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having attended a prestigious school or having worked for a well-known company, as well as any high grades or awards you’ve received.
But regardless of its geographical location, any company that is considering hiring you from abroad will not only be interested in whether you can handle the job professionally, but whether you can adapt to a new culture and cope with its challenges. According to Jean-Marc Hachey, author of The Big Guide to Living and Working Overseas, you may want to highlight your relevant personality traits and international awareness. He suggests grouping all international work, volunteer and study experience together in one category to differentiate yourself as someone who is a veteran in the international field.
But don’t worry if you haven’t had much international experience yet. Philip Shea, director of the York University’s Rotman School of Management Global Executive MBA (GEMBA) programme, recommends that you point out any academic courses that you’ve taken with international content or any previous employment where you’ve had contact with foreign cultures. This will add to your well-rounded persona even if you haven’t left the country.
Personal Information and Cover Letter When circulating your resumé
abroad, you might be asked to include more personal information than you normally would in North America, according to Margaret Malewski. While North American companies are not permitted to discriminate based on personal information, in Europe, information like age, nationality, marital status and children are all considered important factors that can affect a candidature and are usually included in one’s CV. And sometimes, Malewski says, personal information like gender or race is just deduced by an applicant’s name, photo or nationality.
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Sometimes asking a candidate to include such personal information or a photo can be innocent (it can help a foreign recruiter know whether to address you as Ms. or Mr.). But Philip Shea agrees that international recruiters sometimes base their decisions on factors that are unrelated to an applicant’s professional qualifications— including gender or race. Unfortunately, this sometimes comes with the territory when applying to work abroad, where cultural stereotypes or discrimination can be present. Ultimately, though, Shea says that you must decide what information you are comfortable including in your application. Whatever personal information you choose to include, Shea always recommends including the dates when you’ll be in the country and whether you’re willing to cover your own moving expenses.
While a resumé is a historical document and shows what you’ve accomplished in your professional life, a cover letter should look to the future and show desires, motivation, and why you’re applying for the job, according to David Edwards. But Edwards says that people still tend to put too much information in a cover letter. He recommends that applicants pick two to three salient things that are going to impress the reader and play those up with a little colour to get the employer’s attention.
Get samples of cover letters from locals, suggests Margaret Malewski. Cover letters are more culturally relative than resumés, according to her, and some employers may even require them to be written by hand.
International resumés—like cover letters—need to be customized for each target job and each target country. A little time spent researching both the country and the company will not only save you the time of sending inappropriate documents, but will also increase your success rate abroad. And isn’t that the point of this whole exercise?
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