This chapter shows you how to find those target companies. By combining the research steps presented here with the knowledge you gather through interviews and-phone calls, you will be able to discover the expanding industries, those with varied employment opportunities.
To Identify the fastest-growing companies in that industry to Connect book-oriented, library research with people-centered, less structured research to target the company you want and to pinpoint the job you want.
The examples presented in the-following pages-highlight high-technology companies and industries. Countless articles have been written about how these companies are changing the face of the economy and therefore the job market. Although high-tech companies should be viewed as a good bet for employment, the same research techniques illustrated in this chapter apply to other types of industries as well.
Use these techniques to gather information about more than one industry.
Then compare overall job and travel opportunities across industries. Your goal is to find jobs with travel opportunities and then adjust the marketing of yourself and your job skills to get that job.
Target companies
If you are still in school or working for target company, or don't have the skills necessary as yet, these are the companies you are aiming for. If you have a goal, you will never be marking time. Educationally and professionally, you will be progressing toward-a traveling job with a target company. You will be preparing yourself for that time when you move with ease in worlds excitingly different from the one you now know.
Choosing your industry
Know one very important fact. Not all companies with international markets are prime candidates for global travel opportunities. You don't want to just graze the target; you want to hit the bull's eye. Choose your industry carefully. Like many terms used in the business press, "industry" is used in many contexts. Loosely defined it is an effort to make a profit by employing the skills of hired workers and the investment of capital within a distinct arena of activity or clarification, let's consider the electronics industry.
The electronics industry is composed of companies that manufacture such diverse products as semiconductors, software, microwave antennas, television sets, data communications systems, and digital watches. These products seem unrelated, but are linked by a common concern to discover the electrical properties of a variety of manufactured materials.
Companies within an industry produce products for different markets. For instance, one segment of the electronics industry addresses the consumer marketplace and produces televisions, stereos, microwave ovens, watches, and telephone answering devices. In this market, one individual or a small number of people use these products.
In contrast to the communications, market place engages another segment of the industry. Products such as television broadcast equipment, voice and data communications systems, pocket pagers, and digital microwave transmission systems are made for this market. These products are used by large numbers of people.
Not only are the products diverse, but potential buyers for these products over-lap as well. For example, a television station engineer acting as a buyer for the station might purchase new broadcast equipment. That same engineer acting as an individual consumer might also purchase a digital watch. Both are products of the electronics industry. Taking a job in the "correct" industry is therefore not enough.
To make matters more complex, many companies, no matter what the product, often distinguish between the government marketplace and the commercial marketplace. This distinction means that companies tailor individual marketing strategies to match the different purchasing methods of their customers.
Incidentally, companies for which the federal government is a major customer may offer more opportunities to travel than those that do not. This is because the military services, which have many overseas bases, form part of the federal government marketplace. In addition, products purchased by our government are sometimes offered to other countries. Some companies that address this segment produce weaponry or weaponry-related products, but not all. If you have personal reservations about weaponry or know you have difficulty working with military conventions and personalities, look elsewhere. All parties involved, your employer, the customer, but especially you, will be more satisfied.
Opportunities for travel, then, depend upon a company's industry, its products, its growth and the way the markets are addressed. In addition, many large companies have divisions or subsidiaries that addressed market separately. Imagine your frustration when you pick the right company but sign up with the wrong division. Learning these distinctions within each industry and their effect on the companies that interest you makes it easier to target those that warrant further investigation.
Understanding Where to Work Within Companies
If you are beginning to feel that this recommended research is a poor substitute for actually getting a job, let us use the following scenario to further illustrate our point. You've completed a final round of interviews with the firm Consolidated Electronics Products, Inc. and so impressed them that you're not only offered a job, but also the option of starting in either the consumer products division or the communications systems division. Which do you choose?
To help you decide, let us list some facts similar to those you might have encountered as you researched for your interview.
- The communications market (in this case the total dollar amount of equipment purchased by customers) is expected to grow by more than 15 percent each year through 1989.
- The consumer market is predicted to grow less than 5 percent each year throughout the same period.
The experience of Joy Mullett, one of the authors, illustrates this phenomenon. Joy sought employment as a writer with an expanding division of a well-known telecommunications company. In the interim between her first interview and the time she actually signed employment papers a period of a few weeks several things happened behind the scenes.
