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Gulag Chic

BY: MICHAEL STERN September, 1997

WANTED: Adventurous, patient, flexible executives for two- to three-year posting with consumer goods multinational in isolated corner of developing nation where corruption is rampant. Living conditions: substandard. Working conditions: not much better. Job description: not available. Must be willing to relocate immediately. Advancement opportunities: nada.

Sounds like the career ad from hell, right? So why did so many Canadian executives jump at this opportunity?

In June 1996, my executive search firm was commissioned by a Fortune 100 company to find three executives - a general manager and heads of production and finance - capable of opening an operation in Vladivostok, Russia. Situated in the southeast corner of Siberia, Vladivostok snuggles up against the North Korean border and is about as close to Australia as it is to Moscow.

Why the company chose a Canadian firm to do the search, and why so many Canadians were eager to move to the utter edge of the world for a job with no obvious career potential, tells a lot about the state of today's economy and the new global marketplace we hear so much about.

Why was this consumer goods market leader interested in Canadians? For one thing, Canadian business people are considered to be strong managers and very adaptable. Familiarity with the climate was also a factor. And politically speaking Canadians are still more welcome in Russia than Americans, and find it much easier to get in and out of the country.

For the right people, the company was willing to offer a very lucrative cash package, plus a car and driver, living expenses and taxes, not to mention two trips a year to the big city-Moscow.

Once we accepted the assignment, our search took two paths. We began networking and searching our database for enterprising executives who might be interested in such a challenge and for people who could lead us to likely candidates. We also took out a Newspaper ad. (It wasn't quite as gloomy as the one above, but it was all there if you read between the lines.)

Who would want such a job? We targeted mobile young people without children (schooling is pretty primitive in Siberia) and people at the stage in their careers when a unique experience is more important than a long-term career path. Overall, we assumed the spartan living conditions and the lack of advancement opportunities would put people off. And many were.

When we started calling potential sources/candidates, there were some who responded with hysterical laughter and politely questioned our sanity. But we persevered and were ultimately directed to a number of interested and qualified candidates. It's really true that networking works. Our career advertisement appealed to a broader market, drawing more than 500 responses.

Maybe we should have expected this. The consumer goods industry had gone through a shakeout in recent years, leaving many experienced senior executives underemployed or out of work. And among career-minded consumer products people, our client's name remains pure magic. Even though we made it clear that the career path was uncertain, many candidates wanted to believe this could prove a stepping stone to head office.

Still, considering how hard it usually is to get a qualified Canadian candidate to consider relocating (Oakville? I don't want to drive to Oakville!), the number of business people willing to shuffle off to Siberia stunned us all.

After some analysis, we figured the candidates broke down into five groups:

1. Russian expatriates. Those who could speak Russian or had Russian roots figured they were shoe-ins for the job. Some applicants almost arrogantly assumed that because their family had come from Kiev, they were perfect for the role - which is sort of like saying anyone from Toronto could play for the Toronto Maple Leafs. (Not that untrue these days, unfortunately.

2. The adventurous travel crowd. A lot of people thought starting a new plant in Siberia would be fun. They're the types who backpacked through Europe as students or trekked through Nepal, and figured this was just another adventure. Many of them even had young families they thought would benefit from exposure to another culture. Right. As the old joke goes, Vladivostok has less culture than yogurt.

3. The naïve. A lot of people simply refused to believe that, in this era of the global economy, any place could be quite as primitive as eastern Siberia. One eager candidate assured us that his family could adapt well because they had successfully relocated from Toronto to Edmonton. (I wish I were making this up.)

4. The desperate. A number of quite skilled managers who had been out of work for a while were willing to go to Siberia-or anywhere else- if it would kick-start their careers.

5. Serious international mercenaries. We heard from a few senior executives with extensive international experience. These men had seen enough of the world to know Russia would be no picnic, but everything is relative. At least they have indoor plumbing, said one veteran of China. These candidates welcomed the hardship and enjoyed the challenge of meeting a difficult time line at the edge of the world. These were the true global thinkers and our real candidate group.

Between the ad and our diligent industry researchers, we identified about 100 people who seemed promising for preliminary telephone interviews. Weeding out the desperate and the hopelessly clueless, we narrowed the list down to 20 candidates worth interviewing in person.

The best of them were people with relevant industry experience and a track record in international business. We did our best to explain that we had no firm job description, nor even a list of benefits. We knew only that the work would be hard, that they'd be the only three Westerners at the plant and that they should wear their old clothes. We warned them that Vladivostok was a place of few frills and that a 1994 Chicago Tribune article had described it as ?a nightmare city overrun by crooks, rats and corruption.? In interviewing candidates, we purposely stressed the negative, knowing that only the most focused and committed would survive in eastern Russia.

When our clients flew in from Moscow to meet the top candidates, they brought with them their own horror stories. One concerned a former KGB agent who was hired as a sales manager. He took great pride in showing his new colleagues the submachine gun he carried in his briefcase. He wasn't much of a salesman though, and finally he was fired. He got into his company car and drove home. His boss asked him several times to return the car, but he refused. Finally, the company wrote the car off; no one wanted to try and take it from him.

Our Russian-based clients also brought photos, including one of a typical Vladivostok office that bore more than a passing resemblance to a Canadian outhouse. The apartment building where the successful candidates would be living, based upon the photo, looked suspiciously like something from the slums of New York. After a look at the photo album, one candidate pulled himself out of the race.

Surprisingly, all of our other short-listed candidates remained eager, but they weren't out of the woods yet. All the finalists-and their significant others- had to fill out a questionnaire to measure their suitability for working abroad. The questionnaire consisted of sample statements with which candidates could agree or disagree: ?I tend to get angry when faced with delays?; ?I can be happy without the conveniences I am used to?; and ?the world would be a better place if people were more accepting of my country's ideas.?

In the end we identified two top candidates for each position, our client was delighted and we learned two important lessons: there really are different strokes for different folks; and global, career minded individuals will seek out opportunity wherever it might be. Even in a city overrun by crooks, rats and corruption.