Get Your International Career in Gear: Advice, Diagrams, and Links from our Cal Career Center Presentation

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I just got back to Chile after a trip “home” to San Francisco. The last two weeks have been a whirlwind of catching up with family and friends, showing a certain chileno the best parts of the Bay Area, stocking up on clothes and shoes (which are much cheaper and more stylish than in Santiago), and giving a presentation at my alma mater with the fabulous Ms. Natalie Tan!

Natalie Tan

Natalie Tan

Natalie and I share an obsession with living and working abroad. We met as students at Cal, and have pursued international careers in completely different ways. Natalie’s path has been more linear than mine. She majored in Mass Communications at Cal, and studied abroad in Paris. While working for a major public relations firm in San Francisco, she negotiated a transfer to the London office. Now she’s back in the Bay Area and managing digital projects for Lonely Planet and preparing to enter an MBA program in Hong Kong. A few months ago Natalie got in touch with the Cal Career Center and was invited to lead a workshop called Get Your International Career in Gear. The workshop happened to be during my visit, and I was so glad to participate.

Here are the slides from the event.

These summarize Natalie’s experiences and mine, and include flow charts that explain each of our career paths. Mine is about to going from a starter position to a local hire. Natalie’s is about how to transfer within a multinational company. Many students took photos of these flow charts! A good sign.

A few more comments on topics that came up during our presentation:

1) Network, network, network!

The best way to find international opportunities is through friends (and friends of friends.) If you’re interested in, say, urban planning in China, or social entrepreneurship in Singapore, or ways to live in France, tell everyone you know. Your aunt’s friend’s daughter might be a fantastic contact for you. Search LinkedIn for people with similar interests. Ask them about their experiences. Make it easy for these people to help you, by being specific, concise, friendly, and grateful. Through this blog I get quite a few emails from people considering a similar path and I am more than happy to listen to their ideas and connect them with my friends.

2) Opportunity Benefits and Costs.

The big benefits of living and working in another country are that you can immerse yourself in a different culture and experience the world in a new way. You can master a language, get involved with new industries, and connect with fascinating people. And so much more. I’ve talked about these benefits at length in this interview for Atlas Sliced, this podcast on Brazen Careerist, this post for Untemplater, and Why China? Because I could.

Would I be able to invent a new course at a university in the US, like I have in Chile? No, especially not without a graduate degree. Would I be able to work in such a wide range of industries and build the portfolio career I have now? Probably not.

However, the opportunity costs of these choices are less commonly discussed. One student asked if I thought I was missing out on career growth by working overseas. I answered by saying, “It depends on what’s important to you and how you’re defining career growth.” If I were looking for a steady job in the Bay Area right now, would a recruiter look at me just like a 2006 Cal grad who had spent the past 6.5 years working for the same company in the Bay Area? No. Would I be offered the same position and salary as that hypothetical person? Likely not. If I’d had tens of thousands of dollars in student loans from college, would I have been able to pay them off by now? Maybe, but I might have made different career choices in China and Chile to ensure more stable income.

A friend of mine served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Latin America and then did an International MBA in one of the best programs in the US, which included a year of study and internship in China. When he finished his MBA, he applied for jobs in the US in his field, and it took him more than a year to find a job, and he described that job as less than ideal. He’s bright and hardworking and his experience is all related, but he noticed a mismatch between his experience and what company recruiters were looking for, since the recruiters are used to seeing MBA graduates who’d had more traditional pre-MBA experience.

If and when I decide to move back to my home country, I know I’ll need to carefully package my experiences into something that people can understand and see specific value in. I will likely continue to pursue an entrepreneurial portfolio career. Cate Brubaker at Small Planet Studio has written extensively about re-entry, and she interviewed me about my re-entry experiences in this podcast.

If your dream is to live and work abroad, you can make it happen. Do your research, build your connections, and get your international career in gear.

Here’s the text of the handout we gave out at the event, to guide students in their initial international career research:

Websites About Working Abroad:   

The Cal Career Center is a great place to start researching international opportunities! Other resources that Leslie and Natalie recommend that aren’t already mentioned on the site are discussed below.

On AtlasSliced.com, twenty-something Alexa Hart interviews dozens of young people about their international career paths. Her site also features excellent resources about how to volunteer or work abroad.

At TeachingTraveling.com, Lillie Marshall shares stories to help more teachers travel, and more travelers teach!

Books:

Go Global! Launching an International Career Here or Abroad by Stacie Berdan
$4.99 Kindle/$11.99 paperback on Amazon.com
Stacie draws from her own experience to give practical, step-by-step advice. She worked for a top global PR firm in Hong Kong for many years, during which she gained the skills and experience to skip several levels on the corporate ladder. (I previously reviewed this book here.) 

