Have Patience and Make a Pyramid

This blog letter is for those still on the road to living overseas, to live their dream job, etc. Whatever is your multinational goal, understand that in the real world things don’t happen over night “but they will happen”. It has nothing to do with luck throwing dice, but everything to do with planning, preparation and most of all patience and perseverance. I recently saw a book exists all about Will Power, well yes, here will power is also important when your patience is wearing thin.

The best way to visualise it is like a pyramid.

Identify what is your ultimate goal and then break it down into the tangible steps you need to follow to get there. I will give you my own personal example, which was the ultimate goal to be able to work overseas as an engineer in a non-English speaking country.

 As you can see I had this dream of mine a very long time ago and to get it to fruition has been a long journey, but I am now in a position to work anywhere I like (theoretically maybe not in reality!).

Not everyone’s pyramid is so long and complex. You may only be looking for a 6 month experience in London and are quite happy to work in a bar and not use your qualifications. Each to their own. But if you are feeling more ambitious then realise there is never too much planning to do to make something turn out the way you wish it.

Some other tips on this topic include:

·      Decide what you want to do and work backwards to find out how you can get there. Look at position descriptions for jobs you are interested in and find out what types of experience and qualifications companies are looking for. Many overseas engineering positions require previous work experience overseas, even for quite junior positions! I worked out for me the only way to get this work experience was to do a Master’s internship although many universities allow overseas undergraduate work experience placements if you are lucky enough to score one. Find out what are your university’s policies early.

·      If you want to study overseas get good grades. Find out your university policies before it is too late to greatly increase your grade point average.