Are you thinking about making a big leap to change jobs AND move to another country? Many executives and professionals fear relocating for an international job search, because there are many aspects to consider, language barriers, and unknown variables. It’s common for people to stop pursuing their dream job for these reasons.
When making a career transition, many professionals become overwhelmed by navigating cultural differences. In this episode, you will learn more about how to prepare to make that big move! Our host and CEO Porschia, alongside our guest, Emmy Petersson, will share their insight on an international job search.
Emmy Petersson is a certified coach who has worked with people in transition between career changes, countries, or challenging life situations since 2013. Emmy is passionate about helping mid-career professionals unlock what’s next in their career to truly enjoy and connect with the value they add. She also loves working with organizations to help train and support their team members to grow and align their career path.
What you’ll learn:
- What an expat is and Emmy’s experience as an expat
- Best practices on conducting international job searches
- The biggest challenges executives and professionals have with international job searches
- How to avoid letting an international relocation take a toll on your relationships
As a thank you for listening to this episode of the Career 101 Podcast, we are sharing our FREE master class – Career 911: Solving the Top 5 Challenges Executives and Professionals Have! It’s a training based on solving the common problems our clients have experienced to reach their goals. You can get access to the master class here!
Episode Transcript
Porschia: [00:00:00] Today we are talking about Career Transition 102 International Job Search with Emi Peterson. Emi Peterson is a certified coach who has worked with people in transition between career changes Countries or challenging life situations Since 2013, she’s enjoyed a varied career of different roles herself and knows firsthand how rewarding it
Emmy: is when you find the place that’s right [00:01:00] for you.
Porschia: Emmy doesn’t like to see valuable time and energy go to waste, which includes people spending months or years in a role or organization that isn’t right for them. That’s why Emmy is passionate about helping mid career professionals unlock what’s next in their career to truly enjoy and connect with the value they add.
She also loves working with organizations to help train and support their team members to grow and align their career path. Hi, Emmy. How are you
Emmy: today? Hello, Portia. I am great. Thank you so much for having me. Great.
Porschia: We are thrilled to have you with us to discuss the international job search, but first I’d like to know a little more about
Emmy: you.
So tell me about seven year old Emmy. Seven year old Emmy. She was living on a little family farm in Sweden, which is where I was [00:02:00] born and raised, where my family still lives. And I had ponies and bunnies and kittens and all sorts of things. And. I dare say if you ask anyone in my family, she was a very assertive, determined girl, even as a young kid.
And I don’t think she had any clue that she would eventually land in Australia. So what did you want to be when you grew up? Funnily enough, when I was really little, I wanted to be a school teacher or a kindergarten teacher because my grandmother, my mom’s mom was a teacher in primary school and I really loved kids.
I liked my brothers enough, but I loved. like kids in general. And funnily enough now, because I’m very happily child free by choice. A lot of my friends, when they find out, found out that I wanted to be a teacher as a kid, they’re like, wow, that doesn’t really sound like who you turned out to be as an adult.
So again, things change. Yes. Yes. So [00:03:00] what was your first job? My very first job, so growing up on a farm, you can imagine that, there’s a lot of chores to do and things like that. So I always had a lot of chores that I had to do as a kid to help out on the farm and the family. The first paid job I had was at a cafe, but shortly thereafter I started working at McDonald’s.
Of all places and it was a really tough gig, but man, I learned a lot about difficult customers, working shifts working around school hours. Cause I was in high school at the time and yeah, it was a really useful experience, but yeah, dealing with difficult customers was. Something that, I think all of us have to do whatever type of job we do, whatever your stakeholders are.
So yeah, I did that for a couple of years while I was in high school to save up for travels and other things, which kind of laid some of the foundation for my international career as well. Yeah.
Porschia: So I don’t know if they [00:04:00] run this commercial in Australia, but in the U S they have this commercial where they say one in eight people have worked at a McDonald’s and they say it’s a really cool commercial and they show all of these different like employees working and they say, pretty much people get their start at McDonald’s.
