It's been a while since I've been around and I thought I'd chime in with another strategy I've come up with for international careers to help out some soon-to-be grads and young guys who want to go abroad but are afraid/confused of the challenges involved.
There is a range of logistical and financial risks involved with making an international career move. Since the last time I was around, my client placement in Asia has skyrocketed. Based on what I've seen from successful placements, I've come up with some new career pipelining strategies that I feel optimize the situation.
As usual, take this with a grain of salt.
GRADUATE INTERNATIONAL CAREER PIPELINING
1. SAVE CASH (6-12 months)
If you are still young, early to mid twenties, you are surely facing a tough job market as a recent grad. If your parents will let you, move back home for a bit so that you can save money. Take on a low pressure job like working at Trader Joes, Whole Foods, Crate/Barrel etc - so that your hours are decent and you have enough energy to take on other projects at night time.
2. BUILD SKILLS (occurs during same period as saving cash period)
While living at home, save every penny you possibly can. This period of time will be between 6-12 months. Your goal is to save at least 20,000 dollars. The reason that you are taking on a low pressure job with good hours is so that you can independently build skills that will be useful to you as an individual freelancer and also as an intern or full time employee of a company.
Teach yourself some skills that you can use later on. There are lots of skills you can pick up free off the web:
railsforzombies.org/
You can also learn a bunch of skills off of http://www.lynda.com
Try to get some certifications in skills such as graphic design or related areas that would be in demand. Your goal here is to build "technical" skills that are portable and can be useful in the context of your own business or in the context of a company that hires you.
While you are living at home, consider different countries abroad that interest you for a place to live or a place to have a career - China, Malaysia, Taiwan, Singapore, Colombia, etc.
Your goals by the end of this 6-12 month period are to:
-Save 20K USD or more
-Develop some "hard" skills in microsoft office, keynote/presentations, graphic design, ruby coding, PHP, python, social media marketing, SEO - portable skills useful to you as a person or useful to a company who will hire you
-If you can, do a virtual or part time internship with a reputable company in your area. This can be unpaid - your goal here is to get a strong recommendation/reference for the utilization of your newfound skills in design/SEO/development. You are trading your hours for experience and credibility.
3. LANGUAGE SCHOOLS AND LOGISTICS
Narrow down on one country you want to go to, ideally a cheap one like Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, China. Good second tier cheap cities in China are Kunming, Chengdu, Dalian, Qingdao, Xiamen, Nanjing, Harbin.
There are a lot of scams. Find a good school and see if you can TESOL/TEFL certified from your home town or nearby city in the US. Once you have this covered, get in touch with one of the better schools and apply to become an English teacher.
Becoming an English teacher solves lots of problems for you - you will get housing and a visa, along with immediate guidance in logistics as soon as you arrive in your target destination. This is very important. Moreover, you will have an entry into a career in your stop - even if it is "just an ESL job."
4. ESL JOB PERIOD
For about 6-12 months you're going to stick with this teaching job. Start networking immediately on weekends and nights - go hang out with expats and see who is hiring. From the skillsets you have built, you will be able to immediately tell business owners what your value add is. Get in touch with the Chamber of Commerce and Embassy for your home country and ask them what jobs might be available in your city of choice.
ESL jobs have lenient hours and usually enough pay to cover your living costs. Don't live beyond your means and don't spend any of the 20K+ of cash that you saved up. Discipline is very important in this phase.
5. INTERNSHIP PERIOD / JOB OFFER
Depending on your networking, if you get lucky, or what the situation is like in that city, you will end up finagling an internship at some company like a boutique consultancy or the chamber of commerce or something like that. If you get an internship, it will certainly not be enough to cover your living expenses. This is where it becomes useful that you saved that cash - you can live on 500-700 bucks a month in a place like Chengdu, Penang, or BKK if you spend carefully.
Alternatively, you can be an unpaid part time intern for a company as a sort of extended long term testing period to see if they want to hire you.
After 3 months of working, ask if there are full time positions. Connect with your bosses and colleagues on linkedin and see if they have connections at companies where you might be interested in working.
6. FULL TIME OFFER / TRANSITION
By this point you have turned an internship into a full time job. Worst case scenario, you can go back to ESL.
7. (OPTIONAL) ENTREPRENEURSHIP
Another option is that you might become so skilled at whatever skills you trained yourself in that you can just launch your own venture or company of your own and drum up clients locally.
If it turns out that during the cash saving period and ESL period you've created a design company that is taking in 2K in cash per month, you can obviously take that route and build a brand and venture there. The skills you learned are portable by design, so you can take it with you and travel a bit if you want.
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I sincerely hope this helps some of the younger guys trying to figure out what to do and worried about all the unknowns that come with going abroad.
I'm not telling anyone that you SHOULD do this. I'm simply laying out what seems like a reliable strategy that I've noticed is a trend in many of my current clients.
Like any other outlines I've put up here, you do this at your own risk. I'm just dishing out ideas here.
I'm incredibly busy these days so I'm not going to be able to so much followup on this.
