Introduction

For background, I’m an American and have lived in the US, Japan, the UK, the Netherlands, France, and am currently writing this from Malta. I also spent years researching and writing a “how to move to a foreign country” blog. I considered writing a book on the topic, or touring the US and giving seminars, but I’ve a wife, a daughter, a career, and a habit of moving from country to country. I’m busy.

That being said, the situation in the United States is getting tense and people are wondering if they can move to another country. They are asking about my now defunct Overseas Exile blog and others have reached out to me directly. I’ll try to write more as I have time—though I’m very busy right now—but let’s get into it. This will probably be my longest blog entry to date, but it’s worth it. This is the information you need to know.

First, if you’re not a skilled worker, you might want to read my Young Person’s Guide to Moving Abroad. If you think you are a skilled worker, read on.

For many of you reading, you’re probably frustrated. You want to live and work in a foreign country, but you’re not reading this to teach English in South Korea or be a nanny in Brazil. You’re educated, highly skilled, and you think you have skills that an employer overseas might value. In short, you want to find someone who will sponsor your work permit. You’re sick of the rat race in your home country and you long for a better life in Thailand where your nice income will let you enjoy time on relaxing, pollution-free beaches.

The problem is that you don’t know where to start. There are some things you’ve heard of, such as being a hot-shot CEO or working for a multinational and hoping they’ll transfer you, but you don’t think that’s going to work for you. This guide is a four-step program for getting a company abroad to offer you a job. It’s what I used and others I know have successfully used this. I counseled many people who tried to move abroad when my former blog was very popular.

1. Laying the Foundation
2. Applying for Jobs
3. Handling the Phone Interview
4. Negotiating the Salary

None of this is rocket science. None of this is quick and easy, either. It’s also not guaranteed. A variation of the described technique got me two job offers in London (and would gotten me a third if I hadn’t already accepted a job in Nottingham, UK) and a standing offer in Paris which I later accepted after moving to the UK. It works, but you have to put in the effort.

But first, we need to take a little detour. You’ll want to read my article Why You’ll Say “No” to Living Abroad, and then get your papers in order.

Get Your Papers in Order

My wife is French, I’m American and we got married at the Tower Bridge in London. This involved the nightmare of trying to coordinate the paperwork of three countries to make sure our marriage was legal. If you’re like me, you hate paperwork but in the international arena, it becomes far more important than many people suspect.

For example, in the United States they’ve tried to limit ID theft with vital record cross-referencing. Since many identity thieves used to steal the identity of someone already dead (hey, they’re not going to complain!), it was thought to be a good idea to join death certificates with birth certificates so that a re-issued birth certificate of a deceased person would, in fact, be marked deceased. This works well if the deceased died in the state they were born, but imagine what happens when a clerk in Montana gets a death certificate from a clerk in Vermont. They don’t know each other, they don’t know each other’s paperwork and the pain of accidentally marking a living person as dead is just too great (I should know: my mother thought it hilarious when she received paperwork telling her that her very alive husband wasn’t).

Now try to imagine the difficulty of different countries trying to verify each other’s paperwork. It’s a nightmare of different languages, forms, legal frameworks, etc. But you can have a running head start before it starts chasing you. Again, I remind you of the lesson of Count von Europe: if you had an opportunity to leave tomorrow, would you really want to say “no thanks, I don’t have all the paperwork.”

At a bare minimum, you need to have the following for everyone involved:

• Passports
• Birth certificates
• Marriage certificates
• Death certificates

You might need copies of university degrees or certifications if they’re relevant to your new job.

If you have a rough strategy for getting out and you know where you are going, you can plan ahead and research their requirements. You honestly don’t want to be this poor bloke who found out that he had to have his ex-wife’s birth certificate before he could claim dual Portuguese/US citizenship (read the rest of that guy’s story to get an idea of how much “fun” international paperwork can be).

You’re also going to have to learn what an apostille is. An apostille is akin to the stamp a notary public might issue but it’s recognized by the countries which have signed on to the requisite Hague Convention. It really does make your life simpler and it’s one case of international law making lives easier.

