Rent a White Guy
theatlantic.com
Rent a White Guy
1–10 of 71 posts
Re: Rent a White Guy
#2These jobs are more prevalent and easier to snag than you think. I lived in Beijing when I was 21 and after 2 months and with the Chinese proficiency of a 2 year-old, I was working directly with the president of what is now a publicly-traded (NASDAQ) company as a "consultant". Paid my rent for a year.
Re: Rent a White Guy
#3These jobs are more prevalent and easier to snag than you think. I lived in Beijing when I was 21 and after 2 months and with the Chinese proficiency of a 2 year-old, I was working directly with the president of what is now a publicly-traded (NASDAQ) company as a "consultant". Paid my rent for a year.
A Malaysian coworker of mine told me about this sort of phenomenon years ago. (Something like 2002?) He was working for Compaq in the Asia-Pacific region, and noted that his group would often send in someone with asian features someplace with a proposal, which would get rejected. They'd later send a white American to give the same presentation, and it would win.
Re: Rent a White Guy
#4These jobs are more prevalent and easier to snag than you think. I lived in Beijing when I was 21 and after 2 months and with the Chinese proficiency of a 2 year-old, I was working directly with the president of what is now a publicly-traded (NASDAQ) company as a "consultant". Paid my rent for a year.
Were, I'd expect. I don't know when you were 21, but a lot has happened in hires, IT supply, outsourcing, and China in the past years.
Such jobs might still be widely available, but I've heard several stories about early-2000 consulting jobs for young people that, to me, mostly speak about early 2000s.
edit: was the downvote because the article suggests this is still commonplace? if so, I'd like to clarify that my point was that I perceive the field to be in quite some flux, and as such experience doesn't age well. It's still a valuable anecdote.
Re: Rent a White Guy
#52040: "Rent a Chinese Guy"
Re: Rent a White Guy
#6Heh, yeah, this is nothing new. There is more than one investment bank in London that hires professional actors to deliver presentations, then the real bankers take the stage at Q&A time. If someone says "now I'll hand you over to my colleague..." that's a dead giveaway. In other shocking news, bankers don't do their own PowerPoint slides either... There are people employed full time to do just that.
We're all human, appearance matters, you can either take advantage of this or get out-competed.
Re: Rent a White Guy
#7That's another proof that China is on on the rise.
I'm sure pretty soon "Rent a White Guy" practice would cease to exist, because being a Chinese businessmen would be as reputable as being an American.
Re: Rent a White Guy
#8In Japan there is a similar phenomenon for couples about to get married; it's called "Rent a White Minister." Japanese couples who want a fancy wedding often rent a white guy to perform the ceremony. Very often, probably most of the time, said white guy isn't even an ordained minister in any Church.
Re: Rent a White Guy
#92040: "Rent a Chinese Guy"
Maybe. If they're really that fake and superficial maybe it will trip them up in the long run.
Even when everything is documented, there are still gaps in communication, and trust fills them.
Re: Rent a White Guy
#10In 2002 a good friend of mine moved to Shanghai after graduating from college to do an internship for a chinese carpet company.
In his first month there he'd given a speech - in English - to 500 of China's most influential carpet executives, all of whom clearly knew more about the carpet business than he did. His boss played translator.
I thought it was ridiculous, but clearly there's a worthwhile return on investment or the practice wouldn't still be happening.