Now that the Dubai bubble has burst and the gold rush in the United Arab Emirates is seemingly over, where in the world can you go and work, find a satisfying job - perhaps even an attractive career path - and still be well paid?
The pressures on those seeking international assignments have perhaps never been so great. There is intense demand for placements abroad for multiple reasons, yet there are limited vacancies available. What’s more, employers are offering and promising less in an environment where they are doing business in an unstable marketplace, and where they know there is plenty of talent available in the employment pool.
At first glance it looks like an unpleasant situation all round – but as we will now show, you can cut through a lot of the negativity and position yourself very well for the job of your dreams if you just know how to go about it. In other words, in this report we’re going to show you exactly how to find work abroad in a global recession, and not sell yourself short.
What Are Your Motives for Going Abroad to Work?
At Shelter Offshore we are contacted daily by people from such a wide range of backgrounds. There are those working for serious cash only in rogue states, risking their lives for the fortune they are earning. There are professionals in senior management positions with large multinationals who have been headhunted abroad on multiple occasions – and there are even those who are paying their way on a round the world adventure.
In other words, everyone has different reasons and different motivations for going to work abroad. And depending on your motivations and position in life, you will have different ideas about what working overseas means for you!
If you’ve just managed to clear a backlog of student debt in the UK and you’re desperate to go and see the world and have some fun, finding bar jobs along your round the world trip route to fund your accommodation might be the ideal path for you to pursue. If on the other hand you want to get on the property ladder and you’ve decided that working tax-free overseas could help you save up for the deposit on your first home that much more quickly, you’ll have a particular nation in mind where you can work tax-free, and maybe you have some idea of the roles you can fill with the skill-set you already have.
Possibly, you just want to leave your old life behind, and you yourself are your greatest asset in employment terms! Maybe you’re not fussed about where you go, as long as you can have a great quality of life – in which case you have to match your skills, qualifications and experience to a job in a favourable nation.
What all this boils down to is you knowing yourself and your reasons for contemplating working abroad. If you’re not fussed about what you do but you know where you want to go, you need to have a look at the local environment, see what opportunities there are there, and then ensure you have the skills, the experience, the qualifications and the CV to get you the job you need to live in the place you want to be.
Alternatively, if you’re on a career path already and know where you’re ultimately heading in your chosen profession, perhaps you’re well aware that a sojourn overseas could not only speed up your progression and advancement, but arm you with additional skills that will serve you very well as you progress…in which case, where in the world should you be looking for placement? Could you be happy living where you need to in order to get the job you need?
Know yourself, know your reasons for wanting to work abroad – make sure these reasons stay uppermost in your mind at all times as they will guide you to make the right choices.
Skilling Up to Work Abroad
From someone hoping to work in hotels as they country hop, to the woman wanting to break through the glass ceiling in her professional career – all need to ensure they have the right skills to work abroad. For you it may well be the case that you need to get a range of experience working in the tourism or leisure industry so that you have a very portable range of talents to take with you as you move to live overseas in a tourism hotspot.
Or, for you maybe it’s actually a case that you have to undergo examinations in your specialised area of professional expertise in order to have a license to practice abroad…
Just because you have a degree or a qualification in the UK or the USA, don’t assume it is portable. If your career is everything to you and you intend to further it by working overseas, you have to learn whether your skills and professional qualification are actually recognised abroad.
In order to do this, if you have a nation in mind, contact their embassy as a starting point – or the body that governs professionals in your field in that country - and find out everything you need to know about how you gain the right level of certification. There are resources available – for example, if you’re an overseas trained doctor going to work in Australia click here, if you’re a teacher hoping to work internationally, click here, and for a great resource on cross border qualification recognition throughout the European Union, click here.
As these resources show, the Internet may well hold the key to you finding out whether you can work abroad with the skills and qualifications you have, in the field you want to work in…
Alternatives available to you include contacting international recruitment companies and agents and literally asking them for assistance; firstly in assessing whether you have the skills already to work in your chosen field abroad. And secondly, in finding you a placement.