Generally speaking, you want to have these documents on hand with apostilles attached. However, this is not always appropriate. As my wife (then fiancée, obviously) and I were trying to sort through the legal issues of three countries recognizing our marriage, we found that for some documents, France would not accept them unless they had been issued within the last six months. Some things are going to be hard no matter what you do.

Now, let’s find you a job.

The Four-Step Plan

1. Laying the Foundation

You’re either a “skilled” or “unskilled” worker. The terms are vague, but loosely involve the amount of training/education needed for a particular skill. You may be the best pizza delivery guy in your country, but you’re still going to be considered an “unskilled” worker. Unskilled workers are going to have to go a different route to working overseas (such as teaching English), but this post is going to concentrate on what skilled workers need for a work permit job.

Building your Résumé/CV

The first thing you have to do is to build your résumé. This is your key to making things happen. Early in 2006, I dropped by a former employer in Portland to pick up some paperwork I needed for my UK work permit. One of my former colleagues asked: “why do you get to go to Europe and we don’t?”

I replied, quite honestly, “I know some of you are better programmers than I am, but nobody knows who you are.”

In other words: I marketed myself. I constantly answered questions for people online and posted advice for them on appropriate forums. I did this for years and still do it on different forums. You won’t necessarily have to do that (or do that for years), but you do need to figure out some way of “marketing” yourself so that you stand out. What this means is that you need to be competent in your field but you don’t have to be the absolute best. Here’s where a multi-prong strategy helps. In addition to getting myself known online, I also ...

• Volunteered with The Perl Foundation, a non-profit organization
• Spoke at conferences
• Wrote articles for web sites
• Coauthored a book: Perl Hacks: Tips & Tools for Programming, Debugging, and Surviving
• Wrote a Beginning Perl book (er, after I moved abroad)

These are all on my CV. These sorts of things may not apply to you, but you need to find something which will. For example, are you a social worker? How many social workers in the US do you know who have joined the National Association of Social Workers? Did you know that many magazines and Web sites are struggling to find new writers? If you’re not sure who you would submit article proposals to, grab a copy of Writer’s Market .

Remember that the goal is to have a résumé which makes someone say “hey Inga, take a look at this!” This means having something on there that other applicants don’t.

Let me repeat that: have something on there that other applicants don’t. In fact, have several somethings. I have an entire section entitled “Notable Publications” and I have other accomplishments in another section. My résumé gets noticed.

And try to make it relevant to your career. If you’re a jet mechanic, volunteering at a homeless shelter is nice, but if you’re trying to get a job as a volunteer coordinator, it’s a lot nicer. Anything which is both positive and career-related should show up on that résumé, particularly if it’s something other applicants won’t have (at the same time, a 37 page résumé is going straight into the trash after everyone laughs at it).

Generative AI

If generative AI is relevant in your field, learn it. More and more employers are seeking people with AI skills. The Daily AI Brief is business focused and there are tons of free, online courses for learning prompt engineering. The Neuron Daily has a decent one , though it’s out of date (they’re always out of date), but it gives you place to start.

Google Thyself

While you’re at it, hit the major search engines and search for your name. If you search for my name, most of those links are me. If you search for my name and “Perl”, the programming language I specialize in, almost all of those links are me. That was me deliberately marketing myself. People will search for your name. What will they find? If they find dishing out snotty, off-color remarks and being rude to people, or find that photo of you vomiting at a frat party, you’re not going to get the job. I know some people in my field who are very competent and well-known, but because they’re rude online, they lose employment opportunities. Even if you’re not going to spend a lot of time online, take care of that online image. Every time you post something think “would I want an employer to see this?”

Get Your Friends to Help

While you’re at it, have your friends Google you — and read your résumé/CV — to look for things that you’ll miss. You can’t afford to screw up here. A single misspelled word may be quietly killing your dreams.

Also, throw a “go away” party with them. You’ll just sit around and get stupidly drunk (or whatever it is that you do) and brainstorm ideas for things you can get on your CV (failing that, ask Reddit!) Get those creative juices flowing so you can figure out how to make this work.

Is this hard work? Yup. I never promised it would be easy, but it’s not going to happen without effort on your part.