The company decided that a single writer was not enough. They determined that an entire writing department was needed, and this presented a problem. No one was available on the staff to start this department because they were all committed to other projects. In an almost offhand manner, Joy, a new employee, found she offered an opportunity greater than the one for which she had applied.
She started as a manager and began hiring writers to work for her. Eight months later, when the department was staffed and was functioning smoothly, she was asked to hand it to another manager. Her now recognized skills were required to start yet another department. The payoff included travel to every major city in the U.S. and Canada and several trips to the Far East.
Systems
As you ponder the pros and cons of consolidating two divisions, another fact should weigh heavily in your deliberations, systems rather than individual products, provide the most opportunities for travel.
If you have any doubts, consider the millions of television sets sitting in homes around the world. The television set, an individual consumer product, is manufactured at one location and shipped to another for sale. The customer goes to the sales outlet, buys the set, and takes it home. The only one who has traveled is the customer.
On the other hand, communications systems, such as telephone systems designed for universities, require a team of specialists to install. The specialists, all carrying out their specific job responsibilities, travel to the customer's campus to install and test the system. Some physically assemble the hardware while others install and test the software. Still others train a variety of university employees on different aspects of the system. Telephone operators are trained on the new equipment. Campus employees must be taught how to use the new features available on their telephones. In order to respond to requests for new telephone service, directory information, etc., telephone department administrators must learn yet a third aspect of the new system. All this work has to be done on the campus, which means if you're a member of the specialist team, you have plenty of opportunities to travel.
The purchasers of large systems include not only universities but also corporations and other organizations such as local and state governments and sometimes even an entire nation. They all purchase systems for telephones, computing, word processing, and electronic office mail, to name a few. The many companies that market any of these systems would be worth investigating.
Don't be misled, though, into thinking that the only type of system is one associated with a computer. Look for companies with a systematized approach to manufacturing and installing their products. For example, you would ask a manufacturer of pre-fabricated housing the following questions:
- Where are the individual segments of the house manufactured?
- If some segments are manufactured overseas, who trains the workers?
- How do the housing segments reach their final destination?
- How is the product sold? Through company-owned subsidiaries or through independent distributors?
- Who trains the distributors or the overseas subsidiaries how to erect the house?
- Who informs the distributors or subsidiaries of new products, and how is it done? Through brochures? Trade shows? Demonstrations?
Another example is a company with a growing organization of convenience stores. Although the franchises are located all over the United States and are making inroads overseas, the company's systematized approach to operating a convenience store is uniformly applied. Except for differences in local ordinances, the procedures followed for inventory, stocking, and accounting are the same. A store manager in New Jersey could just as easily manage a store in Houston. As a result, former store managers now staff the international division and spend a great deal of time in other countries, where they teach others this systematized manner of doing business.
Other types of companies
By way of contrast, let us look at a type of company involved in international business that despite its solid reputation does not employ many PTs because of the nature of its products.
A large cosmetics firm has been a highly profitable company for many years. It currently does business in three countries besides the United States, which is its major market. Although the company shipped many products to Canada, Argentina, and Australia last year, less than 2 percent of the company's employees travel regularly because the nature of the product does not require a team of specialists. A single specialist may demonstrate the products to others, who then pass the information to other sales personnel and customers. Although this company is active in the international marketplace, the average employee has few travel opportunities.
In contrast, almost 30 percent of the employees of a telecommunications systems company of the same size travel on a regular basis.
Let's return to your decision. In which division of Consolidated will you start your career? With your new-found knowledge you now realize that for the would-be PT, system is the magic word. You would not choose the Consumer Products Division, but the Communications Systems Division.
Research
You were able to make this very important decision; secure in your belief you were following your career path, because you researched the industry, the company, and the Divisions of that company. The time spent in research now will pay off in job satisfaction over the length of your entire career. Knowing you want to travel, you must spend the time now to direct your career. You are the only one interested enough in your career to do it.
The following step-by-step procedure will prove helpful. It may seem overly specific, but lays the groundwork on which you may want to expand after reading the books listed in the last chapter.
Where to look
If you live in a large metropolitan community or near a large university, you have an advantage. Your company may also have a library, and you have access to valuable information that way. What is not available from local sources can be borrowed through an inter-library loan arrangement from other libraries around the country. Ask your librarian about this.
Start with a municipal library.
- Find the business section.
