Acquisition Anxiety

Bob Weinstein is a journalist who covers technology, project management, the workplace and career development.

  Career Development  

What do you do when you learn that your compnay is going to be acquired? For starters, stay calm. Hopefully, you found out early enough to find another job if necessary. How will the acquisition affect you? You can expect two possible scenarios. The first and worst is you lose your job; the second, you keep your job because you're deemed valuable.

No. 1 is the most likely scenario. If you are a project manager at a software development company that is about to be acquired by an Indian, Chinese or Russian company, it's safe to assume that all software development jobs will be offshored in order to save a bundle of money. Even PM jobs aren't secure.

Five years ago, only menial jobs were offshored to third world countries. Today, companies are discovering most jobs can be offshored, including professional and technical jobs. There is a short list of jobs that are difficult to offshore. Project manager is one of them. Yet there are large American technology companies that are hiring Indian project managers, for example, and training them to manage projects throughout India. It's a lot cheaper than paying an American PM a competitive salary, not to mention enormous travel expenses. What should you do if you learn that your company is about to be acquired? Read on and find out.

Two years ago, only the big guys like Intel, Motorola, Sun …

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