First, be honest with yourself about your goals for going overseas. Adventure? Boredom with the routine at home? Escape from some difficult situation? You may be planning to offer your skills and commitment to serve people in some way and/or you may be expecting to gain higher pay or valuable experience for your future career.
Most people have mixed motives when considering work abroad, and it’s important to realize that no motive is intrinsically better or worse. Be clear in your own mind about why you have these goals, and don’t try to hide or undervalue the motives that seem less “noble”.
Following are some important areas to think through during the preparation time for work abroad. Everyone is different, and some will have more strengths in these areas than others. Self-assessment is suggested, not to make you beat up on yourself, but to encourage you to reflect carefully on your own approaches to your overseas experience. Some important skills and mind-sets for work include:
Openness to Foreign Ways
People are different. Cultures are ways human beings organize their lives and they vary in significant ways. These facts mean that persons going to live in a culture new to them will discover unfamiliar, confusing, even irrational-seeming new ways of living. It goes much deeper than new foods and holiday celebrations. How ready are you to consider radically alien views about how human life should be organized? How well are you able to understand differing points of view in people you meet every day? Reflecting on your ability to see varying perspectives on a situation will give you clues about how ready you are to adjust to a foreign culture.
Tolerance of Ambiguity
Life is uncertain. Much as most people would like to feel in control of events, it usually turns out that the unpredictable takes control. Human cultures are organized to enable groups of people to impose some uniformity on the universe, so it follows that if you step out of one culture into another, you will discover completely new ways of dealing with uncertainty.
This results in feelings of confusion and insecurity, which some people cope with better than others. How strongly to you feel the need to be in control of the situations of your life? How easy is it for you to “go with the flow” even if you are not sure where the road is leading? More control-oriented people will have greater difficulties in adjusting to life abroad.
Ability to Fail
Cultures are complex. Nobody can learn all there is to know about a new culture in a short period of time. Cross-cultural workers face years of learning about new and different ways, and learning means that there will be some – maybe a lot – of times when you just don’t get it right. Are you able to fail, and pick up and try again? This ability is one of the most crucial for overseas work of any kind, and the only comfort is, if you aren’t good at it to begin with, you will get plenty of practice!
Advance Preparation for Overseas Assignments
If you are seriously considering taking a job in a country foreign to you, time spent in reflection on the above issues will be well repaid. Particularly in managerial positions, but also in technical and service work, the so-called “soft” skills are needed most.
Working overseas presents a variety of challenges that are best met by workers who have developed a high degree of cross-cultural communicative competence. Such competence can be learned on the job, but thoughtful preparation can go a long way towards making your overseas experience a rewarding one.
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