So when you said McDonald’s, it made me think of that commercial and. My first job was at Wendy’s,
Emmy: and I don’t know if you’ve ever been to a Wendy’s. Oh yeah, Wendy’s, yeah, also a burger restaurant. Yes. So I get it. I was taking
Porschia: orders on the, intercom and a cashier and, getting bags out the drive thru window, so I totally
Emmy: get it.
Yeah. And especially those like, when you’re, I can’t remember how old I was when I got to work with the really late shifts, people coming after they’ve been out clubbing and getting their burgers and not making any sense, I often think of that and chuckle because I do, I actually ended up getting a job later on in my life because I had McDonald’s on my resume because my boss at the time, A, he was [00:05:00] looking at my current skillset, but he said, if you worked at McDonald’s for as long as you did, You probably know a lot of stuff and it shows me the kind of person you are, that you’re willing to start working that young and, learn and grow and things like that.
And I actually did a cover role for a team lead for a couple of months over a summer break as well, which again, it’s that whole thing in your personality. When an opportunity comes in front of you, you can earn a bit of extra money, take a bit of extra responsibility. Is that something you lean into or not?
And for me, I always have, and sometimes that’s worked out well. And maybe sometimes it’s cost more challenges than I needed to have at the time. Yeah, that’s great.
Porschia: So along those lines, Amy, tell us about some highlights or pivotal moments in your career before you started
Emmy: your coaching business. Yeah, so ironically, a lot of my pivots have aligned with a move to a different country and sometimes that was by design and sometimes it just happened.
So [00:06:00] big change for me, I was in my early twenties. I was living in Sweden. I had spent some time in the US. straight out of high school. I spent a year over living just outside of San Francisco, had one of the best years of my life, lots of fun, worked as an au pair and stuff like that. But then I came back to Sweden to do my my degree and I ended up doing a degree in political science.
I have never worked with anything remotely connected to my degree, which I’m sure many of your clients and my clients certainly would agree with as well. But when I finished up in Sweden, I had this I remember it vividly. I had the opportunity to get a role in my quote unquote field in policy and stay in Sweden, or I could go with my then boyfriend to live in the UK.
And it was a really tricky thing because I could see how as a woman in the industry, I had in front of me, I could have probably moved up pretty quickly and advanced up the metaphorical ladder, but I kept thinking like. If I don’t do this, if I don’t [00:07:00] go for this move, A, our relationship is probably not going to last.
We were quite young at the time, both of us. But secondly, I was like, I don’t want to wonder what would have happened if. My partner was already there setting up some work that he had lined up. And I said, you know what? Probably doesn’t make sense to a lot of other people, but I’m going to move. So I moved, and this is back in 2007, and that is the last time I lived in my native Sweden.
And I landed without a job or anything like that, we can dive into all those sort of things later, but that was a huge pivot for me to listen to that gut feel that we all have and sometimes ignore where it’s like, I don’t want to regret. That I didn’t try. So that was one of the key ones. And another one is how I ended up in Australia 13 years ago, back in 2010.
I was working in the UK, had built up a life, had been there for a few years, had good friends, a good job, a great boss, but I was at that point where I just wasn’t growing anymore [00:08:00] and I felt like I needed something new. And the global financial crisis hit one of my best friends. Lost her job.
And she said, I’m going to go travel around the world for a year. Would you like to come? Cause she’d been given a fairly generous redundancy. And I said, give me six months. I need to save up some money and work out my life logistics. And off we went on our trip around the world. And I got halfway from the UK all the way to Australia, got offered a job here.
And 13 years later, I’m still here. Those serendipitous moments for me have often aligned with an opportunity to move or travel. Have I been scared and uncomfortable and lots of uncertainty? A hundred percent yes. But those, when I look back on my career as a whole, those two pivot points really do stand out.
Emi?
Maybe it’s that little seven year old in me that wanted to be a teacher, but not really be a teacher. I don’t know. How I [00:09:00] stumbled on coaching specifically as I was working in a corporate role that was rewarding, but very difficult. I had A lot of responsibilities, long hours.
