The Complete Guide to International Jobs & Careers is a great book that discusses the differences between a job seeker and an international job seeker. The book first explains why an international job seeker cannot basically go down the road by using the same strategies as a regular job seeker. The book offers several reasons why there is an important difference between a regular career seeker and an international career seeker and.
The main reason that is offered to explain this difference is that an international job seeker simply has other desires as higher priority such as where the job is located versus what the job is. Other factors such as how much traveling will be involved in the career versus what the salary will be. Many different factors such as these influence the decision making for the career for an international job seeker. After identifying the characteristics of an international career, the book explains how the elements of career seeking should be approached differently to suit these extraordinary needs for the international career seekers such as what type of organizations should be considered, and what kinds of improvements should be considered such as a revised resume and personal appearance for the culturally different organizations and firms.
One of the first and most important tasks that an international career seeker must do is to identify his/her needs and get to know what he/she really wants out of this career. This book is a great resource to learn the ins and outs of seeking jobs and careers in the global market, it is almost a manual for an international career seeker to learn every little detail of everything they have to be careful about researching a career that will be suitable, applying to the selected companies, things to watch out about writing and international resume, how to prepare for the job interviews, how to follow-up after the interviews and how to prepare for a new job.
My internship at the Koç.net consisted of two main sections. The first part was at the general business development department and the second part was at the marketing department. Being able to see how these two departments work as a team was one of the most interesting aspects of my internship.
Before I started working in these departments, I was put to orientation, which covered all the departments of the Koç.net Telecommunications Technologies and Services. This orientation was one of the most useful parts of my internship since it helped me see how the different departments of a company interact and work efficiently. There are around one hundred-and-thirty employees in three main and fifteen sub departments at Koç.net. All these departments are working as a team and complete different parts of a project. The smooth operation of these different divisions is one of the main factors for the company’s success.
The business development department at the Koç.net is the brains of the company so to speak. In this department, my supervisor, Ömer S. Erdem and his co-workers were in the process of preparing the feasibility report for a new telecommunications project at the time I started my internship. A project would first come to this department, the necessary research would be conducted to verify if the project is feasible for the company or not. If the decision is made that the project is feasible, then the business developers would continue their research and also get in touch with the foreign companies and organizations and contractors to get more information on how this type of project has been carried out in other countries. When more information is gathered about the project and it still satisfies the company’s needs and feasible to the Turkish market, then a report is prepared by the department and the project is presented to the other departments who then would take over and implement it. The stage of the tasks of business development is crucial because if the right foreign contacts and the right resources are not used, the results of the report will not be precise and might cost the company enormous amounts of money if a project that is not profitable to the company is put in process.
My tasks as an assistant to the business developers was to take part in their information gathering and contacting the foreign companies in all over Europe, United States and also Asia on a fiber optic cable implementation for a telecommunications project. The daily tasks that I was responsible were mainly searching the necessary information on the world wide web, gathering both statistical and financial data on the previous projects conducted around world that were similar to what Koç.net is planning on, contacting foreign companies via e-mail and telephone and helping the business developers in any other way I could.
The second part of the internship was in the marketing department. The marketing department at the Koç.net has many tasks such as organizing and participating in expositions, collecting news on the Koç.net Company that appear on the daily newspapers on daily bases, advertising on all different kinds of platforms such as newspapers, magazines, television commercials, advertisements on web sites. My supervisor in this department was Aslihan Dölek who is a specialist in marketing communications. The tasks that I was assigned were researching news on Turkish and foreign media for any news that might have appeared about Koç.net, participating in the weekly meetings with the advertising firms that the marketing department of Koç.net works with, researching for material and also creating a PowerPoint presentation for the Koç.net stand at the Bilisim 2000 Information Communication Technologies Fair in Istanbul. Another task that I was assigned to was to gather statistical information and take part in the preparation of the slide show for a TV interview that the general manager of Koç.net, Mr.Bülent Yildirim was going to appear on. Taking such an active part in an event was a great over all experience. Working side by side with professionals in the marketing department has helped me learn a lot about what I would be doing on daily basis when I get a position as a marketer in the future. I was also able to learn about what the necessary personal skills I need to acquire in order to be successful in this field such as being a good researcher, and a good learner in order to keep my company and myself technologically up to date.
I am still in the process of learning German and as a result, I now am able to speak three languages, English, Turkish and German. When I was assigned to contact foreign companies and corporation over the phone or via e-mail, being able to speak all these languages helped me a lot. Also other aspects such as growing up in an international environment all my life helped me be really confident when dealing with people from other cultures in the business arena. Business is conducted in different manners all around the world and this kind of experience really is a strong advantage. A strong relationship with the people you conduct business with is one of the most important elements of the business relationship in order to build a trusty connection.
