October 21, 2019, by Leah Sharpe
How To Find A Job In Another Country If You Don’t Have Much Time
By Christian Jameson-Warren, Employability Projects Officer
Trying to find a good job in a different country can be difficult, especially if you have limits on your time and energy due to studying commitments.
1. Be clear about what sort of job you want
If you are making a big decision to work in another country, instead of thinking purely about your first job after graduation, think about where you want to be in your personal and professional life in five to ten years’ time. Consider what skills, experience and connections you need to get there. Use this as part of a criteria for deciding what sorts of jobs you wish to apply for now.
2. Understand the recruitment expectations and procedures of different countries
There are both subtle and significant differences in the job application process, such as how CVs are formatted and etiquette at interviews. Do some quick research online to prevent you wasting time later on completing applications that will be rejected. Find out more
3. Identify potential employers
Search for specific employers in your chosen industry and country. This will help you be more focused in your activities. In his book The 2-Hour Job Search, author Steve Dalton recommends making a list of 40 companies as this will encourage you to think creatively and widen your options to a suitable number beyond what is merely convenient. Put these into an Excel table. If you are focused, you can do this in a few minutes.
4. Rank the employers in terms of preference
Dalton recommends ranking organisations in order of preference using the LAMP method:
L – List of employers
A – Alumni
Quickly using LinkedIn.com/alumni are there any alumni that work there?
M – Motivation
Give a score of 1 – 5 how much you want to work there
P – Posting
Are there any opportunities available right now? Use www.indeed.co.uk to search (don’t click on job posting at this stage), and give each a score as follows:
Once you have prioritised your list, you can select which employers to focus your time on.
5. Be clear about the value you could bring an organisation
If you’re not clear in your own mind about how you can help and add value to an organisation, it will be hard for other people to see it too.
6. Get contacting people
The non-profit organisation, 80,000 Hours, conducted extensive research into the most effective ways of finding jobs. Some companies (especially large ones) have standardised recruitment processes that everyone must follow, so you just need to follow these. However, thinking about the recruitment process from an employer’s point of view, many people are more likely to recruit someone they know or has been recommended by someone they know.
In practise, this means contacting people at identified companies to try building relationships with them. An effective way to do this is called informational interviewing. This involves contacting people to ask for a few minutes of their time to find out more about working in that company/industry. If you can find alumni from your university, they are often more open to helping.
80,000 Hours have put together a series of email scripts that can be adapted to reach out to people at companies that interest you. You can send people personalised LinkedIn connections or do some research and find their email address.
Find out more about networking or explore working abroad
This is a very helpful list. I find that your alumni can be a great source of referrals and guidance.