One of the largest decisions you can make in a career is to pursue a job in a different country. Moving abroad for your career is a strategic decision that you will be aware will have far-reaching consequences on your life. This is why, for many, the decision is too difficult to make, and remaining in situ is often the result.
When one option appears to carry too much risk, keeping the status quo is a natural outcome. In this article, we’ll outline the benefits of moving abroad to progress your career.
Create a wider pool of opportunities
Remuneration can be a compelling reason for moving abroad. The wider the list of vacancies you are prepared to consider, the highest salary you will be able to apply for.
This particularly applies to productive and qualified people in countries in developed but lower-income countries such as the Baltic States, who may find that their skills are worth twice or three times more in a highly developed economy such as the United Kingdom.
Receive new perspectives
Moving to a new place can be intimidating for good reason – everything will be subtly different. Even the colleagues you work with will follow different cultural norms and have a different viewpoint, politically or practically.
If you can embrace these cultural changes, you can unlock one of the joys of travelling. The same benefits of expanding your worldview and becoming more worldly that a student may gain from a gap year will be available to you while working.
Demonstrate your commitment to the company
An international opportunity will often come about through an internal transfer request. Be it through a structured placement scheme, or a fixed term managerial post, applying for such an opportunity says a lot about you as an individual.
It shows that you priorities your career and that you aim to seek out new opportunities for professional development. You’re not satisfied with a stagnant role and you are happy to step outside of your comfort zone to help the company.
Differentiate yourself from domestic competition
Whether the international placement lasts for six months or three years, you’ll return with a unique line on your CV that few will be able to replicate. Many adult workers cannot feasibly move abroad for a short period due to family commitments or a reluctant partner.
Experience of working in a very different culture to your home country will provide an exotic piece of evidence that you deal with challenges and aim to deliver above and beyond. Any future employer will take something positive from that period in your career.
Experience different ways of doing things
Cultural norms aren’t just a different way of expressing politeness; they sometimes reveal fundamentally different ways to approach a task.
Witnessing these differences and being in a position to compare the foreign practices to what happens at home can provide you and your employer with new insights.
For example, in the UK, building firms sometimes subscribe to the Considerate Constructor scheme, which is an industry group that draws up guidelines on how a responsible builder should operate. This covers externalities such as levels of dust, noise and the behaviour of builders towards members of the public.
In Japan, construction sites visibly display an electronic decibel reading that clearly communicates the volume of the site. If noise exceeds 85 decibels then work should temporarily stop until the issue can be alleviated.
This is a simple example of how two different countries have developed two different systems to solve the same problem. Only an employee who visits construction sites in both countries could reach an informed conclusion on which strategy works best.
In conclusion
Moving abroad for work is like taking the first step on an adventure. At the outset, you have no guarantees that you will love the culture, settle in or achieve the same success in a foreign country as you have at home.
But your willingness to take this risk will provide a lasting benefit for your CV and your perspective regardless of the outcome. So for many, it’s a risk well worth taking.
