In This Chapter

Do you sometimes wish that you had more resources at your fingertips that would speak directly to your needs? Perhaps you are wondering what the best companies are to work for if you are a person of color, a woman, gay or lesbian, disabled, or you are over 50. This chapter will provide some basic resources and point you to even more resources that are available to you. You will also have the opportunity to consider your career in the context of your diversity.

Our global society is bringing more and more diversity to our organizations. Many of you will find yourself working in other countries as well as working alongside new immigrants to your home country. Our new working reality in a global society is pointing more and more to the important need to understand one another’s cultures. Many organizations have already begun to provide training in this area for both those employees going to work in other countries as well as for learning about the different cultures of one’s co-workers. For those who have taken advantage of these experiences, there is nothing more creative or exciting than working in a multicultural work team. When the bridges are built to understanding one another’s cultural practices, clearer communication emerges.

Deciding which college to attend has been made a little easier with websites that let you put in your criteria for what you are looking for in a college education and experience. You may want to pay particular attention to the types of cultural, extracurricular, and social and service clubs available on a campus. If you are seeking a college or university environment that attracts a more diverse population, then look at the location of the school, the types of activities offered, and the demographics of a school. Here are some ideas and resources to help you in narrowing down your choice:

Peterson’s and Yahoo also have information on financial aid. In addition to these websites, you can find scholarship and financial aid information on the following websites:

You can also use the major search engines to input “scholarship AND your culture” to do a comprehensive search.

College and university student services are generally terrific places to locate people to help you to assess your career interests or work through the process with you. Many academic departments that correspond to your background often have career services specifically for a particular major. You can also try your career center, alumni office, or student services department to see whether they specialize in working with diverse populations—for example, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transsexual, African American, women, Hispanic, Asian, or the disabled.

Many websites have job search and related services. A few of these sites also have career assessment services:

Finding the right organization to work for is key to being successful and happy in your work life. It is definitely worth your time to look into the make-up of companies you think you might want to work in before you take the leap of employment. Fortunately, for the larger organizations, you can access information on the best places to work:

Any company that you work for, no matter how small or large, needs to be committed to equal opportunity for all employees. Although the government has laws that enforce this concept, look for organizations that actively recruit, train, and promote a multicultural workforce. Ask whether the organization has a values statement that represents core behaviors. Often this values statement will give you some insights into what types of behaviors are the norm in this organization. You can ask about the culture of the organization in terms of whether people work in teams, are collaborative or competitive, as well as how easy or difficult is it for new people to advance and be accepted. Find out as much as you can about how multicultural the leadership is within the organization. Ask whether they have a mentoring or coaching program within the organization.

Another terrific resource for researching the best jobs and work places is through the many organizations that have been set up as networks or resources for your particular cultural identification. There are far too many to list here, so we will give you some places to start. Remember you can do your own searches using words like networking, professional organizations AND diversity, or women, or Asians, and so on. Here are some websites to get you started:

If you are thinking about running your own business, there are benefits available for minority and women-owned businesses. Some examples of the support that you can receive from the Small Business Administration (SBA) are the following programs:

Take out your Career Profile Map and look at the section on your work environment preferences. As you look over what you have already said is a priority for you in a work environment, consider whether there are any other additions based on your cultural background. There are no rules about having preferences based on your cultural background.

Some of us like being the “only” person who is like me (a woman, black, Hispanic, Asian, has a disability, is over 50). On the other hand, many of us want to have a few other people around that are like you. The benefits to this include not having to be the only representative of your group, not standing out as much, not being as visible or having the pressure to perform above and beyond the norm because you stand out. In addition, it’s great to have other people in your organization who have similar cultural backgrounds. This adds to some people’s comfort level, and many times is an enhanced support network within the organization.

So the question for you here is how important is it to you to be in a multicultural work environment? This will help to guide you in researching information on demographics of organizations you are applying to as well as to guide your decision making.

The other aspects to consider are what the organization has to offer in terms of mentoring and coaching programs, orientation to the culture, and continued guidance in maneuvering in that culture, training programs on communicating across cultures for everyone in the organization, specialized training programs for diverse employees, access to continued training, advancement opportunities, and so on.

Make a little organizational matrix to assess how well each organization you look at is matching your particular needs:

We are all part of the multicultural workforce that exists in many companies today. Beyond the workplace, we are citizens of our community, our neighborhoods, our country, and our world. The globalization of business is increasing everyday, and with this globalization our multicultural make-up is increasing.

Some of us are students of the world, and we learn very easily about other cultures. Still others of us may have grown up in one culture, with very little exposure to other cultures.

Part of the continuous learning that is going to become more standard in our organizational lives is the fact that we have to learn more about other cultures in order to do business of any kind. Here are some ways you can begin this journey:

Whatever our situations, there is room for learning more about one another and increasing our ability to work together in collaboration, harmony, and hopefully joyfully!