Delaying The Real World by Colleen Kinder
$5.18 on Amazon.com for the paperback
This book changed Leslie’s life by giving her the idea to move to China with a Latin American Studies degree! It lists hundreds of ideas on things to do after college that do not involve law school or a cubicle. (I previously reviewed this book here.) 

Fellowships, Internships, Traineeships:

AIESEC is the world’s largest student-run organization, and it offers placements for internships and traineeships all over the world.

The Luce Scholars program is a competitive fellowship program to enhance the understanding of Asia among potential leaders in American society. It’s designed for young leaders with limited exposure to Asia.

Teach for China is part of Teach for All, which is the international arm for Teach for America. American and Chinese teachers work side by side at schools in rural China.

Princeton in Asia/Latin America/Africa. Princeton University offers year-long fellowships in lots of countries in the fields of journalism, international development, business, and teaching, even for students who do not attend Princeton full-time.

English as a Second Language (ESL) Teaching Resources:

EslCafe.com is a site with everything you need to know about teaching ESL. A key feature is that you can post your resume so schools can contact you about relevant opportunities.

CIEE.org/teach. This is the program that brought Leslie to China. It is run like a study abroad program and offers placements in Chile, China, Dominican Republic, South Korea, Spain, Thailand and Vietnam. NOTE: You may have to pay an initial placement fee, but the administrative process is a lot smoother than going out on your own.

Contact Us:

Leslie Forman | leslieforman@gmail.com | www.leslieforman.com

Natalie Tan | natalie.joy.tan@gmail.com | www.natalietan.com

“A mi me encantaría ser emprendedor para ayudar a mi familia.” How do you suggest that this aspiring entrepreneur get started?

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photo of a bicycle on the coast, via photopin, to illustrate a question from an aspiring entrepreneur in coastal Southern Chile, whose father repairs bikes. This week a student who attended a talk I gave in 2011 in a small city on the coast in the south of Chile sent me the following email. English translation follows.

hola te escribo este correo porque estuviste en una charla de emprendimiento y a mi me encantaría ser emprendedor para ayudar a mi familia en especial a mi hermana que es sorda, pero no se como, no tengo los recursos necesarios, por eso necesito que me aconsejes de que podría hacer???

tengo algo en mente mi padre sabe arreglar bicicletas y tiene un taller pequeño y las ganancias le sirven para puro comer y no para comprar materiales y crecer.

seria como una meta poder tener una empresa no un sueño, una meta que se haga realidad.

le agradecería su expuesta.

::

Hi, I’m writing this email because you were at an event about entrepreneurship and I would love to be an entrepreneur to help my family, especially my sister who is deaf, but I don’t know how, I don’t have the necessary resources, and that’s why I need you to advise me on what I could do.

I have something in mind. My father knows how to fix bicycles and has a small workshop. From the earnings he can eat but he can’t buy materials or grow the business.

It would be like a goal to be able to have a company not a dream, a goal that comes true.

I’d appreciate your reply.

I’ve been in conversation with this writer, and I’ve already shared some initial ideas with him, but I’d like to open up his question to a broader audience. What do you suggest that he do?

photo credit: Mark J P via photopin cc

2012 in Review + Happy New Year!

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With less than 12 hours to go in 2012, I’m finally writing this post. I’ve been thinking about how to sum up this year for about a month now. It’s been an intense and busy year! The easiest way to describe the highlights of this year: with pictures.

Leslie Forman's Social Entrepreneurship Class at UDD

This semester I taught Social Entrepreneurship, an elective course in English at Universidad del Desarrollo (UDD), a private university here in Chile. Half of my students were on exchange from Denmark, Germany, and Sweden, and the other half were Chilean business majors. This has been the biggest and most challenging project I’ve taken on this year. I’ve written a lot more about the experience and I will share this with you soon. Thanks Max for the photo.

My article was published in Forbes!

My article, “The Secret to Creativity and Productivity,” was published in Forbes. This concept has really helped me get more done and feel less stressed. Click the photo to read the article.

Diplomado en Creatividad e Innovacion

Diplomado en Creatividad e Innovacion. One of the best things I’ve done this year has been taking a postgraduate course on creativity and innovation in the design school of Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, the top university in this country. Amazing course, amazing classmates. We learned so much about the process of creating innovation, from brainstorming to needfinding to research and development. I also made great friends in this class and I already miss them!

diplomado graduation photo

Here’s a photo from our diplomado graduation celebration a few days ago. Claudia, Paola, Berni (the head of the course), Tomás (the course assistant/coordinator), Meilin, me, Pamela, Darinka. Our class had 12 students and perhaps even more teachers.