2. Applying for Jobs

OK, you’ve started laying the foundations for getting a job in another country. Now what? Find the damned country.

The first thing you need to do is develop a plan. It’s easier if you target just one country as you can become more familiar with it. You need to be familiar with:

• Shortage occupations
• Work permit process
• Local news
• Employer advertisements

Many countries have shortage occupation lists , though the name of the list often varies. These are jobs which the country doesn’t have enough workers for and foreign workers (that’s you!) are more likely to get hired for them. You’d be surprised at some of the jobs on them. For example, the UK shortage occupation list used to have social workers in child and family services, but who would have thought that “social worker” is a high demand job?

Review these lists for the countries you’re interested in and ask yourself one question: “could I get hired in this job in my home country?” If the answer is “yes”, you’ve got a winner. These are high-demand jobs in those countries and they’re much easier to get work permits for. Because they’re shortage occupation lists, employers are often more willing to be flexible.

Next, learn everything you can about the work permit process for that country. Want to live in the UK? Start by reading everything on their official Visas and Immigration site . I said “start”. You’re not going to finish there. You have to keep reading and reading and reading. You have to know their work permit process backwards and forwards. You might think “but the employer is the one who has to know this, right?” Sure, but trust me. All will be clear soon.

Next, you will start reading their local news religiously and getting to know your target area. This includes scanning job adverts (but not applying yet). You see, you need to know your target area very well. You need to know the markets. You need to have a comfortable level of knowledge to discuss the place. This will help for a couple of reasons. First, you’ll start to understand where the jobs are. Second, when you get a phone interview, you might find “local” discussions occurring and you want to sound knowledgeable. Sounding like you have no idea where the hell you’re going is not going to impress anyone. At this point, anything which might scare a potential employer off would be bad.

Let me rephrase this to make it absolutely clear what’s going on: you’re trying to get a job in a foreign country. You have to prep for these job interviews like you never have before in your life. Every question should be an opportunity for you to hit a home run. You know the country. You know the industry. You know the company, their competition, and anything else which may be relevant. You are the most prepared person on the damned planet for that job. Or at least, that’s what the employer needs to think.

Mind you, if you get an offer, you’ll find that you probably didn’t need all of the knowledge you had, but you won’t know which bits you won’t need. Don’t take chances here: learn everything.

Other Employment Finding Strategies

It’s worth noting that some countries don’t have shortage lists but you might want to move there anyway. That’s OK. Just keep reading about their residency and work permit requirements, along with their news. After a while, a picture of the country’s economy will start forming and you’ll get ideas about where useful skills might be needed. Or you might get lucky and discover a country like Uruguay where all you need is a small, steady income and you’re good to go. Remember: the key to this is to be flexible and think creatively.

You should also start hanging out on “expat” message boards for your target country. Just type “COUNTRYNAME expat” into your favorite search engine and you should find plenty of them. Don’t sign up at first, just start reading through them. This will give you a sense of what other expats are doing, the problems they face, and most importantly (for now) the type of work they found. Once you have a feel for what the appropriate etiquette is for the boards you are reading, sign up and join in the discussion if it’s appropriate. If the boards welcome people looking to move there, you might find expats willing to offer “inside” advice. Just like working on your résumé, you’re applying a multi-prong strategy here.

Finally, just check this list of international job web sites. It’s not complete, but it’s a good sample of jobs for you.

Applying

Here’s the scary part. You’ve practically packed your bags, you have your papers in order, you have a CV which stands out (and is formatted as your target country prefers), you’ve picked your target country and you know their market like the back of your hand. You know you’re a great candidate. It’s time to apply for jobs and this is where things break down for people. They don’t know what to do. What I would tell them is “think of Charlie.” Charlie is a guy I knew in Alaska who had a habit of getting jobs he wasn’t qualified for. At one point, he was even a bank manager though his main skill was carpentry. How did he get these jobs?

He applied for them.

It’s honestly that simple. Admittedly, Charlie had the gift of gab and could talk his way into these jobs, but no employer is ever going to say yes unless you ask. Don’t be afraid. Just pick up the job listings for your target country — if you don’t know where to find them by now, you’re probably applying too soon — and start sending your CV to the jobs you want.