I was working in sales at the time. Anyone who’s worked in sales can probably relate to what I’m sharing, but it was a big corporate role and it was a little bit too cutthroat for me. So I started looking for coaches for myself. Cause I said, I think I need a career coach. I think I need some help. And this is before coaching was really a big thing here in Australia.
And I stumbled on a school that taught coaching. And I thought this is interesting. I could learn it with. From two lenses, I can learn it to help myself and maybe I could also learn it to help somebody else. The idea was never to run a coaching business at that point. The idea was more to learn and help myself and maybe some of the people around me.
But then, yeah, that was back in 2013 and that turned into… A business and sometimes that business has been full time, sometimes part time, but it’s always remained in the background ever since I got introduced to it because [00:10:00] coaching is, you would very well know, and your listeners probably know if they listen to this type of podcast, you have to continuously just check in with yourself, sense check yourself, own your stuff when things come up and you react in certain ways.
Yes, it can be because of other people, but ultimately, you own your life, you own your journey and you own what you make things mean as they come up along the way. So that’s how I got into coaching. It was never a plan. It just serendipitously happened. And many of the people I met that first year studying coaching are still really good friends today.
So yeah, it’s been a big shift for me in more ways than just professionally. Yeah. And I
Porschia: completely agree with what you said, Emmy. We actually started our businesses in the same year, 2013. And yeah, 10 years ago, coaching was nowhere near as mainstream or as popular as it is today. I don’t know about you in Australia, but when I told people, I was going through coach training, [00:11:00] they would say what, like a sports coach, like they just.
Dead not get it.
Emmy: And coaching is way more popular. And,
Porschia: I think even socially accepted, it’s not just for deemed for underperformers, anymore in Oregon, but it’s really more of a developmental focus
Emmy: for a lot of people. I agree and I’m really glad to see that it’s gradually becoming a lot more accepted and also like you say that it’s not something you have to do when things are wrong.
It’s actually something you can and should be doing much like speaking to a counselor. You don’t want to speak to a psychologist or a counselor when things are hard, which it’s also a good time to do it, of course, but it’s a great thing to do when things are not well. Quote unquote bad. And you actually are in a head space to make some decisions and make some changes.
And yeah, I’ve been fortunate to coach people, both internationals and people working locally through some pretty major life stuff, because both you and I obviously have a passion in career coaching, but let’s [00:12:00] face it, career coaching is not isolated to just your work. Who you are comes with you when you go home especially for internationals.
It’s a family decision or a partnership decision with whomever you’re with at the time. Because yeah, when I moved to the UK, like that was not just my call or my partner’s call. It was a call that we made jointly as a couple. And I think that’s an important thing to remember that coaching is never isolated to the topic that you think you are focusing on.
It’s connecting to the person you are outside of that as well. I
Porschia: completely agree, Emi. One thing that they told us in the coach certification program that I went through, they would say like, you’re coaching the whole person. So even
Emmy: if you are a
Porschia: career coach or an executive coach or a business coach, whatever kind of health and wellness coach, you’re coaching the whole person because things come up, about their life.
Emmy: Yeah. Absolutely. I couldn’t agree more. And I often set that tone when [00:13:00] I start, even when I do discovery calls with clients before they’ve even decided if they’re going to work with me, I make sure to tell them that, if you’re looking for someone who’s going to be like a quick fix. One session actually just focusing on action, taking in accountability, you’re missing a lot of the opportunities where you could really grow and where you could really make a long term change.
So naturally, it’s great to talk to a coach, even if you can just afford the one session. But if you’re looking for real transformation and change, you are going to have to like lean in and and accept support in whatever form that comes and podcasts like these, by the way, I think are great for people who might struggle a little bit financially to have the one on one time with a coach.
I know you and I are both very passionate about sharing these sort of topics and making them accessible to as many people as possible. So if you’re out on your walk listening to us today, good on you. You’re getting a coaching session, but not really. Exactly.
