Working
Overseas for Long Periods of Time
What things should I
be thinking about?
Multiple Questions on One Page:
Think
networking, at home and overseas, and think about
continuing or improving your credentials. Think about
all the things you would do if you were still back home.
Expatriate
Networking Abroad
Networking
is even more important overseas. You can, at times, line
up good jobs via friends - with only cursory
interviews. Contacts and networking work for you
even better overseas than back home. Keep in touch with
people you work with. They will move on to other, often
better jobs, and so will you. You never know when your
paths may meet again. Or, when you might be able to
help each other.
Keep
Contacts Alive Back Home Too
Don't forget
to keep in touch with your contacts and friends back
home. You never know when you might want to head back.
Invite them to visit you, be a great host, give them the
vacation of a life time! It could well pay dividends if
you were to need a job back home on short notice. But,
also, just do it for fun, not just to create an
obligation.
Visit your
Friends, Bosses and Coworkers
When you go
back home, make sure you visit your old coworkers,
bosses, and friends. Nothing is worse than coming back
home "cold" - having lost all your old contacts. The
work/job hunt environment "back home" is much more
difficult than it is overseas. Much more impersonal,
much more dehumanizing. Do your best to keep it
personal, with a good list of personal contacts.
Improve your
Credentials While Overseas
Take another
training course, get another degree. Some jobs overseas
are only four days a week and you may get long vacations
if you are lucky. Use that time to improve your
credentials - so you can continue to move up the ladder
and improve your wages, benefits, and free time.
Double Check
Validity of "Distance" Degrees and Training
Any course
you take via distance learning, online, or even partial
residence, may or not be considered valid where you want
to go next. Double check. Ask on the boards
and ask
potential employers what they accept and don't accept.
Some countries and employers are very strict and some
accept almost anything. Some countries will have
liberal acceptance policies that hiring authorities
don't always follow and aren't legally required to
follow. Check the reality on the ground.
DON'T trust
just a the few voices on the Internet who say all
distance training is fine and accepted. Those
voices are often wishful thinking from people who spent
big money on degrees they HOPE will be accepted at their
next job interview.
Double check
validity to be sure.
