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Tag: Nuovo Levantino

4 lessons learned about networking being an expat

Moving to a foreign country is a deep change of life; not only because you’re leaving your relatives and friends (skype and social media are good tools to maintain such relationships)  but also because you have planned to set your entire social and professional life in an “unknown” environment where you don’t know people and people don’t know you. As in any situation where you’re going to reinvent yourself, you have to analyze you starting point and, hereby, to develop your “strategy”. When I moved to Turkey, I had no real job opportunity or contracts. Also, in the private sphere, I had just few connections with just a couple of my wife’s friends. Here there are some lessons I learned from my experience Attend a language school To know the language of the country where you live, obviously, It’s the first step to improve the possibility to establish personal and professional relations. Attending a language school (even if you already know the language, it wasn’t my situation :)) is for sure the first step to do. Going to the school language was my first opportunity to start to networking. The main advantage is that many foreign people like you don’t know the language, so if you know at least English (that is the most common language worldwide) you can start to make your connections. During the four months I attended at the school I met a lot of persons, even others Italian that temporary or permanently moved to Turkey. I met my firends “Paolos” (yes, it was the most common name among Italians :)) and German, American, English,  and other persons from different nationalities. In the very first month I got a network of 20-30 local connections composed by foreign people living in Izmir. Most of them were married with turkish people so, my “second degree” connection reached about 40-60 people. How to get value from these connections? People moving abroad have almost the same problems: how to get resident permit and how to find a job are the most popular and urgent questions. So, if you are able to help them they will help you. Try to be valuable in giving the information they need. Be open and listen to their problem and always try to help to solve. When you’ll need, they will help you back. Connect with institutions of your Country If you live in a main city, probably there is at least a Consulate. Usually Consulate’s employees are both “diplomatic” (sent to the country from the Foreign Ministry) and “administrative”, usually local people employed. So Consulate has a deep knowledge of the local environment and can help you in understanding how to approach a business or…

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