Porschia: Agreed. So an expatriate or expat is someone that lives outside of their [00:14:00] native country.
Tell us a little more about your
Emmy: experience as an expat. Yeah, so expat is an interesting word. I think the definition you shared is absolutely accurate for me. But I think sometimes people will look at expats as something quote unquote fancy, someone who got a big pay from their job to move to another country.
And that’s not necessarily true. So we’re not going to get into the weeds of what is migration and what is expat. But I would identify as an expat because I have dual citizenship now, but it took me a long time to get it. The dual citizenship for Australia, but I definitely see myself as a Swede through and through.
And in the soccer world cup, when the women played, the Swedish women played the Australian women, I did Berwick for Sweden. So I think that goes to show that for most people, if you are an expat, whether you have to change nationality or passports for many of us in our heart. We’re still, whatever nationality we were originally from.
So I [00:15:00] think for me, I remember as a really young kid, so in, in Sweden, we learn English at school from about I think it’s about seven years old now. When I was at school, it was about started at about nine. But as soon as I started to learn English and. Meet my dad was quite involved in a range of different communities and sports and events and things like that.
And we would often have people visit from other countries. And I realized so quickly that speaking English unlocked the ability to speak to more people and experience more things. So when I was 16 and I had the opportunity to go on a school My parents said, look, we’re going to either pay for you to go on a big trip with your school at the end of the term, or you could do something else, but you have to choose which one, because we can only afford to do one or the other.
And I said, I would love to go to England to learn English. I would like to go and do a three week English course in England. And my parents were like, Okay, so they signed me up for that and that [00:16:00] really started my drive to experience other countries, not necessarily just English speaking ones, just other countries in general.
So I think around 16 is when I knew that my path was not going to be just living back home. Not that there’s anything wrong at all with people who stay in the same place for most of their life, by the way. Both of my brothers have, and I don’t blame them one bit. But for me, that was just not going to work.
So that’s when, the little fire in my soul started. And yeah, since then I’ve lived, like I said, I lived for a bit over a year in the U S since just outside of San Francisco. I spent almost four, three, four years in the UK and I’ve been here in Australia now for 13 years. And in between that I’ve done extensive travel during school holidays or backpacking trips and things like that.
Still a lot of places on my bucket list for travel, but as suppose, like, I. I think for the first time in my life, I’m 41 now, but for the first time in my life, I don’t feel like I want to move and explore another [00:17:00] country to live there. I’m very happy where I live for now, who knows that might change.
Yeah. Yeah.
Porschia: As an expat yourself and a coach, how do you recommend executives and professionals conduct an international
Emmy: job search? That’s a lot of layers to that question. So I think there is the how, which is how do you do it which we can get to in a second. But I think before you dive into that, if you’re listening to today’s episode, I want you to ask yourself why do you want to do that?
Because let’s face it, the easiest way to live is to not I think the Push the status quo and just, do the same old because that’s what you know how to do. Right. But that’s your comfort zone. And that can also be the reason that you’re feeling maybe stuck or bored or nothing happens or whatever that flavor is for you.
And I’ve had this with almost all my clients, whether they relocate or not, is that stuckness. So ask yourself why. Why do you want to go and if you have a [00:18:00] particular country or even, the States and Australia are both huge countries, right? So in, we’ve got several time zones across Australia, by the way, for those living in Europe, Australia is pretty much the footprint of Europe.
So when people come here and they go, Oh, I just want to go quickly from Melbourne to Sydney. I’m like, yeah, that’s like a 10 hour drive. Like it’s not next door. It’s not something you do in five minutes. So I think asking yourself why you want to go to a particular location is important. It could be family.
It could be that you heard great things. It could be that you went there on holidays and just loved it. So asking yourself why is going to be important because you’re going to need to remember that when it gets tough. Cause it will, whenever you change anything. The one thing we can anticipate is that there will be benefits and there will be challenges, and the challenges can be humongous.