- Look for The Standard Industrial Classification Manual published by the United States government. This book gives a standard industrial classification (SIC) number to every kind of manufactured product, and each of these numbers leads to interesting information about companies you may wish to research.
- In the Manual, peruse the table of contents.
- Since one heading, manufacturing looks interesting, let's turn to that. This section lists the products manufactured in the U.S.
- Sticking with the communications industry, we look at SIC 3661, Telephone and Telegraph Apparatus. Reading through this list of products we find PBXs (Private Branch Exchanges, i.e., telephone systems owned by those who use them, not by the phone company), telephones, and carrier equipment, etc. These products are mainly sold to commercial customers and involve comparatively few but large installations across the nation.
- Let's look further at SIC 3662, Radio and Television, Transmission, signaling and Detection Equipment and Apparatus. This category includes mobile communications systems, antennas, air traffic control systems, electronic control detection, and communications systems.
- These types of products are sold more often to the U.S. government and to foreign governments. Again, there can be an overlap between products and markets.
- Armed with the SIC number, go now to Principal International Businesses, a Dun and Bradstreet publication. To be listed in this reference volume, a company must have a large sales volume, national prominence, and prompt international interest in terms of trading activities with foreign companies and governments.
- Turn in on the second section which lists business try product classification, the now familiar SIC code.
- Under 3661, we find the names and addresses of twenty-seven U.S. companies.
- Under SIC 3662 are found almost 120 companies, including IBM.
- Copy the address of companies that interest you and immediately write to request a copy of their annual reports. These will list all their, manufacturing locations.
- If your library is well-stocked, many of these annual reports will be on file or on microfilm. Read these before writing to the companies,
- Then you can request information about specific products as well as the most recent annual report.
- If the home office of any of the listed companies is located in your home town, you probably know about them because of their impact on the local economy, and then request information directly from these offices.
- If not, you must find any branch offices or locations of company division in your own town.
- Search through the phone book for local divisions of your target companies.
- Call the local division or sales office and get the name of the person in charge.
- Request an interview. You want to learn enough about the company, its products, and its organization to determine if this is a target company. Do not be shy about requesting this information, and make your questions as specific as possible. Most people are interested in their jobs and companies, and enjoy talking about them if they have time. Make sure if is convenient for the person you're calling to speak with you. (See books like those reviewed in chapter 8 for telephone and interviewing techniques that will help you gather the information you need.)
- Ask anyone you call in the company how to apply for jobs, and follow their instructions, get the number of people you may contact, not only in this company, but also in other companies with similar businesses.
- Continue to sharpen your job-hunting skills through continued reading and talking with other successful job hunters. Never assume that you aren't offered a job because of a personal failing on your part. Companies change their priorities; you must maintain contact so that you'll be available when yours and theirs coincide.
A second division of the same company sells test equipment, products used to determine the voice-carrying characteristics of communications lines between telephone users. These products are sold and distributed through regional sales offices. There may be several customers in a region, and few people are needed to support the product in each region. So they may travel within their region but not beyond it.
Other sources
There are many places to look for information about companies that interest you. If you investigate them your questions during interviews will be more informed, and you will have a greater knowledge of the vocabulary of the business. We've cited specific reference books in our example. Don't be discouraged if your library does not have these volumes. In most cases, comparable sources of information exist. Ask your librarian to help locate them.
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Your library probably has a Business Periodical Index, which lists recent articles that have appeared in business magazines and newspapers. Check this index for addressing topics concerning companies you are investigating. Look for articles about companies in direct competition with your target company; an article written about one company often must address that company's competitive situation in order to depict the total situation. You accumulate useful bits of information this way.
The most recent issue of Moody's Industrial Manual supplies a history of a company and a summary of its financial standing and performance. Organized alphabetically, these manual rates securities for investment qualities by Moody's Investors Service, which may also be of interest to you. Tffha* fj^g '"fprps<- ftl? Job hunter is a company's subsidiaries, listed by their different names. If the names differ from the parent company's, check the phone book for local offices.
Finding the trades
Now that you have identified your target companies and have gathered information about them, it's time to investigate the trade journals. Every industry has magazines devoted to the interests of those who work in it. In a well-stocked library the number of trade magazines can be overwhelming. How do you locate the journals that provide information about your target companies?
Encyclopedia of Business Information groups sources business information, by ingus^y rpmps. recent books, directories, manuals, and periodicals, known as "the trades”.
