Success Tips for Expat & International Careers

Expat & International Careers: When Was Your Last Personal Brand, Career & International Job Search Check Up?

When Was Your Last Personal Brand, Career & International Job Search Check Up?

Without conducting regular check ups on your personal brand, career management and international job search activities, you run the risk of wasting time, energy and resources doing things that are not in support of (or even worse working against) you achieving your professional goals. 

Building your personal brand to support your efforts to land new work abroad without the luxury of in person engagement or feedback makes it much easier to feel uncertain about which strategies you are employing are actually effective. 

And rarely does anyone develop a personal brand, career management or international job search plan which does not need some tweaking along the way. Without setting up some metrics to assess your efforts from the start, it's extremely difficult to know what's working and what's not. 

Taking the time to revisit your strategy and goals based on current accomplishments is also critical to successfully searching out and capitalizing on opportunities when they arise. 

And your ongoing intelligence gathering has much less value if you don’t take the time to make strategic course corrections or take action when the right situations arise. Depending on what industry or marketplace changes are afoot at any given moment, your strategic plans can remain much the same or change almost entirely. 

I recommend doing check ups quarterly for your personal brand and career management and monthly or even biweekly for someone in active job search. If you have not done one before, starting off with a biannual check up for brand building and career management is still a good start.

Expat Entrepreneurs: A Portable Career Supporting a Life Abroad & Artists Worldwide

I recently wrote about the research of Ernst & Young and their model for exceptional entrepreneurial leaders. Their research identified the top (personal brand) attributes and skills of the most successful entrepreneurial leaders worldwide. Given we are CEOs of our own careers in the new world of work, this list is applicable to today's most successful professionals and executives as well.

In this and future posts I'll be featuring expat professionals and entrepreneurial leaders that demonstrate those critical factors for success abroad as well as some additional qualities I've added based on research on success across cultures. 

This particular expat entrepreneur's personal brand definitely includes many of these attribute and skills as you'll soon see as you read this interview and learn more about his fantastic project. Being a big believer in the power of art to inspire and transform, I'm a big fan of Naysawn Naderi, founder of ArtSumo.com. But I'll let him tell you more...

 

Naysawn, can you tell us a little bit about yourself?

I think of myself as a Canadian engineer who is aspiring to be a global entrepreneur. I joined Microsoft right out of university, and spent the next four years in Seattle, Washington developing and releasing Microsoft Test Professional, speaking at conferences around the world, and drinking free soda in the Microsoft Commons. After four years in corporate life, I decided to start Art Sumo and travel the world in search of incredible art finds. Art Sumo is my first venture.

 

Expat & International Careers: An Expat Woman Overcoming Obstacles to Build a Career Abroad

Congratulations to Hilary Corna - the winner of the recent Expat Women's Career Success Abroad contest.

For this contest I'd asked expat women who'd faced challenges and overcame them to build a career abroad to write and submit a story sharing their tale so that others might learn from it.

Hilary's story stood out as one that would inspire expat women to take some the courageous steps that she did to find professional success abroad. Here is Hilary's story: 

ONE WHITE FACE

 “I hope you realize you’re the one white face in the company,” one of Toyota’s top management said to me. 

Upon graduation from college in 2007, I sold my only asset — a 1995 Jeep Wrangler — and bought a one-way ticket to Singapore. Absent an actual job, I was on the road to fulfill my pipe dream of beginning my career in Asia.

Expat Careers & Businesses: Personal Brand Attributes of the Most Successful CAN be Nurtured

Entrepreneurs are the source of most job creation, economic growth and innovation in the world. They are critical players in the global economy and their role in generating prosperity and growth across the globe continues to increase. 

Ernst & Young, founders of the prestigious Entrepreneur of the Year Program, realized that there was no universal definition of entrepreneurship or a definitive list of traits and behaviors of the world's most successful entrepreneurial leaders. They decided to use current research, in-depth interviews with winners of Entrepreneur of the Year Program, and a survey of 685 entrepreneurs worldwide to build a model and remedy that problem.

The results of their work - a look at the personal brand attributes and skills of successful entrepreneurial leaders from around the world - is a report entitled, "Nature or nurture? Decoding the DNA of the entrepreneur".