If you move to a country where you do not speak the local language, that is a big barrier because basic human communication to order a coffee or go to the supermarket or go to a [00:19:00] social event. I know many people who have partners who are non English speaking. And even my husband, to be honest, when we go back to Sweden and we hang out with friends or family who are not fluent, he feels pretty left out.
And I have to be really active to manage how much he can participate in the conversation with, the handful of words that he knows, even though he tries. So asking yourself why is super important because you’re going to need to remember that. And the why can evolve with you. Sometimes the why.
Is I just have that feeling in my stomach. I talked about that before when I moved to the UK, I have this thing in my stomach where I don’t want to regret this. So that was my why. And I wanted to give my relationship at the time, a really red hot go to make sure that we’d given it Everything to make it work.
And we were together for a long time and I think partially due to that move. So the why is important and that can evolve and I will say as well when you’re doing the why or the exploration if you are in a relationship or if you have a family that’s relocating with you talk [00:20:00] to them about it and make sure that it’s almost like a joint brainstorm whiteboard session why where everyone gets to contribute as to why this would be great and also be really honest with why it might be hard.
If you’re uprooting kids who are loving, hanging out with their friends or you’re going to miss your, you go for a walk every morning with your bestie and now you’re still going to be able to do that you’d have to do it on the phone and there might be a time difference. So Being clear on your why is going to be your greatest gift to yourself down the track.
In terms of the how, that’s obviously a big question too, but I would say, do your research. There is nothing that can replace doing your research and it can look a few different ways. It could be hopping on LinkedIn and looking at roles in the city or the country you’re going to for your title. So if you’re a sales.
Look at what that looks like. What’s the salary, how do you know, how do the companies talk about those roles? Is that different from what you’re used to?[00:21:00] Chat to international recruiters. I’ve interviewed an international recruiter in my podcast, and I’m happy to share the link to that episode.
If it’s useful at all for your listeners, Portia, but essentially chatting to a recruiter who gets. The how we’ll just fast track it for you. And remember with most recruiters, you don’t pay a thing. The company pays for the recruiter to help them find the right fit. So chatting to a recruiter can be a really good way to shortcut your, but doing your research, understanding what that looks like in that country, bear in mind, you will not fully understand it until you put boots on the ground. I can’t tell you how many people that I’ve coached who are British or American and then they land in Australia thinking, Oh, it’s all, we all speak English.
It’s all the same. It’s a huge cultural difference, even amongst different states. I know in the US as well, or, in the UK, you can go from one town to another and the accent. fundamentally changes. So do your research, but be aware that it’s probably not going to be exactly like that. And [00:22:00] that’s totally cool.
That’s nothing you need to know. And the final thing I will say about the how Is to do your research about migration. So what I mean by that is most likely, depending where you live, unless you’re moving inside the European union, you are going to need a visa. So people get a little bit crushed when they start looking at Australia and they’re like, Oh, the kangaroos are really cute.
I want to live in Australia with my family. And then they start looking at the how the migration path. And it’s really comprehensive. It can take a long time and it can be quite expensive. So the fastest way, similar to chatting to a recruiter, sometimes an international recruiter, like the one I interviewed can help you fast track that, but you can also chat to a migration agent.
So for anyone specifically looking to come to Australia, I would say pay a small fee. To chat to a migration agent and say, Hey, here’s my circumstances. This is my my profession. Is that on any kind of migration list [00:23:00] to give me a shortcut to get into your country? So for example, quite often nurses and doctors are a shortage in many countries.
So if you have a background in that, you may be able to fast track your migration. That’s really top line. What I would say about the, how do your research. Chat to recruiters or companies, even if you can, and chat to experts when it comes to migration, because I can tell you the amount of people I see on Facebook groups, speculating what the migration rules are right now, please don’t put yourself through that.
Get some inspiration from people who’ve walked the path before you, but if they migrated, if I. Five years ago, 10 years ago, even three years ago, the rules are most likely different now. So go straight to the source and the people who know and that can fast track a great deal how you might go about it.
