The Idiots’ Guide to the Emigrants (EN – Part 4 / Curriculum and How to sell yourself)
You have though a lot about it. You have chosen your destination, you have visited the city not as a tourist, but with a different mentality. You have studied the language, reading, writing, listening and speaking. So what’s next?
A Job!
Living in a foreign country can be really expensive (especially if you will decide for a big city like London) and if you don’t have a lot of money to thrash away, the most important thing is to be able to find a job as soon as possible.
To get a job there are two possible approach:
1. Move and find one
2. Find one and move
Both the tactics have their own pro and con, it really depends on how much money do you have in your bank, how much of those you will set on stake and how much time you need to do all the things you need. Let’s take a deeper look to the two possible solutions
Move and Find a Job
Well, definitely this approach is more risky, but sometimes more rewarding. Let’s start telling that there are few companies who are happy to employ someone that is not already living in the country they are in; it’s simply a matter of risks. There is one important thing to keep in mind if you will decide to take this road: a lot of important issues will comes up if you will not have a job when you will get in your new location (rental, bank, etc…). Everyone of the problems could make your firsts weeks very hard.
On the other side it will be probably easier to find a job if you will be already living in the new city, because the “risk” of employing someone already used to the new location are lower for the employer.
Find a Job and Move
Wanna have a “safe net” before jumping? Ok, perfect, you have chosen the safer way, but it doesn’t mean it will be easy. Be prepare to send hundreds (really hundreds) of CV, be ready to receive some calls and be ready to take the first plane for an interview, but more than other things be prepared not to receive anything. Obviously you can do this only if you are moving not too far from home: it would be hard for you to take a plane to the other part of the world just for an interview. This way gives you the possibility to be flexible with your starting date, but you must keep in mind that it is not the easiest way; it is the safest.
If you plan to follow the “Find a Job and Move” you should plan a trip into your “wannabe” new city for a couple of weeks. Try to book as many interview as possible in the time you will be there.
How to sell yourself
One of the most important thing that must be understood is that you could take the decision to move even without being a “Specialist“, but the more competent you are, the better will be.
You must take note of your skills, from the most important ones to the less interesting. You must be prepared with a list of jobs you will be ready to accept, listing them by importance. I would have hardly accepted a job as a plumber, not because I don’t like the job or I feel myself “better” than the plumbers (bull****s), but because I have NO EXPERIENCE to be a plumber. I have experience in Software Solutions, in Team Leadership, in Web environment, therefore I wrote down a list of “good jobs”. And if I wouldn’t have been able to find those? Well, to begin even working in a cafeteria would have been good: you should start from somewhere. Your CV have to be clear, it must be your “selling point”. Some strategies works better than others, at least in my experience:
- Write an introduction, a profile of yourself
- Describe who do you want to be. “The first Job I can take” is not a good personal target.
- List your Major Achievements. Projects you have followed, responsibility you had and so on.
- Point out your key skills, listing the years of experience for each of them.
- Write down your previous jobs and your studying curricula
You can take a look at my CV: just to peep at the way I’ve done it.
References
If you plan to move in the UK you have to be sure to have your references ready! Here every company wants to know if what they are buying is worth the price, and to do it they want to have a paper written by your previous employee(s) that describes you. Be ready to ask your previous employer your references, a telephone number and an e-mail where they should be contacted. Be very careful: without it finding a job will be extremely hard!
Money and Role: the dual scale!
In London I have seen that there are two different things that weight on the job proposals you will get: your level and your previous wage. If you want to be hired as Team Leader (as I tried the first periods) you must have the knowledge to do what you are trying to get: don’t give up too easily; fight for the role you want! Then you have to understand that, despite your role, the wage that will be offered if you will pass the interviews will be proportional to the last one you had.
What does it means? If you are a Team Leader and you have accepted (just for the beginning) a lower job paid less than the role you were looking for, the road that will lead you to a higher salary will be very difficult! If you will accept a role less payed, the next employer will hardly offer you 10.000£ more than the first role in the UK, even if you worth them.
My personal advice is: for the first searches… dare! Sell yourself, sell your skills, pretend to be paid the value you worth! If you will accept a lower role, less paid, the road to get back to a higher standard will be Hard!
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