The foreign-born population in the United States is now at an all-timehigh - more than 10 percent. And while recession-time jobs are hard tocome by for Americans, for those born overseas, finding a job here canbe even tougher.
Wei Fang, who is from the Shanghai area, is getting his MBA atBrandeis University in Boston, Massachusetts. And he's looking for ajob in the United States. But he says he's uncomfortable promotinghimself in interviews with American employers.
"In China," heexplains, "the employers like the employees to be hard working andquiet. They want you speak only when they want you speak."
Inmeeting potential employers here, knowing how to make small talk canmake a big difference. But for foreign workers, promoting themselves -making small talk, "schmoozing," things Americans take for granted -can be tricky. Fang says he felt blind during his first few jobinterviews here.
"Lost, actually, when I was in the conversation. I don't know where to go next."
Thistype of cultural anxiety can be a real disadvantage at interview time.So the Brandeis business school offers a program to help foreignstudents adapt to the American culture.
Today is the last day of class. Students from around theworld are setting up their final projects, opening laptops and tapingposters to the walls. In one corner, Isaac Ndawula stops to talk withfellow student Sheila Mutamba. Her project is learning to makeAmerican-style small talk.
"So after all this, do you intend totake this back home?" he asks her. She nods. "I do, because I thinksmall talk is very important."
Ndawula is from Uganda, Mutambafrom Rwanda. Both say in the part of Africa they come from, you don'tget chatty with strangers. Mutamba says now, after a semester'spractice, she's becoming a more confident conversationalist. But shesays her first attempt at making small talk was very different.
"Iremember that very clearly, because it was very hard. And just 'causeI'm black, I can't blush, but I was really feeling very awkward andvery embarrassed," she says with a laugh.
As part of a homeworkassignment, Mutamba says she did something an American might not thinktwice about. She turned to a stranger in a restaurant and startedtalking about the weather.
"So I keep trying to talk, but I have all these things in my head. I'm trying to be appropriate. I'm trying not to be nosey."
Back home, she says, things are more conservative. If a woman approaches a man, it could seem suggestive.
, who created the Brandeis program, observes, "They don't know the rules. They don't know the script."
Theorganizational behavior professor explains that even when workers arequalified, if they don't know what the norms of the culture are, theycan end up looking socially incompetent.
That was the casewith a Russian engineer he worked with, who had 17 unsuccessful jobinterviews. Molinsky says she was extremely qualified, "but she keptfailing on the interview, and she would get feedback that she wasn't agreat fit."
The rules for appropriate behavior in a traditionalRussian job interview, he says, are to be honest, modest and serious.The engineer told him smiling was inappropriate.
"All this silly, friendly behavior," he recalls her saying, "if you smile in my culture like this, you look like a fool."
But, he points out, in America, it gets you a job, or at least a chance.
Accordingto Columbia University Business School professor Michael Morris, in anincreasingly global economy, all workers need to learn to manage acrosscultures. He says there's not much emphasis on that in the U.S.educational system, so it's something many Americans never learn how todo.
"Despite all the advantages, all the good luck of beingborn an American, having this great educational system and thisaffluent country, this is one disadvantage," Morris notes, suggestingwe all need to catch up if we want to be global leaders.