[00:24:00] I think that is great
Porschia: advice. And we actually just had an episode on immigration and we had an immigration attorney talking about the different ways to go about immigration and getting a green card in the U. S. And definitely doing that kind of research, like you mentioned, just
Emmy: so important.
Yeah. Aimee,
Porschia: from your perspective, what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve seen executives and professionals have with their international job
searches?
Emmy: Wow. I guess [00:25:00] from, because I’m coming at it, I guess from two angles, both from a client perspective, but also from friends and family, because let’s face it, half of my friendship circle are expats somewhere in the world, because that’s how we met and how our paths crossed.
I think one of the biggest mistakes I see is the people who never go at all. And it breaks my heart. So people who go, Oh, I’m, in my thirties, forties, fifties, it’s too late. Or it would be too hard to uproot the kids or my partner doesn’t want to. And my advice would be, look, it’s a big deal to fully relocate.
So if you have other stakeholders in your life, like family, taking them for an extended trip or finding a way to try before you buy, it’s the best way to combat that. Because it could very well be when you all get there, like none of you actually like it and you’re like, Oh I’m really glad we tried this month long experiment, but yeah, the biggest mistake most often are the opportunities you don’t take because the learnings [00:26:00] you get along the way, even if you quote unquote fail.
and come back home? What’s the worst that’s going to happen? That’s always what I ask. What’s the worst that’s going to happen is that you or someone in your family is not going to like it and you’re going to end up coming back. That is not a failure. And I want to say that to anyone out there who’s thinking about this, because I used to feel like, oh if I come home, metaphorically with the tail between my legs and it didn’t work, I’m going to look like a fool or like an idiot.
That is not the case at all. If anything, having a go is one of the bravest things you can do. Having a go and admitting that, man, that really wasn’t for me. I have done that with several roles, by the way. So when I worked in the UK, I randomly got into finance and anyone who knows me knows that spreadsheets and finance and formulas and whatever, that ain’t my thing.
It never, it’s never going to be, I have other strengths, but so I realized pretty quickly that line of work is good. A leader is a hat. It just wasn’t for me. And the same thing goes for picking a country or a location that you move to, [00:27:00] it can work for you. Not at all. You can feel from the start that it’s not right.
Or you can feel down the track like I did in the UK. I was like, I feel like this experience has played its path. I’ve been here for a couple of years. I’ve got great friends. I’ve got a great job. But I’m ready for the next thing, whatever that looks like. So rehash, the biggest mistake often is to not have a go.
And that goes, I think for many things in life. The other big mistake I see people make is not listening to each other what, after they’ve landed. So what I mean by that is that the thing in my experience that makes Relocations fail the fastest is when, let’s say, hypothetically, the husband or the man in the relationship got a really great job and a really great package.
And it’s one of those things we can’t say no to this. Let’s go. And whether you have kids or not, it doesn’t really matter. But you land on the other side. We have the. Classic, what we call the trailing spouse and it can happen either way, by the way, I’ve seen the trailing spouse be, a husband and [00:28:00] the woman is working through the experience, but the person working gets a fast track to land.
We’re going to remember this. They get to go to work. They get to chat to people. They have drinks and networking stuff and lunches and clients. At some point, they’re basically getting like this fast track runway to land. The partner on the other hand, what do they do? And I’ve been in this seat several times.
They set up the house. They get things organized for schools. They might even have to go out and pick out a car. They have to do all the boring practical stuff they have to do at home, but they have to do it in a condensed window, usually. And working out all the basics, whereas the post office, how does that work here?
Where’s the grocery store. If I want to buy alcohol, do I have to go to a separate store to the supermarket? How does that work in this country? So there’s all those little niggly things. And in the meantime, the working partner comes home and goes, Hey, I had such a great day dah. Or I’m so tired.
I don’t want to talk. And the one who’s [00:29:00] been at home all day doing problem solving or getting settled, it’s like, I’m dying for connection. I’m dying to connect with you and talk about how hard today was. But I don’t want to complain. So communication shuts down in some form. It’s super, super common.