Don't hesitate to look at related industries. Although librarians and index publishers are great sources of information, they are not always able to integrate new information about changing industries within a time frame suitable to the job seeker. In many areas technology forces industries to converge. The telephone and computer industries are good examples. The Encyclopedia lists data processing periodicals under the computer heading, but does not mention telephone-related periodicals even though new telephone systems are computer driven. A single trade journal with valuable information about both industries is found under yet a third category, electronics. Be, flpyihlp^and curious enough to explore oyfrlfipppg in^"cfrioc
Once you find your target company or companies, and have a basic understanding of its products, the trades are the most regular source or valuable information. These journals, usually in magazine format, obtain information about overall market characteristics and potential, new product introductions, reactions of the market place to a new product, reorganization notices, and frequently the names of people who have been promoted within the company, people who might provide information or might hire you. If you're not sure wforh piihlirafipnfi apply for the industry you've targeted, ask your librarian.
Ask other people. The best source of information, however, is peopled Teresa Felicetti was referred by the friend of a friend to the manager who hired her. Once the contact was made, Teresa had to get the job, but the contact was all important. Jeannie Cowley was referred to her hiring manager by a good friend of her uncle. Your friends and relatives are your most valuable resource.
The people who work at the company or within the industry you are researching belong to professional associations such as the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). There is a good chance that local chapters exist in your city and that they hold regularly scheduled meetings where topics of interest to the members are presented. Ask for the names of appropriate person in the association.
Attend a few of these meetings as an interested guest. You do not have formal training in the discipline of the association's members, some presentations may go over your head but you will learn more about the products, industry and technology. You'll also meet people who work or have worked for your target companies. Present and past employees know the internal organization of companies and may be willing to supply the names of managers who hire traveling employees. Take advantage of their knowledge and use it to arrange interviews. (Be sure to follow up on any suggestions to contact someone in the personnel office, but don't hope for much. Generally, personnel people cannot hire and cannot answer specific questions about the company's products or its position within the industry.)
With all the information gleaned from SICs, annual reports, articles, trade journals, and personal contacts, you will approach the interviews you have arranged armed with an important weapon, the extreme purposefulness and hard-earned knowledge of a job seeker with a mission. Taken now, these steps constitute a take-control technique you can use many times in a career as a PT.
TOURIST AT HEART- Lisa Hooten
The most apt description for Lisa is "career tourist." As she openly admits, "I'm a tourist at heart, and traveling for my job as a technical sales engineer fulfills a lifelong fantasy. I was born and raised in Greenville, Texas, twenty minutes outside of Dallas. I've lived all my life in Texas literally. Ever since I was two I've wanted to go somewhere, and I never got a chance till I was twenty-one years old and went on my first business trip.
"As I was growing up, vacation time meant getting in the car and driving for half an hour to the lake, or to Austin. My goal when I took my first job in the telephone industry was to travel to every large city in the United States and do everything that a tourist could do. So far, I have been to most major cities. I've been to Chicago and toured its museums; I've ridden on a riverboat down the Mississippi. I've walked Sunset and Vine in Hollywood; I've visited the Bay Area and explored San Francisco. I've gone skiing in Colorado, bar-hopped the jazz clubs of St. Louis, and seen almost every play on Broadway. (If you don't eat, you can go to some pretty nice plays!)
"My job allows me to have nights and weekends free, which makes all of this possible. Before I leave on a trip, I make a list of all the places I want to see, and I try to be in a large city on each major holiday. I was in Manhattan on Halloween, in Chicago on St. Patrick's Day (which was fabulous because we went to an Irish bar in the heart of the city), and this year I hope to be in Times Square on New Year's Eve."
Finding companions for her adventures is never a problem for Lisa. "If I'm on a trip alone, I make it a point to ask at the desk about tours. The riverboat junket was like that-they offered dinner and a floor show. I've also found that if you go places and act like a tourist, you discover the other singles who are there. A lot of times, when I'm either reading or looking at something, somebody will come up and start talking to me. Quite often they're elderly ladies or other business women."
She's meeting more and more women on the road. "I'm beginning to think that women are getting out more than ever before, and traveling in what used to be predominantly a salesman's position. Most of them seem to be employed in a sales or marketing position within a technology such as the computer or telephone industry.
