Russia: What Would An American Do For A Living in Russia?

I was drinking my morning cup of coffee and thinking about what Americans do for a living in Russia. My first thought went leaning towards English teachers, then maybe business men?

I did a little searching into the subject and happened upon the little known fact:

Most Foreigners in Russia Are Managers! It was found that foreigners worked in 87 percent of the companies taking part in a research by Kelly Services (large and medium-size companies in Moscow), but the total number of foreigners was quite low at 1-5 percent of a company’s personnel. In 68 percent of cases, the foreign workers were top executives, in 26 percent they were middle managers and in 3 percent they were specialists. Among the spheres with the most foreign specialists were marketing (18%), sales (17%), finance (12%) and administration (10%). (Link)

Seems that the demand for Business Managers is the greatest need. I myself see that demand and understand the need. One of the weakest areas that Russia has is in Customer Service. This is a direct correlation with Lower Management and Middle Management, which is a directly stimulated by upper management!

The management training that I see in Russia falls mainly in the: “He wants to play manager let him play manager.” Training is sporadic and on the job. To be fair to Russia though: The “McDonald’s Management Syndrome” is slowly affecting the Russian work force. McDonald’s has their University (or equivalent) in Russia that trains their managers. The training of management by McDonald’s is some of the most ridged and thoughtful management training in the World. I taught in McDonald’s University many years ago and I see the same young people in Russia running McDonald’s the very same way we taught them in the USA. This is a trickle effect to the rest of the businesses in Russia. As McDonald’s managers grow up (so to say), they leave McDonald’s and move on to greener pastures. Many years from now you have a compounded effect of increased manager skills through out the country. Russia needs this….

The next area that I see many Foreigners in, in Russia: They teach foreign languages. The demand for teachers here is unbelievable. English seems to be the strong language to learn. If you like the solo side of life, tutoring individuals has no limit to the demand. If you like the security of a school or business environment then you can find no less than thousands of schools to teach at. (I receive about 5 to 6 offers a week to teach at some school in Russia.) Myself, I like the solo side of life. I teach one on one otherwise called tutoring. I then can control my schedule and pace.

Just another little tidbit about Russia you may not have known…

Kyle & Svet

comments always welcome.