However, there’s an even better trick if you can pull it off. Research their employees on LinkedIn or other sites (employees who have related skills, hopefully) and see if you can connect with them. Having Giorgi forward your resume from inside the company is far better than just applying directly! That being said, I applied directly for my first job in the UK, but I’m pretty well-known in my field thanks to the tips I used earlier.

The Cover Letter

In today’s day and age, the cover letter seems a lost art. You’re going to revive it. For every job you apply for, you will include a cover letter. You will contact the company first and find out to whom you will be addressing this letter. In the actual letter, you will mention their company by name, tell them why you want the position, why they want to hire you, and drop details of what you know about them, their competitors, and their market. You have to be very careful with this letter. If it’s too long, people won’t read it, but you have to convey enough that they pay more attention to your résumé than they usually would.

If you’re not sure about how to write one, try having Claude write a first draft . Explain what you’re trying to do, give Claude all of the relevant information, and you’ll soon have a good starting point.

What you don’t do in your cover letter is tell them that you need sponsorship for a work permit. One of the things which was drilled into me repeatedly in car sales (yeah, I used to sell cars, too) is that you never bring up anything negative unless someone asks. They’re already going to see that you live in another country. Your goal is to convince them that they have to have you.

Depending on your field and your qualifications, you may have to send out quite a few résumés. You may get several callbacks right away or you may have to wait months. Even if you get several callbacks, these could easily be the strangest phone interviews you’ve ever had. In 2001, I got a job in Amsterdam, even after one interviewer, knowing I’m originally from Texas, asked if I liked to carry weapons. They’ll have stereotypes, too. You have to be prepared for these interviews and that’s what we’ll cover in the next part.

Eventually you’ll get a phone interview and they’ll ask if you can legally work in their country and that’s actually fantastic. It means that your résumé was noticed. It also means you need know part three, how to handle the interview.

3. Handling the Phone Interview

Note: some employers will fly you out to meet them. This is the exception, not the rule. Also, the following applies to video calls, too.

So, you have a great résumé, you’ve done your research, you’ve applied for jobs in your target country and you get an email in your inbox asking if you can be ready for an interview at 9 AM on Monday morning.

Of course you can. You’ve worked your tail off for this moment and you’re not going to blow it.

However, they might. I was once woken up by my phone ringing at 3AM because the interviewer got their time zone wrong — and that was after I sent back a confirmation email to verify the time in both my time zone and theirs. Of course I still did the interview, but are you going to be prepared enough to handle an interview if you’re woken up like that? Yes, you are.

You’re going to have a friend or two call you and give you an interview over the phone or by video. They need to grill you hard and make sure they would really want to hire you. They need to hit you with any and all objections they can think of and you have to smoothly address every one of them. You will not fail this interview.

Don’t stress the interview too much, though. If they’ve called an international candidate, they’re already intrigued. If you’re an Italian with a hobbit fetish and you desperately want to live in New Zealand, just remember that the New Zealander interviewing you may find you — and your accent — as exotic as you think of them. And this goes for Americans, too. Even though the rest of the world is inundated with US movies and TV shows, I’ve still had ladies in Europe tell me how much they loved my boring Midwest American accent (note to my wife: they were ugly ladies. And old. Really old.)

You’re talking to a human being on the other end of the line and if they’ve taken the trouble to call someone from another country, this is not a run of the mill call. They’re going to be as curious about you as you are about them. I’ve had international interviews quickly devolve into laughter and discussion of local food and politics (which can be quite dangerous).

The three dangerous questions

No matter how well the interview goes, there are three questions you’re almost guaranteed to be asked and you had better nail them.

1. Why do you want to move to our country?
2. Can you legally work here?
3. How soon can you start?

This is where all of your research is going to pay off, but for the “why do you want to move here” question, you’re going to have to come up with your own answer.

In 2006, I was interviewing for a role in the UK and was asked why I wanted to move there, I mentioned that I had family in the UK and Germany and I wanted to be closer to them. I also mentioned that I had previously visited the UK and I loved the country. All of this was true and it made me sound like I understood what was going on and not just fantasizing.