"For instance, I was on a bus coming from the Chicago airport when I noticed a girl acting very nervously. I could tell she was upset, so I walked over to sit by her. I found that she worked for another company doing much the same thing I did-traveling to customer sites and demonstrating equipment. Who knows, it may have been her first time out of town and she was nervous. I should have told her about my first business trip!
"I had to go to Newark, New Jersey, to demonstrate a switch my company had installed. I had to fly for the first time by myself, and I was scared to death. My whole family took me to the airport. All I could think about was arriving at Newark and having to rent a car for the first time and drive to the customer's site. As it turned out, I went to the rent-a-car place, picked up my car, and I don't even remember getting there. I was in shock the whole time. It wasn't until I was sitting on the bed in my hotel room that evening that I realized I had completed my first business contact on my own.
"The next day I had the training room set up to demonstrate the telephone switch. Everything was ready to go and the managers were in their seats, ready to take notes on the new system. That is when I discovered the system had died! There wasn't a dial tone to be heard in the place. I had to 'demo' a dead system. If that happened to me today, I don't know how I would handle it. Now that I know the ropes a little better, I wouldn't take it as seriously as I did then. But at the time, I'd just flown by myself for the first time, just gone through the car rental process for the first time, and my first live demonstration had died on its feet.
"I'm now a sales engineer. My responsibility is technical support for salesmen, whom we call account executives or AEs, and our product line includes voice and data communications products. My job is to go out with a sales person, do a sales presentation, and answer any technical questions that come up. I receive training for my job through the company, but it helps if you have a background in voice and data communications. I started as a PBX installer, and moved into marketing. My company trained me. I have received expensive training in both sales and hardware.
"I work for the Federal Government Division, and I don't do anything except government bids. This means I get to travel the entire United States at least two weeks out of every month. I visit government sites, most of which are located in major cities like Chicago, New York, Atlanta, and San Francisco.
"Because of the work I do, I can't procrastinate. I have to attend to each detail as it comes up. Procrastination might lose me a sale or cost me money. For example, one time when we were going to a military site, I wrote a note to myself to join their military club. I thought to myself before I left, 'Now, Lisa, be sure to remember to bring your initiation fee and application form.' I'd already filled it out, but the next morning I forgot to bring it. When I arrived on site the technical specialists, who were all members of the Signal Corps, went to their club for an important dinner. Because I wasn't a member of the club, I wasn't invited. I could have filed the application that morning but I didn't. And I missed some business contacts that I'll probably never see again."
Lisa has had very satisfying experiences, though, ones that do her credit. One project in particular, working with the manager of telecommunications at the University of Chicago, demonstrated her abilities. "When I walked into the University of Chicago (for my former company) I was a technical person in operations. My job title was trainer, but in truth I was a customer representative. I had to sift through matters that came up in order to make sure they were legitimate complaints, and then handle as many as I could on the site. I wasn't troubleshooting the hardware, I was involved in customer interface."
She was twenty-three years old at the time, but established a good rapport with the telecommunications manager. Lisa explained to her that she could help because she not only knew the technical side of the switches, but also understood the "user" problems the manager was having. "I told her I was there for her benefit; to do anything I could to help her in the implementation of the switch. She was very gracious to me. As it turned out, she spoke to me about a job working with the university."
This raises the matter of job offers. As Lisa points out, "Every time you go to a job site, you expand your horizons. You never know who you might meet. You contact colleagues who might help you in the future. Networking is not a joke. In fact, I used to kid about it and say I wasn't political. But everybody is whether they admit it or not."
Lisa's first jobs did not pay exceptionally well, but they led to a job that did. "Even when people were telling me I wasn't making enough money to make it worth my while, when I sat down and figured out all the subtle side benefits, I had to disagree. If I'd made just enough to live on, it would still have been more than worthwhile. The cost of my travels, if I'd had to pay for them myself, would have made them impossible. And I was enjoying my work."
Lisa's style at work is that of a "dominant" person, in her own words. "I have to decide which of two attitudes I'm going to take into different situations. I'm young for a female on the road or for any management position and most of the time in my dealings with directors and decision makers, I'm approaching them from the lowest rung on the ladder. I have to either go in with the attitude that I'm going to control the situation and we're going to work together, or I can let them tell me what to do. The latter attitude-that of starting the initial visit with 'you tell me what you want is great when you're working from a sales position. But after the sale, if you're trying to get a project completed, you find that it never works. So I have two personalities depending upon what I'm doing at the time. I feel that a lot of people in business, and especially men, recognize this as a business attitude, and respect me for it.
