Where can I snag a good job abroad?

Eve Tahmincioglu • Profile • E-mail

There’s a lot of career soul-searching going on among many readers, so I’m devoting this whole column to your questions.

In a tight economy, it’s easy to blame fuel prices, the mortgage crisis, etc., for your career woes. But let’s look beyond all that for a moment and try to figure out how you can make your own little job universe better.

Here are some of your questions:

I have been thinking about trying to get a job with (a major accounting firm) in Vietnam, Thailand or Hong Kong. Did your research ever come up with information about where would be a good place to get a job overseas that had comparable pay for highly skilled labor and also the best marketable overseas experience?  I do international tax information systems so I thought I could do well there.
— R.S. from Dallas, Texas

In today’s global marketplace, almost any experience you get abroad, especially when working for a large corporation, will enhance your resume. And when you think about salary, keep in mind that the cost of living in many Asian nations is a fraction of what it is in the United States.

That said, you’ll want to get top dollar to take on a foreign assignment or you risk being at the bottom of the salary chain when you decide to relocate back to the U.S., especially if you want to stay at the same firm.

Among the Asian countries, many career experts point to China as a great place to grow your career.

“China is many worlds in one,” says Michael Jalbert with recruiting firm MRINetwork, but even within China, or any country you look into, there will be different regions that are better than others. Shanghai and Beijing, he says, are both huge burgeoning economies. “And Hong Kong is one of the most exciting places on Earth,” he adds.

There are other parts of China that are very rural, he points out. That’s not a bad thing, but you have to figure out what you want out of a job and how that job will fit into your future goals.

Vietnam, Jalbert said, is still a developing country, but it’s becoming more westernized; and Thailand has a fairly well-developed economy, but it has some cultural differences that Americans may not cotton to, like trafficking of human beings.

The more skilled workforce will probably be in Hong Kong, he adds. But your money will go further in Vietnam and Thailand.

Since many will be apt to choose more westernized locales like Hong Kong, he says, you really have the opportunity to be a trailblazer if you choose a more underdeveloped country to cut your international teeth.

When it comes to fitting in, language will be a key. In some more cosmopolitan Asian cities, you’ll be able to get along with only English, but for other areas — especially the more rural — you’ll probably want to get a basic understanding of the local language in order to make the most of your foreign adventure.

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