Establishing Yourself as a Resource: How to Network for Remote Work Opportunities
How to Find & Negotiate Remote Work with American Companies?
This is a pretty common question that I receive and if you’ve listened to my episode on the podcast, you learned about how I got abroad and how I continually “flipped” opportunities into remote jobs abroad. My situation was different than how this question is typically posed because I didn’t work or seek to work for a company and then negotiate with them to work remotely. I already lived abroad and networked my way into a full-time job with an American company based in D.C.
So, my advice is simple: Network
Before you roll your eyes at me, hear me out!
Networking is simply building relationships, that’s it, that’s all. Don’t make it deeper than it is!
People who are great at networking establish themselves as a resource to others. Thereby demonstrating their expertise and skills, but also continuously building relationships.
Networking may not land you a job, but it may put you in a position to pitch yourself as a solution to some company’s problem (with the stipulation that you work remotely).
So what are your first steps?
Figure out what you want to do or at the very least make a detailed list of all of your marketable skills. Don’t tell me (or anyone else for that matter), that you’ll “do anything, anywhere.” That’s not true and that doesn’t help anyone who’s rooting for you to actually assist you. It won’t make them think of someone specific within their network you should link up with and it doesn’t narrow the field of your own search. You will burn yourself out being so abstract. Remember specificity reigns supreme! Narrow it down even if it’s just to get informational interviews or as a starting point for you to gather data to see if you really want to go down a particularly marketable skill “route”.
Develop a profile, reputation, and/or professional brand that aligns with what you want to be hired to do. Showcase your skills and expertise. Showcase your ability to work remotely/independently within deadlines and/or across time zones.
Then tell people! Go through your network and see who is working in that field or country or company. Identify companies that you’d be interested in working with and identify how they recruit (outside recruiting agency or internal HR) and introduce yourself. This way your efforts will most likely yield more and better quality results and opportunities. I also recommend listening to the How to Get a Job Abroad episode of the podcast and watching the AMAZING video I did with Itiah Thomas about taking your career abroad!
This video is about how to make a successful career transition abroad, featuring past Flourish in the Foreign guest, Itiah Thomas. Itiah is an American woman who used to work in commercial construction project management in the US, but moved to Australia to pursue a career transition and explore living abroad as a pathway to wellness. She talks about her experience of leaving the US, traveling for 8 months to find a new home, settling in Australia, how she secured a job in her career field in Australia and how she negotiated Australian residency into her compensation package. She also talks about the importance of professional and financial wellness in relation to living abroad.
This episode of Flourish in the Foreign focuses on the topic of getting a job abroad and features Christine's, host of Flourish in the Foreign, personal experience and advice on how to be strategic and network effectively in order to secure opportunities. It covers getting a job via headhunters, staffing agencies, job boards, networking, and leveraging competitive advantages. It also shares insights about earning a degree abroad as a way to enter a country's job market and create entrepreneurial opportunities. It also features the stories of how past podcast guests got jobs abroad:
Working as an International Recruiter in Jordan
Working as an Architectural Designer in Japan
Working in Social Work and Counseling in Italy
Working as a Graphic Designer in Hong Kong
Working in Marketing in Iceland
Working in Construction Project Management in Australia
Working in International Higher Education Around the World
Working in Bio-Tech in the Netherlands
Working in Digital Marketing in Portugal
Have some insight to share? Drop your comments below and let’s continue the conversation.
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