"A lot of women, and I mean grown women who have a great deal of business experience, act like they're little girls. As a woman you don't have to think or act like a man, but you do have to act like an adult. When I'm in a group of women who act childish, it hurts me as well as them. I want to say 'Grow up!'
"There's a lot to learn. I would say that men are conducting business all the time. There's never a moment when they're with other men that some sort of business is not being conducted, whether they're discussing office business, or making plans to meet later for drinks and talk business then. They always seem to have work in common that they find mutually beneficial.
"I used to be naive about this, and I still am to some extent. Men will not always say 'let us sit down and talk business'-it just occurs. Sometimes I would think that they were including me because I was taking part in their conversation, but then I'd discover that the surface conversation they were having was leading to bigger and better things. In other words, I might be included at the happy hour or at the reception, but when they got together the following week, that is when the contract was signed. Many times a woman thinks that she's right in the middle of the conversation, and never realizes until after the fact that she's been cut dead!
"I've given up all relationships. Working in a predominantly male industry, I meet a lot of men. I have a lot of dates and I have a lot of friends, but you can't have a steady relationship and travel, and my career means a lot to me right now. I realized when I was married that if I didn't do things on my own, I'd never be able to do them. And as I said, my goal was to travel-especially overseas.
"So far I've been to Europe twice on personal trips-and it didn't cost me a cent. As of last April I had logged over 60,000 miles through business trips on American Airlines' Advantage program. So last April I went to Ireland. I spent ten days with friends there, and we made side trips to Scotland and London.
"On my second trip I flew to Amsterdam. With my friends I rented a BMW, and visited Dusseldorf and Hamburg. We ended up in West Berlin for two days, and then went to East Berlin. It was exciting. I think anyone who gets the opportunity to travel and turns it down should think twice about it. You don't know what you're missing until you've done it."
The mechanics of traveling have become smooth for Lisa. She carries as little as possible, usually two pieces of luggage, an overnight bag and a small suitcase with her toiletries, gown, and blow dryer, and if she's going to be gone for a week, she'll take three suits and five blouses that mix and match. If she's going for one or two days and visiting different cities each day, she'll take one suit and two blouses. She also has to carry a heavy coat and gloves most of the time. And her purse, famous among her friends, carries everything. They call it the Saddle.
She's made many friends overseas. "I probably have as many friends there as I have here. When I was in Amsterdam, I made several friends. As a matter of fact, one of them is coming to visit me over the Christmas holidays. She has three weeks off, and she's coming here for one of them. I live in Washington, D.C., and you know every tourist wants to come to Washington, D.C. I invite friends to visit from many places-Belfast, London, Amsterdam, Chicago, New York, everywhere-and they return the favor. When I'm in their cities on personal business, they let me stay with them. So I never worry about hotel rooms.
"I chose to live in Washington after spending many happy times there conducting seminars. I noticed that Washington provides a person with a lot to do, the people are nice, and the city is gorgeous. Of all the cities I've spent time in as a tourist, Washington was the one I preferred. When I had the chance, I accepted a position there.
"I'll be buying my own house soon. I've applied for a loan on a two-story townhouse in Maryland. The down payment is substantial, but I'm going to do it. It will be my first home, but I don't know how much time I'll spend there . .
GETTING TO THE TOP- Joan E. Segerson
Joan was named one of the Outstanding Young Women of America in 1981, and it is easy to see why. In less than a decade since she got her MBA degree, with honors in Finance, from Boston College, she has established an illustrious track record working for the federal government, a university, and a major consulting firm. Now the chief administrative officer for the National Women's Political Caucus in Washington, D.C., her career has been as varied as her travels.
Her first job as an administrative officer for the Institute of Open Education/Antioch Graduate Center (now Cambridge College) in Massachusetts led to heavy responsibilities as the Institute's director of finance and administration. In this role she was responsible for staff and all daily financial, personnel, and administrative operations. She traveled frequently to the central campus out of state, and also to such places as Nassau under foundation grants. She developed budget forecasts, supervised accounts payable and receivable, managed all financial aid, and developed personnel policies manual and staff evaluation system.
This was just a warm-up, however, for her subsequent work for the chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. These duties took her to branch offices throughout the United States, and also to Canada to represent the United States at an international conference.