And like I said this could go either way. It has nothing to do with gender. And often relocations fail because the party that is working less or not working at all is going, I gave this a chance because we simply couldn’t say no, and I’m over it. It’s been three months, six months, whatever. I miss my mom.
I miss my family. It’s, especially here in Australia, it’s really far. If you’ve got family in Europe or the U S or something, it’s not like you can nip over for the weekend. So those are some of the big mistakes I see people make. And those are outside of work. We got to remember, like we said before, life and work is about the whole person that we are, including the network and the people that we have outside of work.
So those are actually some of the biggest mistakes I’ve [00:30:00] seen in a professional setting. And it can be quite heartbreaking when someone who’s really loving their job has to go home because they couldn’t make it work with the logistics around it. Yeah,
Porschia: I definitely agree with that. And I’ve seen that relationship dynamic really take a toll on
Emmy: someone’s career
Porschia: goals or path, just because to your point, they’re not necessarily having those types of deep conversations with their partner.
One other challenge I see. See, with a lot of our international clients, and I know that you work with clients in this area too, is their resume and their professional branding, because in every country, there are differences in terms of what standard, what’s legal to even put on a resume and what’s illegal to put on a resume.
And, making sure that you’re presenting yourself [00:31:00] in the way that is. socially acceptable, so to speak, for that country. So we help our clients with, writing resumes and international resumes and helping them through that challenge as well. So that’s one other thing that I’ve seen.
Emmy: Yeah, just to absolutely. And I think that’s a really great point. And I think that, getting some professional help with that step can be awesome. You can just contact a resume writer or a local CV expert, whatever. The other thing you can do is look at LinkedIn profiles of people in them, in your.
Industry or in a similar industry to where you’re looking to go and just look at their LinkedIn profile. There’s no right or wrong as you and I both know, Porsche LinkedIn profiles come in all shapes and sizes, but having a look at the general standard. And I must say, generally speaking, there are some differences in resumes between countries, but more often than not, the biggest problem that I see in expat resumes is that people assume that someone knows what company [00:32:00] XYZ does.
Rather than assuming articulate, did you run a team? Did you have budget responsibility for up to a million bucks? Whatever the thing is that you did that you are legally allowed to share from your role, make it really explicit. Don’t assume anything because when you come to another country, especially like me, when I worked briefly in Sweden, those Swedish names of organizations other than maybe IKEA, which is quite known internationally, not that I worked there.
But people are not going to know what that is. So tell them, say a company who did software da, have a link to the website if you want to, and then be really explicit about all the amazing things and valuable things that you delivered in that role. I completely agree.
Porschia: Emi,
Emmy: tell us more about your business.
Yeah, so the bridge coaching like I said, has been around since 2013 and it started out actually as an expat coaching business, but and I really [00:33:00] loved coaching expats through career challenges and country moves, but organically somewhere around 2015 or so it turned into more of a career coaching business working both with with expats and people who wouldn’t identify as expats.
And yeah I really love working with people. I have a signature program, a six step program that I take people through. I’m sure very similar to many of the, a lot of the work that you and the team do Portia, but the biggest thing with me and how the business runs and how how my programs run, that it’s.
Structured, but with a lot of room for the individual and leaning on principles, because however unique your career transition or your country move is for you, there are some methodologies and basic principles that help pretty much every person I’ve ever met, including myself, by the way. Every now and then I need coaching too.
. So I work with coaches and counselors and anything like that. When I’m going through a particularly difficult time in my life or in my business as a whole, but yeah, so my business [00:34:00] it’s a small one woman band with some admin support at times, but yeah, working one on one with clients is one of my favorite things.
And I got a message from someone the other day, we worked together for a couple of months and she’s now gotten out of a very toxic Job and not only landed a new job, but a job that’s really aligned to her values and her skills. So getting messages like that just makes my heart sing. Yeah. That is
Porschia: great.
