If you want to take your career to the next level there are many things you can do. One of the best ways though is with an international assignment. Do you want to grow faster professionally and personally? Then you should consider working abroad!!! And if you are in IT nothing will enhance your resume more than working for a company in the USA. Due to Covid, there are many opportunities to work remotely but you still need a visa to be able to land the majority of jobs that pay better.
And if you are a Mexican there is no excuse NOT to get a working visa. AGR can help you and I will give you more details at the end of this article.
I would like to share with you, some of the unique benefits working abroad bring to your career. I was blessed to be able to work in Mexico, Colombia, South Korea, and Hong Kong as an ex-pat and the experiences transformed my life and my family’s as well. My oldest son was born in Mexico and had dual citizenship.
Here are several UNIQUE skills you can acquire by working abroad for a “long” period of time (usually 18 to 24 months):
1. Developing the ability to take risks for long-term benefits and positively impacts your professional career. It is not easy to pack your bags and go to a foreign country. It takes courage to believe in your abilities to move to another country to work and compete at a higher level.
2. Improve language skills (this should be obvious) but more importantly, a better understanding of the country’s culture and adapt to a different working style.
3. Travel – Henry Miller said: One’s destination is never a place but rather a new way of looking at things. Traveling to many countries (42 and counting) have made me appreciate what I have and has taught me to appreciate other people’s point of view.
4. Develop a much stronger self-confidence. Living abroad expands your comfort zone and provides opportunities to get to know yourself better and develop ways to cope with other kinds of stress (such as eating other types of food, and seeing people do different things “normal” to their culture but different to yours). Being away from loved ones and missing home. Dealing with extreme weather conditions (trust me living in North America in the winter is not fun – enjoying snow gets old quickly). All of that will help you to develop a stronger mindset.
5. Overcome cultural bias and learn to appreciate different ways of analyzing and solving problems. Working with teams from across the USA as well as from other nationalities helps you to develop an open mind. Become a better team player. Especially in the USA, IT developers must be able to work with teams from across the world. Being in a meeting with a team of developers in India and providing feedback to another team in Europe is common.
7. If you are single, then it will provide a great opportunity to date and travel!!! Who knows maybe the new job will allow you to FINALLY save enough money to be able to get married AND afford a honeymoon.
8. If you have a family, your kids will learn to speak English like an American or even be born in the USA. I have a great testimony of this on my website.
Think about that for a minute or two – a job in the USA can impact generations to come! I interview many IT professionals in Mexico and the ones that speak English with a very little accent are the ones whose parents worked in the USA before and who had a chance to study here.
One of the obvious benefits is the salary increase! (Soon you can hear a success story of a developer that quadrupled his salary – in my podcast SIN FRONTERAS – it did not happen by chance, he was preparing and we had been talking about working in the USA for about a year).
Another important benefit is the quality of life and as the Alder Group suggested, moving to a new job has to have at least a 30% non-monitory increase. Usually, after a few years, the chances of getting a better job in your own country are much better since you are able to conduct business with ease and can demonstrate professional experience in the USA as well as an interview with the managers located in the USA even if you are working from Mexico.
A job as a developer in the USA will impact your career without a doubt. It will show you new ways of THINKING and tackling problems. You will learn new tools and technologies.
Some developers turn down job opportunities due to unreasonable expectations (some say if you don’t pay me $100K USD I am not interested) are not really taking into account these additional non-monetary benefits that an international assignment can bring to their careers. They are assuming that because another friend is making that kind of money then they should as well. My recommendation to them is always you have to prove yourself first and deliver results before you can earn that kind of money.
Speaking from personal experience, if you are a student, you WON’T be able to qualify for the TN2 visa HOWEVER AIESEC can open the door for your first international assignment. Mine was in the USA through AIESEC with Goodyear in 1987 and as the saying goes, the rest is history. I came for an 8 week’s assignment and never looked back.
Thanks to my desire to continue to improve myself and my MBA at RICE University, I have been blessed with the opportunity to work in 7 different countries (throughout Latin America and Asia) and travel to more than 40 other countries for pleasure. I am working on a GOALS series that I want to share with you starting next month.
If the opportunity arises, THINK about the future and all the additional benefits and not just the initial salary. NEGOTIATE your offer – TAKE a chance on YOU! You will never regret growing professionally. Who knows where your job in the USA will take you in your career?
If you are interested and want to know more about how to get your TN visa then go to www.aglobalresources.com/welcome we want to help you take your career to the next level! Send us your resume to HR@aglobalresources.com for immediate consideration and take a look at the FREE webinars in Spanish.
David Navarro
