want their slot to be.
Recently we had someone that has been working in the Tokyo office for the last 6 months visit. He told us a few interesting nuggets about business culture in Japan. First, the greeting. The first time he went into a meeting, he reached out for a handshake. That’s a no-no. The customary greeting is to pull out a greeting card, turn it so that the person in front of you can read it, hold it with both hands, and give a slight bow while greeting him or her and giving your name. You them exchange business cards and put it in your business card holder. The first people to do this are the most senior people from each party, who then meet the remaining people from the other company in order of seniority.
After exchanging business cards, everyone sits down. There is a very specific way the people will sit down. The most senior person from the visiting company sits on the seat furthest from the door (this is probably right next to the screen, if there is one). The remaining people from the visiting company will sit on the side of the table opposite the door, in order of seniority such that the least senior person from the visiting company is sitting facing the door but at the end of the table closest to the door. The hosting company sits with their back to the door, but in the same order of seniority. The most senior person from the hosting company, who is sitting right next to the screen and across from the most senior person from the visiting company, is welcome to sleep during the meeting if he or she wants to. Their presence is already blessing the meeting, and they don’t need to engage past that if they don’t want to.
This meeting is probably happening at a random time, because punctuality isn’t really a thing. I feel like everyone always thinks their people are the latest. Everywhere I go I hear “they’re on Berkeley time” (referring to Cal students), “they’re on Africa time” (heard this constantly in Durban, South Africa), “that’s just the south” (everywhere in the south). From what I’ve heard, Japan takes it to the next level. The APT employee that was visiting described a scheduled meeting as “a reminder that we should have a meeting at some point today.” 45 minutes late is no biggie. This was confusing to me because it seems to not work well with the strong preference that they have for in-person meetings instead of emails or phone calls.
The last interesting thing he mentioned was how the Japanese view contracts. The way he described it, it sounds like contracts are much looser in Japan. Sometimes, businesses will do a substantial amount of business without even having a contract in place, something that would probably never happen in America. He said that insisting on a contract can give an impression of distrust. Their thought is that if we are doing business, we trust each other and we don’t need a contract to work together. Bringing up specifics in a contract can make them really uneasy and even insulted.
All of this is secondhand, so I wanted to do a quick cross reference on the ever-reliable interwebs. I quickly found a blurb about the business card thing in Japan, so everything else on the page must be legit. Here are a few nuggets to end the post:
- In Russia, Russians expect Americans to be exactly on time but will be late on purpose to test the patience of the Americans.
- In China, Americans are expected to bring gifts and insist on the other party accepting it even after it is denied up to 3 times.
- In Brazil, people stand very close to each other while talking and can only step away at the risk of being disrespectful.
- In the UAE, left hands are considered dirty and should not be used to pass materials or do anything other than type.
- In the UK, if you are about to mention something that should be kept on the DL, someone may tap their nose to tell you to slow your roll.
I hope you all have the opportunity to employ this knowledge in your future international endeavors.
Best,
Brian