How to Find a Job Overseas
If you’re country hopping or just happy to land up in a given nation and take whatever’s on offer, you can still do some preparation in advance. For example, you can get your resume up to date and up to scratch. You should include a photograph on it as well, and have multiple copies of it printed, or have it saved on a memory stick that you can take anywhere for printing or editing purposes. If you’re going to a given nation, perhaps having your resume professionally translated will help – even if you don’t speak the foreign tongue and a job you’re applying for therefore obviously doesn’t require you to speak the foreign tongue, having made the effort to make it easier on your prospective employer to read your resume may stand you in good stead! It’s all about making a good impression isn’t it!
If you have a fixed career path, job or field of employment in mind you should target international recruitment consultants specialising in your field. They are all on the Internet of course. Target them initially with an email or introductory phone call, and get a feel for their professionalism and whether you think they would represent you well. You can also try focusing on recruiters in a given country if you have a specific nation in mind. You will need to have an excellent CV that stands out in this day and age of rising global unemployment. Consider having a professional CV writer at least review the content and layout of your resume with you. As you can imagine, recruiters get many CVs across their desk, yours has to stand out not only in terms of the content, but in terms of its visual impact.
That doesn’t not mean you need to write in red ink on black paper – although that could work if you were going for a design role? But think about fonts, layout and typesetting carefully.
Follow up with a phone call whenever you send your CV to anyone – even if you only send it on the off chance to a recruiter. You cannot be too proactive!
Research companies you would like to work for around the world, or who are engaged in the line of work that you would like to be employed in. Seek out their web presence, see if they are recruiting, send your CV in speculatively anyway. Again, follow up with a phone call, and if you’re invited to call back in the future, keep their details on file and make that follow up call. The fact that you persist is positive – it shows you are capable of working hard towards your goals and that you’re not shy about marketing yourself and putting yourself forward. These are usually good skills that an employer will value!
Those hoping to just land any job in a given location could consider using forums to catch up with both expats and those travelling in that country. From there you can ask about opportunities that regularly come up, and what people are looking for in workers. Perhaps there are construction jobs, seasonal tourism jobs – maybe you need some skills before you go, and maybe you’re best advised to arrive in a given month just before seasonal recruitment begins.
No matter that you’re backpacking around the world, or out to ‘find yourself’ or the meaning of life on your travels – don’t let your standards slip, be well presented for any job. No employer is going to look twice at someone who can’t even be bothered to care about their appearance on the day of a job interview – no matter how informal the interview or how laid back the job. If you look like you don’t care, the employer will be of the opinion you’re not really going to care about working too hard for him/her to earn your wage.
You sometimes have to think like an employer to get a job. Mould your CV to target a given role or a given company, weeding out that which will be unimportant or uninteresting to the firm, making more of the skills you have that they are really looking for. Market yourself well in other words…because it’s an employers’ market rather than an employees, and you have to stand out to get the jobs that there are out there.
What to Do if You Don’t Know Where to Work Abroad
If you have no fixed idea about where you want to work abroad, you have to think about what you want to get out of working abroad. If you’re purely after money then according to the HSBC international expat explorer survey, expats in Asia earn more. So, look at Hong Kong and Singapore, perhaps even India. Are there jobs you can do in these nations that will earn you mega bucks? If not, think laterally…what about if you can earn your salary free of tax, that automatically makes the money you earn worth more! So, look at the UAE – there are still jobs in places like Saudi, Qatar and even Dubai.
If you want to give back to the world – then look at areas of the planet where there is great poverty, suffering or where there is destruction occurring to the natural landscape or the natural habitat for animals. Where can you go and give your time and make it count? Contact charities and private organisations working in areas of concern for you, find out how you can help.
If you just want to go where there are lots of jobs, you need to look at emerging nations such as China perhaps – but know that you will need to speak the language, have in-demand skills and be prepared to work exceptionally hard to get and then keep a placement.
Finally, if you work in a given professional field, target recruiters who place professionals like you, and ask them what’s available where. Then, decide based on the opportunities available, or by what a given country might be able to offer you.
You Can Find Work Abroad
If you really have a strong desire to go abroad and work and you are prepared and committed to doing whatever it takes to get the role you’re after, you will find a job overseas. You need to apply consistent effort to the search and put your energy into focusing on your dream. By maintaining a positive outlook and balancing this with applied effort to get a job, you can find work abroad.
