BootsnAll Travel Community

On this thread in another forum there was a lot of talk about Expat assignments & packages from US based companies.

My question: what sort of companies / field of work is this sort of thing prevalent in? Anyone know a good jumping off resource for scoring international gigs? I realize they are a) probably not so easy to score b) not always as glamorous as them seem.. but I'm still awfully curious.

Back to the drawing board...

There are a wide range of careers that facilitate such work. Everything from sales to engineering to financial services.

If you list a brief description of your skills, education, and/or work experience, it'd be easier to suggest a jumping off point.

It all depends.

Some skills are in short supply. Some kinds of career and education lend themselves better to international employment. And then there are just random useless things in this world that lead to opportunity.

The gas and oil business move a lot of people around the globe.

Being a certified and experienced teacher of English as a Foreign Language is an expat opportunity. The pay isn't usually great but there is a lot of demand all over the world.

And as an American, there is being what we call, a "security badge whore." This is someone with no particular language or career or educational skills, who can pass US security clearances for civilian contracted or government jobs and then works for the US government and/or its' multitudes of subcontractors. No relevant experience of any kind necessary. Posts are usually dangerous and unpleasant, but well paid and most often tax free.

Exactly what did you have in mind?

I don't really know what sort of thing I'm looking for, just more curious to learn about other opportunities available. I just feel like I keep running into people who were sent to Stockholm for the year or did an 8 month work project in Berlin and it makes me so jealous! I'm not looking to work abroad forever. But I would LOVE to find work abroad for a year or two that wasn't teaching English or doing hospitality stuff. (I already know where to look to find those positions!)

At the moment I've only my bachelors in Marketing and German and two years of work under my belt. Nothing really exciting or ground breaking.

I did spend a year working for a travel company with international offices with hopes of being moved abroad. But in the end I couldn't stick out the crap pay or boring work for the perk of living abroad.

I guess I'm just curious to know how one finds more "professional work"...that wasn't necessarily government stuff, teaching, or nursing.

I have a group of friends who work in the ever exciting world of "telecom billing". Many of them are highly technical, but many of them are not. They seem to get themselves all over the world with various gigs from as little as two months to as long as four years. Some stayed US-based, some liked it so much abroad they stayed. Their careers all started out working for "telecom billing software companies", which are very international by nature.

So, the point to all this is that there are lots of boring-as-hell businesses out there that will tool you up in some dull specialty and then ship you out.