Searching for employment abroad

[Eddw86]

Afternoon,

Having been in my current role for a while now and having passed all my CIMA exams in the process I am looking for that ever important 'next step'.

One thing I have always wanted to do is travel with work or spend some time living abroad. Now I have passed one milestone in passing CIMA and being relatively young (25) and with no real commitments in terms of relationships or a mortgage now would appear to be the perfect time, or possibly the role after next. Such experiences are also lauded by the many successful PHers who have done something similar.

I thought I would tap in to the great resource that is PH and its many learned members to really ask where to start.

Are there recommended recruitment agencies, job sites etc that people use? Does anyone have any advice or input they could share? Please PM me if you would rather.

I am flexible with location, if I had to choose one location it would be the USA, but I have looked at places like the Cayman Islands, UAE, Singapore, other parts of Europe etc.

Obviously the role has to be right for my career - I am currently a commercial Analyst for a bluechip company with experience in a number of sectors. I am interested in a wide range of sectors - banking/ financial services, Consulting, Oil FMCG.

Thanks,

Ed

[Mattt]

Are you on LinkedIn (with a decent profile)?

That's where all my initial contacts have come from from Recruiters.

[rog007]

Middle East healthcare sector still growing, but getting more cost conscious so always on the lookout for quality finance people; Google should help. Good luck!

[Eddw86]

Thanks for the replies!

I am on LinkedIn, with what I think is a decent profile - I get a lot of contact but it mainly seems to be from Surrey/ London based recruiters.

Will give that a Google, thanks.

[AJS-]

Very difficult to get hired from overseas at what is still a relatively junior level.

Most foreigners I know who are working here in Bangkok are either sent over by multinationals, and this most likely with a good 10+ years behind them and/or some very specialised skill. If your not in an MNC at the moment, a long range strategy might be to join one now and aim to apply for something abroad in the next 3-5 years.

The other alternative is to go where you want to work and knock on doors, make contacts and get hired as a local.

This does mean that you won't get the club memberships, housing benefits and other expat perks, but it is more likely to get you a foot in the door.

[zbc]

AJS- said:

Most foreigners I know who are working here in Bangkok are either sent over by multinationals, and this most likely with a good 10+ years behind them and/or some very specialised skill. If your not in an MNC at the moment, a long range strategy might be to join one now and aim to apply for something abroad in the next 3-5 years.

+1 to this solution for me with the added advice that if you have a target location do some research and find a multinational that is either based there, growing quickly there or at least see it as a key market and then find a job with them in the UK. Even if they don't want to send you there you should be able to learn a lot more about who is employing in that location. I fancied working in France in Construction materials so looked hard at jobs with people like Lafarge and St Gobain in the UK.

[bqf]

Contact one of the Big 4 directly - PwC, Deloitte regularly have London careers fairs for overseas opportunities, esp for qualified accountants

[Eddw86]

Thanks for the advice guys, I'm currently working for a MNC but overseas opps are generally for engineers.

Will investigate further though.

Thanks.

[Nick M]

What does a 'commercial analyst' do ?

I only ask because there is a large migration to AsiaPac for finance functions being brought together into shared service centre environments. There is also a desire to move 'higher value' activities into these environments in order to provide more useful data that the business can use, rather than them acting as purely transaction processing centres.

My experience on them is that most are crying out for quality management accountants because the skills aren't available locally in sufficient numbers so they recruit directly from overseas.

Should open up opportunities in Malaysia and Singapore (the more transactional level processing is usually done in cheaper locations such as China, Inida and the Philippines). Maybe also in South America (though maybe best to avoid Argentina for the time being ).

[anonymous-user]

I am CIMA and have worked overseas for over 30 years, but never using my CIMA qualification, there are problems for accountants, you can not work as an Accountant in thailand or Veitnam, for example. Best way is to find position with an international group in the UK and then transfer, but there is no money in being an accountant in Asia, there are so many locals who do it, and CIMA and ACCA sell themselves well in Asia (I have a problem withe them on this as they are competing for students at the expense of existing members)