Cheers, everyone. Hope you've been doing well.
-----
There is a range of logistical and financial risks involved with making an international career move. Since the last time I was around, my client placement in Asia has skyrocketed. Based on what I've seen from successful placements, I've come up with some new career pipelining strategies that I feel optimize the situation.
As usual, take this with a grain of salt.
GRADUATE INTERNATIONAL CAREER PIPELINING
1. SAVE CASH (6-12 months)
If you are still young, early to mid twenties, you are surely facing a tough job market as a recent grad. If your parents will let you, move back home for a bit so that you can save money. Take on a low pressure job like working at Trader Joes, Whole Foods, Crate/Barrel etc - so that your hours are decent and you have enough energy to take on other projects at night time.
2. BUILD SKILLS (occurs during same period as saving cash period)
While living at home, save every penny you possibly can. This period of time will be between 6-12 months. Your goal is to save at least 20,000 dollars. The reason that you are taking on a low pressure job with good hours is so that you can independently build skills that will be useful to you as an individual freelancer and also as an intern or full time employee of a company.
Teach yourself some skills that you can use later on. There are lots of skills you can pick up free off the web:
railsforzombies.org/
You can also learn a bunch of skills off of http://www.lynda.com
Try to get some certifications in skills such as graphic design or related areas that would be in demand. Your goal here is to build "technical" skills that are portable and can be useful in the context of your own business or in the context of a company that hires you.
While you are living at home, consider different countries abroad that interest you for a place to live or a place to have a career - China, Malaysia, Taiwan, Singapore, Colombia, etc.
Your goals by the end of this 6-12 month period are to:
-Save 20K USD or more
-Develop some "hard" skills in microsoft office, keynote/presentations, graphic design, ruby coding, PHP, python, social media marketing, SEO - portable skills useful to you as a person or useful to a company who will hire you
-If you can, do a virtual or part time internship with a reputable company in your area. This can be unpaid - your goal here is to get a strong recommendation/reference for the utilization of your newfound skills in design/SEO/development. You are trading your hours for experience and credibility.
3. LANGUAGE SCHOOLS AND LOGISTICS
Narrow down on one country you want to go to, ideally a cheap one like Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, China. Good second tier cheap cities in China are Kunming, Chengdu, Dalian, Qingdao, Xiamen, Nanjing, Harbin.
There are a lot of scams. Find a good school and see if you can TESOL/TEFL certified from your home town or nearby city in the US. Once you have this covered, get in touch with one of the better schools and apply to become an English teacher.
Becoming an English teacher solves lots of problems for you - you will get housing and a visa, along with immediate guidance in logistics as soon as you arrive in your target destination. This is very important. Moreover, you will have an entry into a career in your stop - even if it is "just an ESL job."
4. ESL JOB PERIOD
For about 6-12 months you're going to stick with this teaching job. Start networking immediately on weekends and nights - go hang out with expats and see who is hiring. From the skillsets you have built, you will be able to immediately tell business owners what your value add is. Get in touch with the Chamber of Commerce and Embassy for your home country and ask them what jobs might be available in your city of choice.
ESL jobs have lenient hours and usually enough pay to cover your living costs. Don't live beyond your means and don't spend any of the 20K+ of cash that you saved up. Discipline is very important in this phase.
5. INTERNSHIP PERIOD / JOB OFFER
Depending on your networking, if you get lucky, or what the situation is like in that city, you will end up finagling an internship at some company like a boutique consultancy or the chamber of commerce or something like that. If you get an internship, it will certainly not be enough to cover your living expenses. This is where it becomes useful that you saved that cash - you can live on 500-700 bucks a month in a place like Chengdu, Penang, or BKK if you spend carefully.
Alternatively, you can be an unpaid part time intern for a company as a sort of extended long term testing period to see if they want to hire you.
After 3 months of working, ask if there are full time positions. Connect with your bosses and colleagues on linkedin and see if they have connections at companies where you might be interested in working.
6. FULL TIME OFFER / TRANSITION
By this point you have turned an internship into a full time job. Worst case scenario, you can go back to ESL.
7. (OPTIONAL) ENTREPRENEURSHIP
Another option is that you might become so skilled at whatever skills you trained yourself in that you can just launch your own venture or company of your own and drum up clients locally.
If it turns out that during the cash saving period and ESL period you've created a design company that is taking in 2K in cash per month, you can obviously take that route and build a brand and venture there. The skills you learned are portable by design, so you can take it with you and travel a bit if you want.
---------------------------------------
I sincerely hope this helps some of the younger guys trying to figure out what to do and worried about all the unknowns that come with going abroad.
I'm not telling anyone that you SHOULD do this. I'm simply laying out what seems like a reliable strategy that I've noticed is a trend in many of my current clients.
Like any other outlines I've put up here, you do this at your own risk. I'm just dishing out ideas here.
I'm incredibly busy these days so I'm not going to be able to so much followup on this.
Cheers, everyone. Hope you've been doing well.
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