How to Create Your International Career
Leslie’s note: For most of my twenties I lived abroad: four years in China and four years in Chile. These articles are all from 2009-2015. Enjoy!
Perhaps you have lived in more than one place and in more than one language, or aspire to in the future. You are not content to be defined by a specific degree or organization, or by someone else’s expectations. Shifts and transitions have shaped your worldview, but you make the effort to stay connected with home. You crave food from faraway lands.
There’s not a lot of good information out there about how to create an international career that suits you, based on your own diverse set of interests, skills, and desires.
So I created this for you!
For me, creating an international career has been a long-term journey in which I’ve learned a lot about myself and connected with lots of like-minded people who have connected me with an ongoing stream of opportunities to work on a wide variety of projects.
Over the years I’ve written lots of articles about living and working abroad. Here are a few favorites:
My Global Career Story: California + China + Chile (long version, as of mid-2015)
ADVICE:
- Get Your International Career in Gear: Advice, Diagrams, and Links from our Cal Career Center Presentation
- Notes on “Creating a Global Career” with NOBLE
- Working Abroad? How to Give a Presentation in the Local Language (Daily Muse)
CHINA:
- Flashback: How I decided to move to China after graduating with a Latin American Studies degree.
- Happy New Year! And the Little Boy’s Favorite Toy
- Creativity in the Context of Chinese Legal Work
- Hotpot on Thanksgiving? Gnocchi in Jiaxing? “Edge” in Mandarin? How Creativity Makes Global Life Easier
- Dear China: It’s Not You, It’s Me. Let’s Be Friends Forever.
CHILE:
- How you (yes, you!) can study abroad. A Student’s Guide to Study Abroad [review]
- First Impressions of Chile – In Photos!
- An Experiment in Location Independence, Pichilemu-style
- From Corporate Copywriter in China to Emerging Entrepreneur in Chile: A Year in Review
- Looks like this Chilean paper company needs a new Chinese copywriter…
- Unexpected Perk of Start-Up Chile: Mining-Specific Chinese Vocab Lessons!
I’m in the process of creating more resources on this topic. If you’d like to schedule an appointment to discuss this in more detail, please feel free to email me directly. Thanks!!
Here’s to your adventures!
Leslie
Let’s connect: LinkedIn // Twitter
That’s me, at the podium of EXPO China in Santiago, Chile. What you can’t see in this picture is that there’s no one in the audience; it wasn’t speech time. But there were plenty of Chinese companies showing off their buses, carpets, garbage incinerators, and all kinds of other products positioned for the Chilean market. The opportunities for international trade and business are endless, and you (yes, you!) can position yourself right in the middle of it.
P.S. I’d love to hear from you and hear all about your goals and dreams. Write to me any time: leslie [dot] forman [at] gmail [dot] com!