By this time Joan was developing a penchant for travel, and was picking up pointers along the way. "I found that a hot bath, a good book, and a phone call to home or friends often helped with the lonely times. If this wasn't possible, I wrote letters home sharing my trip experiences. I also kept a journal of my activities on each trip.
''You have to be firm in your resolve not to overindulge in food and drink just because it's on someone else's bill, or because everyone else is doing it. I expect to gain a couple of pounds on a long trip, particularly an overseas one, and I try to diet before I go. Then I can afford to enjoy myself. Walking to explore places is helpful, too.
I always take a carry-on piece of luggage with enough essentials to get me by for a day or two (underwear, toothbrush, shampoo, etc.). It is hard to forget the time I arrived in Africa and my luggage remained in New York for two days! I also take a piece of luggage which folds up inside my suitcase so it can be used on my way back for the extra things I often pick up. It is very important to never take more luggage than can be comfortably carried for a couple of blocks. Porters and luggage carriers are not common in all cities, especially overseas."
That trip to Africa was undertaken for the U.S. Office of Management and Budget. As a budget examiner Joan traveled throughout the African continent and visited U.S.-sponsored programs on an inspection tour and also on a fact-finding tour for future aid requests.
Although Joan took a weekend safari while she was there (with five people she had never met before), she is cautious about mixing work and play.
"There are times when you will be encouraged to play," she says, "when in fact it is a dangerous mix with work. Women compartmentalize work and play in a different way than men. When women play or sightsee they really play, whereas men do business even when they play. Women need to be careful not to be sent off to sightsee. What is really happening is that they are being cut out of the action. Men play tennis or run while a woman shops, but they are doing business all the time while the woman is, indeed, shopping." (Although Joan is understandably sensitive on this score from the woman's point of view, one can see how her advice applies to all junior executives-men included. In the competitive corporation scene everyone should be careful not to be "sent off to sightsee.")
"I love traveling whether for work or vacation, but I like work travel because someone else is paying the bill for most of it, and I often add on a few days or more to take advantage of the situation. One of the persuasive factors in my accepting a job as a consultant at Price Waterhouse was the travel opportunities."
At Price Waterhouse Joan is one who found the system route to travel. Joan helped design, document, and implement a worldwide financial management system. That gave her the opportunity she'd been looking for because she took the job to gain the experience in systems, which she felt she needed. She traveled to Germany for seven weeks, returned to the United States for two weeks, and then returned to Germany for two more in the course of this work.
One of her happiest memories is a whirlwind tour of Paris that she arranged for three of her colleagues. 'Twelve of us were in Bonn to put in a computer system, and discovered that we had the weekend off. We decided to go to Paris, and because I had been to the 'City of Lights' before, I was able to plan a weekend for three people who were on their first trip overseas. I made reservations on a couchette (sleeping car) so they could experience that and also so we would lose as little sightseeing time as possible by sleeping as we traveled. The trip to Paris was magical, and each of us was thrilled in her own way. It also served as an impetus for others of our group to plan similar weekends.
"I more or less fell into my current job. However, I've made career moves with the conscious plan of either gaining certain skills, as in the case of systems skills, or for upward mobility. I've been fortunate in my career. As soon as I realize that I can no longer learn or grow in a job, a new one seems to appear."
Concerning interviews for jobs that require travel, Joan has advice that is once again from a woman's perspective, but valuable for men as well. "Interview your prospective boss in a subtle way while you're being interviewed. Try to discern old-fashioned attitudes toward women and the family. Many women are held back from traveling because they have children or are perceived to be 'needed' at home. Be aggressive about your interest in and availability for travel. This includes resisting discussions about fear of flying, weakness when it comes to lifting baggage, etc.
Often women do themselves in by office talk about their personal travel and they come across as unable to handle professional travel, especially when alone. And be careful about being too anecdotal during an interview. We all have funny stories about travel, but we should handle any questions about travel in a businesslike and brief manner.
"Remember, when you are on business travel, even social occasions are work. You are judged by how you eat dinner, how you dance, and how you behave. If it is exhausting never to be able to let your hair down, but it's dangerous to do so particularly as a woman, that's how rumors start."
Joan's position with the Political Caucus puts her on the road again. As chief administrative officer she attends meetings around the country to ensure that the national leadership touches base with each local and state caucus. What new varieties of work lie in her future remain to be seen, but Joan has decided on one requirement for them. "I would always like to be in a job where I travel."