The perfect person for my job would need technical skills and experience in usage certain software such as Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, Excel and also have experience on the web environment which is required in order to research for any type of necessary information. The student intern also needs to have good social skills in order to build good relationships both with the co-workers and also with anyone outside the company that company does business with. Having good communication skills and also being confident with speaking several languages is also an important element. The student must be experienced with a word processing application such as Microsoft Word in order to be able to prepare any information or report and be able to present it and also must be confident with Excel to be able to create tables of required information, create charts and such. The most important software that the intern needs is the Microsoft PowerPoint especially in the marketing department. When I was put through the orientation of all the departments the first several days of the internship, the employees in each department lectured me about what they do, and what the use of each department is by the PowerPoint presentations they have prepared. Every report and every meeting within the company is presented with the PowerPoint presentation. I was also asked to prepare several presentations and also edit the PowerPoint presentations that were already prepared to be used at the Bilisim 2000 Fair.
Since I completed my internship a year-and-a-half before my graduation date, there were several courses I had not taken by the time of my internship. However one of the Management courses I had taken prior to the internship, Management 350 really helped me understand the professional work environment better as I was doing my internship at Koç.net. I also now realize so many of the concepts that I later learned in Management 405 course about the work environment and how important it is to have a friendly, professional and peaceful working environment in order to achieve productivity. I also see many of the concepts being used at Koç.net that I later learned in Marketing 370 and 373. Koç.net marketing department applies most of the marketing techniques such as print media, on-line media, promotion and many others that I learned in these marketing courses. Completing this internship, then learning about these concepts after, helped me understand them much better.
The work, office environment is a really friendly but very professional environment. The employees are required to conform to a dress code in exception of several departments such as the technical departments. Productivity and quality work is valued a lot more than pretend professionalism at the Koç.net, so as long as it is appropriate for the type of work the department is involved in, the employees are allowed to dress any way they wish. Every employee is given the sense of teamwork and the relationships between the workers are really friendly and very professional at the same time. The employees are supplied all the necessary technical equipment that they need to perform at the highest level they are expected. I have been very impressed with the technological instruments used all around the company in every different level. One of the most impressive elements of the Koç.net work environment was the fact that everyone took what they did so personal, and placed company benefit before anything else. You could rarely see someone leave the office at 6 pm. especially at the departments I worked at, it was not an unusual case to have the business development and marketing team members stay after work hours and work until late in the evening just to get more work done.
As a part of the Turkish culture the relationships between people in general are very warm and strong. This aspect of the culture also is a part of the business environment at Koç.net, which strengthens the sense of teamwork. People are very friendly and helpful to one and other regardless of their position. The greatest example of this is Mr.Bülent Yildirim, the general manager of Koç.net. He is basically the head of Koç.net and is at the highest position in the company, but his friendliness, his enthusiasm, and sense of respect towards everyone regardless of their position in the firm, makes everyone else work twice as hard. Having such a person, who is almost a father to a large family, at the top position creates a perfect working environment within the company.
During my internship, I had many chances to talk with many people, who work in many different departments and levels including Mr.Bülent Yildirim, about the potential career possibilities in business development and marketing in Turkey. Koç.net is in the process of setting up the infrastructure for the communication system in Turkey and is getting ready to take the communication systems over from the hands of Turk Telecom, which is a monopoly. There are many sectors in Turkey that are getting ready to privatize and due to this reason many new employment opportunities will be available. Several of these new opportunities will be in the business development and marketing fields especially at the technological firms such as Koç.net. In order to fulfill the requirements of a full-time position, an undergraduate degree is a must and the graduate degree is definitely a great advantage that the companies are looking for. On top of the educational background, the applicant must have the necessary technical skills such as being able to use the necessary computer application for everyday tasks.
I would definitely recommend any future applicant to get an internship position at Koç.net and to always be ready to keep learning on everyday basis. I have noticed that learning is a process that does not end when graduated from school; it is a process even a CEO of a firm needs to keep doing in order to advance his skills and catch up with the technology to be as useful as one can be for the company. My supervisors have told me that with an orientation of two months, I would be qualified for a position. Especially in the field of marketing, the technology is advancing on daily basis, and it is crucial for a marketer to keep up with the technology in order to compete both in domestic and global levels. I hope to complete my educational career successfully and be able to become a part of a great organization such as Koç.net.