You probably don’t have relatives in the target country, so that’s out. Hopefully you’ve at least visited. If you haven’t, you might be in for a surprise. Some people who think they’d love London discover that it’s too polluted and busy for them (I’ve several good friends who were disappointed by the city). Not having visited hurts your chances, but if you haven’t, there’s not much you can do.

At the very least, study the country’s history and current affairs like mad and explain what parts of it you’re fascinated by and how much you’ve wanted to live there and experience it first hand.

Remember, these are people on the other end of the line; they’ll probably understand that answer. Most people have a hidden adventure streak in them and there’s a good chance that you’ll be admired for it. However, don’t just say “for the adventure.” Also, don’t say anything too negative about your home country. You don’t know the person on the other end of the line and if they’re turned off by politics or they happen to admire the politics of your country, you may have sunk your boat. Stay positive!

The really problematic question is “can you legally work here?” This one will also make or break you. If possible, I like to kick start an interview by asking questions of the interviewer. I like to turn the interview into a dialogue, a friendly chat, and forestall this question as long as possible. If it’s addressed too early, you may not get a chance to sell yourself. When it’s asked, though, the answer is simple:

“I need work permit before I start, but fortunately, the process is pretty straightforward.”

This is why you’ve spent so much time learning exactly how the country’s work permit system is structured. Explain how they can hire you. When the company in Nottingham wanted to hire me, they were concerned that it would be difficult. I assured them that it wasn’t and briefly outlined the process. Then I asked for contact information in the company to whom I should explain the process in more detail. I told them where to download forms, what fees they would be paying and what papers they would need to provide. In short, I told my employer how to hire me.

At this point if they’re wavering, you need to close the deal. If you have a sales background, you should isolate their objections and deal with them one by one, but there are some issues here. First, you may not be trained to do this. Second, you probably don’t know their culture and you may accidentally give offense. Third, they may simply be too polite to tell you the problem or too embarrassed to say that they don’t think they can afford you.

Assuming you think that they want to hire you, you can simply deal with the most common objections outright. First, I tell them that my contract should have a provision that I will repay all or some of the relocation costs if I leave the company before a certain date. Another thing I did to guarantee my first UK move was to tell them that I only had to bring over a few suitcases: I didn’t have a household full of goods to move and that reduced relocation costs considerably. They paid for a short-term flat for me, but I paid for my own plane ticket.

Finally, “how soon can you start” is the easy one. You’re already sick to death of Count von Europe, but you’ve heeded the lesson and you have nothing holding you back. Your answer is simply “I have to give X days notice to my employer. I can start as soon as my work permit is approved.” The reality is that the work permit will usually take a few months (this varies widely), so you’re waiting on them rather than the other way around.

4. Negotiating the Salary

I was living in London and was back in the US for a friend’s wedding and eight of us were at a Mexican restaurant for dinner. When it came time to pay the bill, eight wallets came out, with an assortment of cards and cash. I thought about it for a moment and realized that with the (then) exchange rate at $2 to the British pound and with me living in what was then the second most expensive city on the planet (or first, depending on the source), this dinner for eight was about the price of dinner for two back home. I picked up the tab and saved everyone a lot of hassle.

Money’s always a difficult and confusing topic and if you’re in the wonderful position to negotiate the salary for a job in another country, you’ll want to keep a number of things in mind.

Exchange rates are for exchanging money.

When I first moved overseas, I was a bit obsessed with staying on top of the exchange rate. “How much is this carton of eggs in dollars?”

It doesn’t matter. What matters is whether or not something is cheap or expensive relative to the local currency, so don’t stress about it unless ...

... you’re planning on returning to your home country a lot. That 30,000 baht a month salary is fantastic in Thailand but it’s only about $1,000 US. If you’re a Thai going to work in the US, great! If you’re an American going to work in Thailand, you’ll want to be aware of this.

That’s nice. Now tell me the salary to ask for.

