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This post came about for two reasons: 1) I have had the pleasure to discover a quite funny blogger, Rachel, who is a girl from New York City who spent the last two years in Brazil. She recently returned to the US and has started writing about her job hunt woes. 2) My boyfriend Leandro is sitting right next to me currently applying for jobs in the United States from Brazil. We’ve been scheming whether it is better to put my parent’s address in the US as his address, and how he can explain his eligibility to work in the United States through a simple “Yes” or “No” scroll down bar. One’s eligibility to work in the US is not a yes or no situation–he could be eligible to work legally in the US if it was necessary because we could get married, but he would prefer a work visa, and if he does have to have a marriage license, he would have to apply for it. It’s hard enough for US citizens to reduce their life’s work into yes or no automated job application options, let alone for one who is applying from across seas.
Before finding out that I was going to Georgetown, I spent months searching for jobs in Brazil, and in the United States alike. The problem was that I was living in New Orleans, LA, and although I wouldn’t mind living in New Orleans, there weren’t many options for work for either myself or Leandro, my Brazilian boyfriend who does 3-d animation, and so it wasn’t possible.
The problem is that although people can move across the country, or to a entire different country, for school, companies seem to believe that you wont move somewhere will you will be paid to do a job that you are passionate about. As soon as you send in your resume with a address of another state/country, I’m pretty sure you get tossed in the “No” pile.
Now that I decided to take on a Master’s degree, I have stopped my job search. I did get some call backs for interviews, but they were only in Atlanta, GA, where I have an address, and in New Orleans. But now I have passed the joy of relentlessly searching for overseas jobs to Leandro, who is trying to go to the United States now that he knows that I will be stuck there for a while.
It seems like the world today needs to get with the picture. Jobs want people who have had lots of cultural experiences, are well traveled, can speak many languages, but when they see the resume with an address more than 25 miles, they chuck it.
This will be the start of a series of help for people who are looking for jobs abroad. I am going to get in touch with people who do hire foreigners and people who are looking for cultured and well-traveled employees who speak many languages. I will also talk to those who are on the hunt themselves (like so many of us these days) and keep us updating with their tips and experiences. Stay tuned and good luck to all you job hunters out there!
Hey, Great cartoon! I think so many jobs are found by networking that it is hard to find a job when you are not able to work it like you would if you lived there already. Is Leandro going to go to Scad?
Yeah, I agree with what you said. Networking seems like the most crucial aspect of finding a job, unfortuneatly it is hard to do when you aren’t in the country where you are trying to find a job.
Moving somewhere to find a job, I believe might help in meeting people in the area of work, but networking is a hard dance between making friends/asking for favors to people in order to find out about job opportunities. I think that there is a fine line that most be carefully walked upon-when networking you are in a sense making friends and selling yourself at the same time, and you can’t seem like your selling yourself too much. Maybe it is more like when a somebody is looking for love, throwing yourself and smothering every opportunity one winds up alone and looking too fake, while being confident and meeting people (subconsciously selling yourself) with an open mind one is more likely to get to wind up meeting someone with whom sparks fly.
Leandro just got accepted to SCAD and was awarded a scholarship for half of the tuition. The problem is the “expected expenses” is a lot of money, more than he has budgeted, and so he is applying for a “need based” scholarship as well. So hopefully he will go, but we are still waiting to see what happens. In the meantime he has applied to a few more animation jobs. Thanks!