If you’ve been living and working abroad for a while and it’s time to return home, you may be lucky enough to have a job waiting for you upon return. However, some people can find it difficult to get back into work after time working abroad or a sustained time travelling.
This can be worrying, but there are steps you can take which can help you bridge the potential skills gap created by your time abroad and get you straight back in the game. Here are our suggestions:
Assess your skills
Take a look at what you can offer a company and be as objective as possible, perhaps even visit a recruitment specialist to assess your skills and how they compare to other people looking for similar roles. Speaking to a recruitment specialist will hopefully help you gain confidence in your current skill set and could help you discover areas where you could improve yourself.
If you’re returning to an industry, you know and have worked in, the country you’ve moved back to may do things differently to the country you’ve been living in, and you may not have been aware of the difference. This objective look at your skills and the skills required can help you bridge any potential gap you may have acquired whilst away. Seeing a staffing specialist can help you identify skills you didn’t know you had and skills you didn’t know you lack.
Sharpen or refresh your skills
It’s not uncommon for people who move abroad with a partner to do so for their partner’s career, and often at the detriment of their own. This can lead to significant gaps on their CVs, simply because their industry or skill set was irrelevant in their expat home. An IT consultant may struggle to find much work in a small rural village, for example.
What’s important here is some forward planning – if you know you’re likely to return home and work, it’s important to upgrade your skills to make up for the employment gap. Focusing on your own learning and development is an important step if you are stepping back into the job market after some time away, whether that be working abroad or simply travelling.
Start your own business
Startups and young tech companies make the most of ‘non-traditional’ backgrounds and experience more than ‘traditional’ companies that have been around for years. Startups are often formed by young people/graduates, and it’s incredibly common for graduates to spend a year or two travelling straight after university.
Use your experience of living abroad to your advantage. Perhaps you learned a second language or perhaps your time in another country has given you a new idea about a gap in the market or better processes in your industry.
If you are looking for support when it comes to professional development and settling back into a career, speak to our Learning and Development team here.
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