If you live in a foreign country, you’ll discover that the economy is as foreign as the country. For example, when I lived in the Netherlands books were typically around €16 to €18 (about $21US to $24US, at that time). Mind you, we’re talking about the cheap mass market paperback that will sold for $7 to $8 in the US. Living in France, many excellent wines are dirt cheap and are often far better than the beer. Petrol (gas) in Europe is far more expensive than in the US and cigarette prices vary considerably from country to country. A €12 pack of cigarettes in France is €5.50 in Malta.

What this means is that when you’re naming a salary, you’re naming a salary relative to what the job should earn, not relative to what you think you’ll need for your cost of living. Try as you might, you will get it wrong if you try and estimate the cost of living for yourself. Try Numbeo if you want to understand the cost of living better. You can also check out ifitweremyhome.com for more interesting details about your target country.

What I recommend is naming a range. This sounds strange, but it works like this. In the early 2000s, in London, many computer programmers earned between £35,000 and £55,000 a year. The lower end of your range should be close to the higher end of typical salaries. You’re an expert and you don’t want to sell yourself short. You’ll have to judge this carefully, though.

So you say, “I’d like to earn somewhere between X and Y a year, but it really depends on holiday time, working conditions, or other benefits available. What salary did you have in mind?”

At this point, you’ve given a range, made it clear you know what reasonable salaries are, made it clear you’re flexible, and thrown it back in their lap. And you’ve done it very professionally. And you know what? If they’re offering eight weeks off a year, you might be quite happy to take a lower salary.

The Employment Contract

If you get this far, the actual employment contract will need some form of relocation assistance. To guarantee my job in Nottingham, while I did receive a very nice salary, I also offered to pay for my own transportation to the UK. Generally, the employer will pay for your flight and the cost (if any) of moving your goods. If you’ve offered to pay to secure the job, so be it (don’t offer to pay unless you absolutely have to). Paying your own way means you don’t have to repay if you decide to leave the position early (homesickness has ended the dreams of many an expat).

In addition to the normal terms of an employment contract, you’ll have to ensure that they’ve guaranteed you some initial accommodation. Most larger cities offer some sort of “short-stay” apartment housing for people moving to a city. They typically include a kitchen, so it’s a bit more than a hotel. If you’re working in a low-paying industry (e.g., social worker) and they offer to let you temporarily take a room in a coworker’s flat, consider it.

Also, if you’ll have trouble with rental deposits, ask the company if they can provide a payroll loan to cover it? Make sure you ask before you fly over. Being homeless is not fun (I speak from experience).

Finally, you might have to have a provision in there that if you leave before a certain amount of time, you’ll repay some or all of the relocation expenses. This is a normal condition, but make sure it’s not for too long of a time. I probably wouldn’t go over a year, but it depends on the expenses.

So that’s about it. I’ve covered preparing your résumé, researching and applying for jobs, interviewing and salary negotiations. This should give you a solid plan for attacking the foreign job market. Be aware, though, that there are plenty of other avenues to working overseas and this one is not guaranteed. It’s simply a variant of the strategy that I took and I know it’s worked for others too.

Conclusion

So that’s it. A four-step plan to move abroad. I never claimed it would be easy, but you might be surprised! When I first started applying for jobs abroad, I immediately had several companies interested (including MapQuest, but they kept insisting I fly from the US to the UK on my dime for an interview, so I ignored ‘em).

The only problem with the above plan is that it takes a while and for many, that’s a reason not to start. Don’t let it be yours.

There are also tons of other routes abroad, many of which are obscure, such as the Italian Citizenship by Descent program. You can claim Italian citizenship if the following criteria are met:

• You have male Italian ancestors living on/after March 17, 1861 could pass citizenship rights to descendants, unless they naturalized elsewhere before their child’s birth
• Children born after January 1, 1948 to Italian mothers qualify
• No generational limit exists, provided each ancestor maintained Italian citizenship eligibility before their child’s birth

There are exceptions and Italian bureaucracy gives French bureaucracy a run for its money, but it can be done. Then you buy an Italian home for $1 and live happily ever after (hint: it’s still hard work).

You can do this. If you want to live abroad, you have to put in the effort. Stop dreaming and start doing.

If you’d like me to write more about how to move abroad, leave a comment below.