Stuck by Margaret M. Chin

Author:Margaret M. Chin [Chin, Margaret M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: SOC026000 Social Science / Sociology / General
Publisher: NYU Press

The Playbook’s Role in Promotions

While everyone I interviewed was familiar with the maxims in the playbook, not everyone followed these precepts wholeheartedly. Those who placed more faith in the playbook’s maxims were more likely to feel greater disappointment when their careers didn’t proceed as well as they had expected. As they would discover to their dismay, the playbook failed to spell out the so-called hidden rules that governed the workplace, rules that my respondents discovered only after they were on the job.

For starters, workers need sufficient contacts with people willing to share information about important projects, initiatives, and opportunities. In addition, some of their social contacts had to be mentors and sponsors who could speak up for them “in the room” where decisions are made. Finally, diversity programs that hire, retain, and promote people from various racial, ethnic, gender, sexual orientation, and differently abled backgrounds should be promoted among Asian Americans.

The playbook doesn’t acknowledge such needs. Instead, it addresses STEM-type jobs, which are still touted as the most desirable occupations by many first-generation parents. The lack of information in the playbook combined with immigrant parents’ lack of experience in corporate non-STEM jobs and the absence of role models, mentors, and sponsors make the professional promotion process seem confusing and even mysterious. The corporate jobs held by the people I interviewed are all still relatively new to second-generation Asian Americans, despite the fact that college-educated American-born Asian Americans have been holding these jobs for half a century. However, very few have made it to the top, and even when they do, there has until recently been minimal information as to why they’ve found it so difficult to climb these particular corporate ladders.

Most of the people I interviewed confessed that during their first year in an organization they had no idea what they were supposed to do. All the jobs these people held demanded new skills, and a major issue was how quickly a person could acquire these skills and become useful to the organization. Thus measuring the level of a person’s technical skills, how hard the person worked, and how quickly the person learned was critically important when it came to early promotions. What applies to the STEM jobs and is mentioned in the playbook is that in the first few years of any position a person needs to master the actual skills required for that particular occupation.

The majority of the people I interviewed, who were graduates of liberal arts colleges, had little experience knowing what exactly was required in their jobs. They generally had a broad skill set and the ability to integrate information from many areas and to learn quickly. Companies hired them based on the belief that they were all smart and could get along with people from numerous racial, ethnic, gender, and religious backgrounds because their colleges were usually more diverse than the workplaces.

As a result, most of my respondents understood that during the first few years at a job, the emphasis is on working hard, mastering the skills needed for a particular job, being noticed, and being recognized.

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