How to Create Your International Career

I launched this free course on how to create your international career, as a “lean startup” approach to writing a book on this topic. I’ve been living, working, and studying overseas for about 6.5 of the past 8 years, and I really want to turn these experiences into a useful resource for people considering a similar path. Since launching this free course, I have connected with dozens of fellow global citizens. Thank you all for your thoughtful notes and helpful feedback. I really appreciate it. More soon!

Marcelo, Emma, Ben and me at a gorgeous restaurant in Chile's wine country.

When my brother was here in Chile, he and Emma and Marcelo and I traveled to visit Marcelo’s family in the countryside. Here we are at a gorgeous restaurant in Chile’s wine country.

UnoCrea.cl

I created this website for UnoCrea, a consultancy in Iquique in the north of Chile that offers innovation and training programs for companies and student groups. Click the image to visit the website.

I’m looking forward to visiting Iquique in March or April to lead a workshop for the students of MEC-U. I made this semi-ridiculous video to welcome everyone to the program.

I could add so many more: my parents’ visit to Chile in May, several fun trips to the beach, what I’ve been cooking and reading and thinking about.

But in the interest of space and honesty, I’d like to move on to what hasn’t been so good this year.

Doing way too many things at the same time.

For much of the year, I had four simultaneous part-time jobs, and was studying creativity and innovation, writing articles for several publications, and launching this free course on How to Create Your International Career. I could hardly sleep. My immune system basically shut down. I got sick midway through the semester, with a fever that turned into a cough that turned into bronchitis. I was ill for about a month altogether. I got behind on grading and preparation, and I couldn’t think about more than a week at a time.

I was pretty miserable and probably not a lot of fun to be around. I don’t want to live in an exhausted, coughing haze.

So yes, now and in 2013, I am scaling back my commitments and choosing projects more carefully.

I will be teaching a different course at the same university starting in March, and I really really want to write this book and get it out into the world before I turn 30 in January of 2014. So far I have a rough outline and lots of pages of transcribed interviews that I’ve fit into the outline. (Thank you Frann for helping me get to to this point.)

I’m sure there will be lots of opportunities to get involved with other projects, and perhaps I will take a few on, but my new mantra is…

… healthy.

My core desired feeling is to be healthy. To live with energy and enthusiasm. To get plenty of sleep and plenty of exercise. To be present. To do one thing at a time.

I don’t want to be a crazy Type-A overachiever who needs to do everything all at the same time, believing that busy = successful (thank you Michelle Ward for pinpointing this underlying automatic commitment.)

I’ve already started to make dramatic changes in my diet (green juice! little coffee.)

Thank you all for reading this blog, for supporting me through this crazy and wonderful year.

I wish you health, happiness, and joy in 2013.

Much love from Chile,

Leslie

gorgeous sunset, Santiago Chile

P.S. May 27: After two solid days of rain, the clouds opened, shining bright rays of sunset light over the Andes. <3

 

A Festival of Lights — Inside My Head, All Over My Living Room (and for you!)

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Happy Chrismukkah! Yes, that word may or may not have been coined on The OC, and it’s what we celebrated here in Chile. With latkes and ornaments. And this amazing a capella parody song by The Maccabeats. A festival of lights.

And I’m finally able to step back from everything I’ve been doing this year. So much movement, so many ideas, so many different projects and connections and challenges.

I look back at the past few months of this blog, and see a theme: figuring out new ways to deal with stress, uncertainty, and overwhelm.

And now, my slate is finally clean(ish). The grades are in, the invoices have been sent, the diplomado is almost finished.

My brain is exhausted. My body is exhausted.

How lucky I am to have so many opportunities. How silly I am to say yes to almost all of these opportunities.

I’m learning so much. Concepts flash/spin/twirl in my head and get scribbled in my notebooks — about social enterprise, effective teaching, stages of living and working abroad, why planning and goal setting make me so uneasy, and so much more.

Whatever you’re celebrating this season, wherever you are in the world — I wish you peace and love and joy, and the lights to see it all.

Links for Your International Career Launch – (early) December Edition

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A porter carries concrete up Huangshan, one of China’s most iconic mountains. There is a gondola for tourists, but all the materials and supplies for the hotels and shops and trails at the top of the mountain are carried by porters, who are paid by the jin (about a pound). I chose this photo because the careers mentioned in the articles in this post might be challenging, but nowhere near as back-breaking as being a concrete porter! (I took this photo in 2007.)

One of my goals for this blog is to help people who are launching international careers. This post is the first in an occasional series of links to remarkable articles on this topic.

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