You are doing great work, Emi. And we’ll be providing a link to your website and other social channels in our show notes so people can find you online. But what is the best way for someone
Emmy: to get in touch with you? Probably through either through my website, which is
thebridgecoachingallinoneword. com. au because I’m in Australia or find me on LinkedIn. Yeah, Porsche, if you and the team can link my LinkedIn profile, that’s probably the best way to get in touch with me. Great. So Amy,
Porschia: because you are a career coach, I’m really interested to know your answer to this question.
[00:35:00] What is your definition of career
Emmy: success? Yes. Oh, that’s such a great question, Portia. For me, career success has very little to do with money or fame or anything like that. For me, career success is around alignment to your values and who you are and leaning fully into who you are at work, meaning that you can actually shine through.
You are different to the next colleague doing the same. role as you, you are a different person. You bring different values. And I think career success for me through the years has been when I work with people companies and in roles that align with my strengths, my skills, and my values, I often say to people that.
There is very little point in trying to craft a career in something that is not natural to you. I was touching briefly on the economic finance example before. I think I [00:36:00] knew before I even went there that wasn’t going to be my thing. But rather than trying to become something that is unnatural to me, leaning in on your strengths and your skills, whilst learning new skills, it’s still important.
But having that alignment and that flow. I talk a lot in my work. Not so much about balance, but about flow presupposes that you’ll have great days. Hard days, you’re floating down that river. There’ll be big rocks and dams and storms and things like that. But you’re still flowing through and allowing that flow in your work will also make you happier outside of work.
You’ll be a happier partner, spouse, mom, dad friend, sister, whatever that might be. So career success for me goes. A long way beyond your job it’s really a big part of who you are and that can change. By the way, many times in my life, I have had a chapter. I talk a lot about career chapters a chapter that’s a couple of years long where I do a one particular thing and then I lean into something else.
So [00:37:00] don’t think of your career as a, I got to get there and then it’s done. And now, I love being a coach, but I love doing other things too. So it doesn’t mean that just because you’re, you’ve found a label that works for you for a while, that’s the only thing that you’re about in a professional setting.
But making sure that it’s aligned to your values and your skills, I think is vital for your own happiness. And I think when we’re happy, it shows the people around us, we have a different energy about us. We have a different way of tackling challenges. So I know that’s a long winded answer, but that would be my answer.
I love it.
Porschia: I love it. And my final question for you is how do you think executives or professionals can get a positive edge in their
Emmy: career? I think the most positive thing you can do for your career is to continue to lean in. Leaning in when opportunities come up, when challenges come up, even if you’re going through a really tough thing at work right now, like a restructure, or you’ve been through a redundancy, lean in to whatever comes next.
I [00:38:00] know it’s hard and sometimes we have to grieve or be sad. I spoke to someone in my podcast about the grief of being made redundant because it can be a huge thing. I’ve been through it once in my career and it was really hard, but in hindsight, I’m grateful that I got the experience. Finding ways to take a pause, take a break, have a cry if you need to, but then literally keep leaning in and pivoting in whatever direction feels right.
And if you need a little bit of help from a coach, even as little as a few sessions can really help you redefine that. And I do that all the time with my clients. I’m sure you do too Portia, but the biggest thing you can do for your career is to keep leaning in and to. really accept that nothing is permanent, no role, no happiness, also no difficult situation.
It’s that classic Lord of the Rings thing, this too shall pass. Like we all know that will happen. So the positive thing you can do for yourself is keep leaning in, keep asking questions and. Keep owning your [00:39:00] stuff. I think when we find ourselves blaming other people, the company, our boss, other circumstances, we are in a state of receiving what the world hands to us.
When we lean in, I think energetically, it means that we’re starting to steer that canoe on the metaphorical river and going this was not expected, nor did I love it. However, this is what I’m going to do from here. And I think that is the biggest positive impact you can do for yourself and the people around you.
And it shows a lot of courage to do inmi, you have shared a
Porschia: lot of insights with us today, and I’m sure that our listeners can use it to be more confident in their careers. We appreciate
Emmy: you being with us. Thank you so much for having me. [00:40:00]
