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Going abroad is not a competitive advantage for your career.

A feedback on my 10 years experience of going all-in.

In an interconnected and globalised world, it is logical to expect that the more international you will be, better your career.Because you will stand-out from the crowd.

As somebody who has been diving into it 100% this last decade (I have been living 3 years in China, 1 in Australia, 5 in Brazil, 6 months in Amsterdam since 1 year and the half in Switzerland.) I can simply affirm that this hypothesis is wrong, and will you cost you very much.

Make no mistakes, I am here to give a constructive feedback destined at students and people about to take the leap or thinking about it. So you know what to expect and avoid disappointment in the future from inflated expectations.

It is sold by the outside world as a competitive advantage for your career, and something very desirable. The reality, is that the assumptions behind are flawed, and if you plan to differentiate on this, you are headed for a lot of pain.

International experience will stay in 95% of the time a nice to have line on your resume. Unless you manage a global team with different nationalities, or that you are sent in the country you are an expert, I don’t think it will bring you immediate rewards down the line.

Blame it on the people if you want, but that’s not going to help.

At the end of the day, the need of your future co-workers and bosses are:

Skills are a must more predictable way to get this than your international experience.

Of course there is always this perfect job that will require you to travel, live abroad, discover things while being paid.

But HEY!! We are all looking for this one, and even if you do find it you need to get hired, which means 100 others won’t have your chance.

For this to happen, you need to have:

So still, small chances.
We all have been told we are amazing, but the reality is quite different.

Especially your boss, or the HR.

Your pay will be benchmarked against people that do your job in your company and in the market. Final point.

Unless you find an amazing way to prove that your international experience is making you better to do excel spreadsheets go for it.

But don’t be surprised if your salary and benefits don’t go through the roof right away.

Since there are more jobs with local interactions rather than international ones, you probably will find yourself in this situation.

When you are student, the fact that you can leave, travel, discover and get a job at the end is a very attractive and powerful idea compared let’s stay, to a more down to earth approach telling you that you are going to work your ass off 8h a day on excel or your design tools.

However, I think this is a very dangerous situation Business schools (and others)are putting their students into because this is a typical case of what Nassim Taleb calls not having skin in the game.

Schools are selling us a reality on their marketing brochures that is not based on transparent facts, (“Our statistics says that — Complete here— ”).

I also suspect that it comes from a competitive market perspective to differentiate themselves from the other schools. In the 2000’s the market was untapped and proposing international experiences was a new value proposition for a fringe of young kids that had grown up with internet and the desire to explore the world as it seemed closer than never.

If something wrong happens, then it must is your fault. You must have done something wrong in your choices, while in the end it might just be the result of marketing promises you have believed in the first place.

This is where all the flaws about being international are assembled.

To the contrary of a real skill, where you sit and practice daily with specific results, being abroad is a context you find yourself in which it demands you more energy, because everything around you(or most of it) is unknown.

As a result, the efforts invested in discovering, adapting, and engaging with the local culture (solving administrative issues, traveling, etc..) won’t probably be made into the development of other skills because you simply won’t have much time left to do it.

When everybody around you speaks another language, think differently and engage in specific ways it is exhausting to just be there and still figure out just how things work.

As much it is a very rewarding experience to discover and share bits of your life with other people from different culture, it is not something that businesses value on a regular basis.

This capacity being very intangible it is hard to measure and thus value.
How a business can compare two “international” people while their experiences are radically different?

I don’t know where this glamour factor comes from, but in my mind, one of the reason is that usually cool things comes from the top of the pyramid (The elites) to the bottom of society.

Be it for societal trends, technology or behavioral ones, like living abroad.

I believe that the possibility of living abroad was in the past reserved exclusively to the wealthiest, diplomats or other important figures of our world. It was used to solve important business or diplomatic matters, because back in the days it used to involve a lot of time, and money.

In the last sixty years the world has gone way smaller, and you have now a range of options that were impossible to have in the past.

For example, a non-stop flight from Singapore to NY (As being the longest in the world for now ) will cost you a mere 1550$, which is way affordable for any business.

However, in the meantime, our opinion on people traveling and living abroad have not diminished as it is the case when a behavior becomes popular.

It is still highly regarded as something cool, and fancy that others desire strongly . In the end, this social influence has a big impact on us and on the decision we make.

If you decide to go abroad, do it. It will be an amazing & enriching experience, however just know what need to be true for you in order to have the best return for your career.

On a personal level it is the richest thing you could do, and you might get hooked on, however don’t expect it as a differentiator that will put you on the top of the list.

As a reminder against thinking that going abroad is a silver bullet for your career I would recommend you Shakespeare words:

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