Career Choices for Global Citizens
To start living in a new country, or just to travel there for business or for work, may be a matter of choice for some, but it is now becoming more of a matter of necessity for most.
Our global world, on one hand facilitates foreign travel and trade but, on the other, just the slightest exposure to new cultural situations may be fraught with embarrassment for the relatively lucky ones or with risk and damage or loss for many others. In either case, researching a great number of factors and planning accordingly will pay off in the very short run as the transition becomes smoother, the returns are higher and the culture shock is reduced to manageable levels.
But What is Culture?
It is of real importance to understand from the outset that by culture we do not just mean the unique traits and behaviour that may distinguish, for example, a British person from a French one but, also, those traits that distinguish a chemist from an accountant, a clergyman from a soldier and even a young person from an older one.
And What lies ahead after University? Completing a solid University education, would it not be the right time after graduation to learn and apply the so many cross-cultural hacks that plan-your-career.com would teach you and have you practice?
In the area of any generational gap, conflict can escalate from lower priority levels to much more serious ones like in cases of:
Children coping with parents (classic generational gap)
Parents coping with children (due to high expectations of ROI)
Parents pulling in the opposite direction (feelings vs need)
Family business to look after vs lucrative corporate employment
As for the case of job interviews for young graduates, at plan-your-career.com we preach that it is crucial to anticipate important questions rather than having a line of stock answers ready and, following that, to be ready to debate with conviction, foresight and empathy with would be employers and co-workers.
Some aspects in cross-cultural, cross-generational and cross-professional situations to have to cope with come to mind here like:
Languages
Technology & Social Media
Education
Economic Policies and Systems
Civic Situations, (marriage, adoption)
