Looking For A Job Abroad: 5 Tips To Start Off On The Right Foot

Posted on 04. Nov, 2009 by Emmanuelle Archer in Blog, Expat Life, Relocation, Tools & Resources, Working Abroad
6 comments

You’ve heard it time and time again: to get a decent job these days, you have to network, network, network.

That’s great advice. The problem is that 90% of the people who are out there networking are doing it all wrong.

5 tips to start off on the right foot

Tip #1: Forget about “networking”

Networking is kind of a loaded word. For me, it conjures up images of stiffly-dressed professionals, awkwardly trying to shove their business cards into your hand at some boring BNI meeting.

It reeks of predatory behaviour: “working the room”, “playing the numbers game”… it’s all about using people. Not a good thing in my book.

I suggest that you think of it as getting to know people instead. Because that’s really what it’s all about. As simple as that.

Tip #2: Start connecting with people NOW

The idea is to start connecting with people before you need anyone’s help. To borrow Harvey Mackey‘s brilliant metaphor, you have to dig your well before you’re thirsty.

If you only start approaching people when you’re in dire need of a job tout de suite, you will come across as desperate. Not good. Desperation is never sexy, whether you’re dating or looking for gainful employment.

So if you’ve been thinking “But I can’t start now, I’m not even sure what I want to do once I get there”, you’re actually in good shape! Invite your new contacts to brainstorm with you and give you input. Much easier – and more constructive – than asking them to help you finding a job, only to get the stock answer, “I’ll keep my eyes open and let you know”.

Tip #3: Cast your net wide

You want to make your new connections as diverse as possible. Don’t restrict yourself to your own field or your own profession. Get to know people from all walks of life, all ages and all backgrounds.

You never know who may have the information or the contacts you need. You never know who will come up with the genius suggestion or the fresh perspective (“Hey, did you know about this? Sounds right up your alley”) that will lead you straight to your dream occupation.

Besides, folks who work outside of your own field have no reason to feel threatened. You’re not directly competing with them, so they can give freely of their advice and support. By contrast, those in your field may be less forthcoming with help… just in case you end up going after their own job!

Tip #4: Where to find people

So where do you find all these new contacts? Social media platforms make it very easy to connect with strangers, but how do you avoid getting overwhelmed and frittering away entire days online?

I advise picking one or two such social media platforms (I like Twitter and LinkedIn) and maybe one message board relevant to your destination– and that’s it. You’ll get better results by focusing your efforts in a few places rather than spreading yourself too thin and not making an impact anywhere.

Once you’ve picked your online communities, what do you do next? Who do you contact, and how?

The “Who” part is relatively easy: do a search on members who live in your future host country. Then, try to identify people who can give you expert advice – relocation specialists, expat coaches, job search / outplacement experts, and even people who don’t live in the country but have a strong interest in it.

The “How” part isn’t too complicated either: if you’re on Twitter, following the updates of complete strangers is the norm – so do just that, then send them a few replies/comments, and get a conversation started. On LinkedIn, join common interest groups (based on geography, profession, or hobbies), and get to know fellow members within these groups. On message boards, you can post your questions for all to see, but you can also identify the moderators and most helpful members, and send them direct messages.

Tip #5: Cultivate your relationships

- Build trust: take the time to get to know people and earn your stripes as a reliable, helpful member of the community before you start asking for favours. If you promise something to someone (even if it’s just a link to a silly YouTube video), try to always follow up in a timely manner. Make it easy for others to trust you.

- Be consistent: you can’t Twitter up a storm for three days, then decide you’re bored and not update for two weeks. You have to be persistent and keep at it until you register on other users’ radar and they start engaging you in two-way conversations.

- Give before you ask: now that you’ve dug your well, it’s time to prime it. There’s no better way to do so than by helping others. You may not have expert advice to contribute (yet), but maybe you can share information about your own country, a recipe here, a translation there… be on the lookout for opportunities to help others, and everyone will be much more inclined to share their resources and leads with you.

- Don’t discount the people you already know: in this flurry of new contacts, it’s easy to forget that you already have connections. Have you asked every single one of your relatives, friends, old classmates, ex co-workers, and your dental hygienist if they knew anything about your target destination? I bet not. So go do that right now. If you have your heart set on moving to Kathmandu, ask everyone you meet about Nepal. People enjoy giving advice and feeling helpful, so if they have any connections, they’ll be happy to share them.

All right. That’s probably enough to keep you busy for a couple of days!

What?!?, you ask, you have us do all that “connecting with new people” stuff, and we haven’t even touched upon finding job openings and sending resumes and cover letters and oh my…

That’s right. We’ll get to that later. In the meantime, there is more important work to be done, so stay tuned for our next post on Friday (how’s that for a cliffhanger? )

Was this post helpful? Do you need more personalized job search advice? Contact me to schedule a one-on-one consultation.

Emmanuelle

Images by Patrick Havens (top), www.PCharlton.es (middle) and takuya miyamoto* (bottom), both via Flickr Creative Commons