Success Tips for Expat & International Careers

Expat & International Careers: Interview with Expatistan: Cost of Living Figures Worldwide and (soon) Expat Job Boards

As a person who helps expats build careers and businesses to support their life abroad, I'm always on the look out for new resources for my clients.  When I came up on Expatistan I was thrilled to find such a valuable resource - especially since they are free!  

Almost every expat deals with the challenges of understanding how differences in cost of living can affect their country and expat job choices. Many expats also struggle with finding English speaking jobs overseas. These are two challenges that Expatistan is in the process of addressing or will be addressing soon.

Expatistan is a relatively new tool and depends on expats contributions of cost of living estimates where they are to be effective. I am hoping that raising awareness will encourage expats to contribute, thereby making a a valuable resource for all.

Gerardo Robledillo, creator of Expatistan, graciously agreed to answer a few questions and share about the amazing resources he's built for expats. Here are my questions and his answers:

 

Gerardo, can you tell us a little bit about yourself, your background and what inspired you to create Expatistan?

I am a software engineer from Madrid, Spain. I've been working for internet companies ever since I graduated. I love to code, I love internet, and I really like internet businesses. All the time that I don't spend working for clients or with my family, I am working on my own private internet projects.

What inspired me to create Expatistan.com? Well, I was basically scratching my own itch. In most of my relocations (4 in the last 6 years), when it was time to negotiate the salary with my new employer I was basically blind. I knew how much I was making in my current city, I knew how much I wanted to make relative to my current income, but I had no idea how much would that translate to in the new city. In the internet you can find tones of indices about cost of living, but they are either behind (very expensive) paid walls, or are dubious, or work only with American cities, or are focused on very high profile executives (since the companies doing them want to sell them to big corporations to calculate the relocation package of big shots). In all these cases, it was frustrating not to have reliable, detailed information for free.

I wanted an index that would allow me to compare any city in the world (not only US cities). It would allow me to see at a glance what the difference in cost of living would be. And if I wanted to, it would allow me to see the items that make the index, so I can check myself that the data is not wildly inaccurate. 

It didn't exist, so I created it.

For American Expats: It's April 15th - Have You Paid the Tax Man?

For my American expat readers - expat professionals and entrepreneurs alike - today is a dreaded day for many. Taxes are due. Some of you may still be scrambling to get something out. Others comforted in knowing you've gotten it all in on time and are looking forward to those refund checks (hopefully).

In honor of this day, I decided to conduct an interview with a taxes expert who caters to the unique tax challenges of expats, Vincenzo Villamena of onlinetaxman.com. 

I'd first like to thank Vincenzo for taking the time to answer a few questions.

Expat Careers & Businesses: Storytelling about Your Brand Online and Offline

For today's post I’ve interviewed friend, colleague and fellow personal branding strategist Bernadette Martin about her new book Storytelling about Your Brand Online & Offline. The book explains how storytelling can help executives, entrepreneurs and professionals to message and strengthen their personal brand. 

I had the honor of penning a chapter in the book entitled, “How to Internationalize your Bio”.

 

 I want to thank Bernadette for taking the time to answer a few questions regarding storytelling and personal branding.

• So Bernadette, how do you define the word “story” and why are stories so powerful?

I believe a story is an expression of real and imagined experiences, crafted and woven by the storyteller in a sensory fashion. This can play out in an oral, written, visual or tactical context in a book, movie, poem, song or dance. Stories can be expressed online through vehicles like YouTube, FaceBook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Second Life and more. 

Stories capture and hold our attention. They are an extremely powerful form of communication because stories combine facts, figures and details with emotions, colors and imagery, creating synapses between the left and right halves of your brain. Stories not only allow us to process information and store it effectively in memory, but also, perhaps most importantly, allow us connect emotionally with another person. 

Should I Stay or Should I Go? The Choice of Becoming an Expat

The choice of moving abroad is not one to be taken lightly. Without making informed decisions and proper preparation, the dream of living "la dolce vita" can quickly turn into a nightmare.

A resource that can provide you with help in making this important decision is a book that I had the honor of contributing to: Should I Stay or Should I Go? The Truth about Moving Abroad and Whether It’s Right for You.

The author, Paul Allen, is a freelance journalist and writer. Having left his native England to live and work in New York City as managing editor with a leading financial publisher, Paul then swapped city life for the beauty of north-eastern Spain in 2003.

Spurred by the “lucky you” comments of colleagues and friends, who seemed to be under the impression that life overseas was one long fiesta, Paul took up the challenge of revealing both the bright and dark sides to living abroad, hoping it would help people better decide if they too should make the move. And so his book was born. 

Paul graciously agreed to answer a few questions regarding some of the issues he covers in his book.

Expat Expert Robin Pascoe Releases New Online Lecture Series on Successful Living Abroad

Author Robin Pascoe, who created ExpatExpert.com in 1998 to support globally, mobile families, recently posted a new online video lecture series (free) which addresses many of the major challenges of adjusting to life abroad which she writes about in her books in support of the mobile, expat family.

While the lecture is offered in bite-sized segments of three-to-five minutes, the entire program runs one hour and is based on her lecture “Successful Living Abroad” which she has delivered to expat communities around the world.

Topics covered include the subject of her four books for the expat spouse and family:

• Loss of Identity
• Loss of a traditional career
• Raising global nomads and parenting abroad
• Family cultural shock
• Moveable Marriages
• Repatriation