Success Tips for Expat & International Careers

The Art of Branding your Newborn

Fellow expat, Nichole Parker, is a tax attorney who specializes in expatriate tax and social security issues between the US and Italy.  She sent me a great article about how parents are embracing the idea of personal branding for their children - even before they are born!

The Wall Street Journal article, The Baby Name Business, discusses how parents are hiring baby-name consultants to help them choose names for their children. "Growing brand consciousness has made parents more aware of how names can shape perceptions". Parents are googling possible names to assess how suitable they might be. They are consulting a growing number of websites such as Babynamesworld.com to learn about cultural associations, linguistic origins or how many times a name showed up in a wedding annoucement of an Ivy League graduate in a google search.

Choosing the right name has become extremely agonizing for some parents - and apparently is becoming big business. Consultants are charging upwards of 500 US dollars for their services.

It is impressive the kind of analysis that has been done with names.  "The C-K sound is very popular in corporate circles" reports one consultant. "The hard stop forces you to accentuate the syllable in a way that draws attention to it".

An advertising executive who authored a book on baby names indicated that "people who understand branding know that when you pick the right name, you're givng your child a head start." Other parents interviewed for the article said they wanted a cool name - but not too trendy - that would help their child stand out and hence have a better chances in the job market when they grew up.

One parent who was disappointed because her first choice of names was snatched up by a British porn star, recently adopted a child and named him Jackson Thomas.  Although the name passed the "google test", she said she was  still concerned  "what other Jackson Thomases are going to be doing for the next 15 to 20 years and what they are going to put on their MySpace pages".

Your Expat Success Tip: Google yourself.  Does your name pass the Google test? If not, take one step right now to get on-brand information about yourself online.

Expat Interviews - The Inside Story

I am always interested in finding new resources to recommend to my expat clients. I recently came across this fantastic site which shares the stories of those successfully living abroad.

Lizza Capucion, the co-owner, could not have done a better job of describing what Expat Interviews is all about, so I am sharing her own words here:

"Expat Interviews was launched in June 2006, a collaboration between two friends and business partners: Victor Volder in the Netherlands and Lizza Capucion in the Phillipines. We think the idea of travel is exciting, and the idea of uprooting one's self to live in a foreign land even more so. We find the interviews we receive to be not only interesting to read, but very informative as well. The handful of interviews that we started with during the first few weeks has grown to number in the hundreds by January 2007. And that growth shows no sign of stopping.

There are several interpretations of the word "expatriate", but for the site's purposes, it simply means a person who has left the land of his or her birth to live in another country. However, several types of expats are featured on Expat Interviews: the so-called transient expats, or those who are living in another country for only a determined amount of time because of work or studies or other reasons. These people are also known as immigrants or adoptive citizens.

We Googled You - an HBR Case Study

I really enjoy the Harvard Business Review's case studies. In the June issue, there was a case study about a woman, "Mimi", applying for a job for which she was highly qualified. But her suitability for the position was being called into question after human resources found some disturbing information online.

Mimi was being considered for a high profile position at Hathaway Jones, a luxury apparel retailer company. She would be heading up the new flagship store in Shanghai. This was a key position for insuring success in the entering the Chinese market.

Although her credentials were impressive, a "routine Google search" by human resources uncovered  Mimi's past involvement in protests against the World Trade organization as a recent graduate of University of California, Berkeley. What caused great alarm was a picture of her in front of the Chinese consulate protesting China's treatment of a dissident journalist.

The author of the case study asked several people to share their views on the situation.  Should Mimi be hired?

Jeffrey A. Joerres is the chief executive officer of Manpower, one of the largest employment services companies in the world. He felt for a number of reasons that he would not hire Mimi.  He believes that "online content is public information and is fair game for employers to ask about it". In his opinion the information online was just as relevant as that on her resume.

Danah Boyd, doctoral candidate at the University of California, Berkeley and an advisor to major media corporations, has been blogging for ten years. Her opinion was that Mimi should have been hired. Employers need people "who play by the rules", but they also need creative thinkers and people not afraid to speak their minds when their ideas are not considered to be mainstream. Actively posting to share a person's present views can remedy thoughts shared in the past that may be particularly damaging to a person's online reputation.

Micheal Fertik is CEO of ReputationDefender, a company that finds and removes digital dirt for their clients. Clearly he feels one's online identity is important or he wouldn't be in the business he is in. He indicated that hiring Mimi would undoubtedly create problems for the company. He believes that one must monitor your online identity as a person's reputation is not just about you share about yourself, but what others' say about you. His quote from the last paragraph says it all: "Don't tell me that it {a negative comment online} wouldn't have an enormous impact on your emotional and professional well-being".

You can see the article online to see what other people have to say about this situation.

What are your thoughts? Would you have hired Mimi? Why?  I invite you to share your comments.