11 comments

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  plonkee

  1 year ago

  I think that any non-corporate overseas experience should look valuable to employers.
  
  Ignore whether you got paid for the work or not, who wouldn't want to hire somebody who was self-reliant, could lead a team, was used to interacting with a wide variety of people, could speak Spanish...
  
  Sometimes it seems like because someone's experience was enjoyable and was done for non-commercial / non-financial reasons they themselves discount it. Always seems like a mistake.
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  Mrs. Micah

  1 year ago

  Very cool. And good for any non-traditional experience, I think. Like taking a year off after college to do volunteer work or even coming back to work after a few years of being a parent or freelancer. :)
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  bubelah

  1 year ago

  I totally agree about the languages. I am native Russian speaker, but I do not know Russian business terminology, I don't know how to say assets and liabilities, for example. So, what does it make me, still fluent in Russian or not???
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  Fecundity

  1 year ago

  Bubelah, I'd say it makes you fluent in Russian in general, but non-fluent in for a business job requiring Russian. However, you could become fluent easily enough because you already have the basic grammar and structure down. If it's your field (i.e. you're applying for a job that would need it) you would already know the English concepts and would merely need to memorize some vocabulary.
  
  I work in health research. I can't ask someone in Spanish what the weather outside is doing, and I certainly couldn't function in an interview setting, but I can extract data from medical literature because I know the terminology well enough to recognize it, I know the patterns of reporting common in clinical trials, and I'm familiar with the roots of Spanish as a language descended from Latin. Definitely not fluent by anyone's standards, but functional in my job.
  
  Did you know the Spanish word for pump is the same as the word for bomb? Proton pump inhibitors (inhibidores de la bomba de protones) are medications for reducing acid in your stomach. About 15% of adult North Americans are on one right now. Proton bomb inhibitors sound like something Homeland Security would be interested in, and certainly not something you would want to ingest. The English abstracts (summaries) published with Spanish articles often contain this mistake. It's a good example of why you need to be fluent in the terminology in question as well as in the language as a whole.
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  hank

  1 year ago

  Yea, depending on what you do for a living, bilingual pieces can really help out on SO many levels and can be applied to 1000s of different careers. Pointing it out on a resume is always beneficial and I'd argue should be near the top of the resume depending on your career choice... good post.
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  Steve

  1 year ago

  @Plonkee: amen, I couldn't agree more - but corporations are convinced that CORPORATE jobs are the end-all, be-all sometimes. It's one of my issues with them.
  
  Bubelah, I agree with Fecundity. You could spend 5 minutes with a financial terms dictionary and know them all easily if you needed to, since it's your native language. My point was just that if you plan on interviewing for a business position, better be ready for the technical terms. I have the opposite problem in German - I am very conversational but I couldn't talk business to save my life. It's all just context....
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  Patrick

  1 year ago

  I have a military background and made the jump from the military to the civilian workforce. Making such a drastic career change can be difficult if it is not done well and prepared for. The situation is actually very similar to this example. The key is to find ways to relate your previous experiences into terms and actions your potential employers will understand and respect. The examples you stated in your article are great.
  
  Sometimes, a little creativity can do wonders as well. I have a friend who took a year off to be a stay-at-home dad. When he started recirculating his resume, he left that year in his job history and described his position as "domestic engineer." He said he received more phone calls from HR reps about that statement than he did about his qualifications - of which he had many. He had no trouble getting hired.
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  Steve

  1 year ago

  "Domestic engineer" - I love that. I'd hire someone like that on creativity + guts alone!
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  bubelah

  1 year ago

  Oooh, "Domestic Engineer" sounds so much better than "Homemaker". Quite creative ! So, "Domestic Engineer" does scheduling, planning, arbitration, multitasking, entertaining, transporting, creating, teaching + she gets to kiss her boss' chubby cheeks hundreds of times during the week ;o)
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  fathersez

  1 year ago

  I worked in Ghana, West Africa and in India for about 3 years each.
  
  Both of them were deeply enriching experiences. Mostly good and some not so good, like the case in India where someone filed a case against me claiming I had put a knife at his throat and asked him to sign some documents. And the judge thought this was worthy of examining and asked the cops to investigate. (I was not even in India during the said year.)
  
  I am hoping to write a book on my experiences, as a guide to small and medium sized industries seeking to expand their businesses to developing countries.
  
  Your post is so timely for me. I thank you.
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  jana

  1 year ago

  i do believe overseas experience is a plus! jst recently i got some cvs of people wishing to freelance for the company where i work, and one of the most impressive was by someone who was living in the US (we are european) for several months - NOT on business. i decided to try to hire him, and he is now freelancing for us on a regular basis. he is very good. i did not care whether he was a volunteer or a white collar person, and his work is very convincing so that it was probably the right decision.
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