If you have long thought about trying to find work abroad, then look under the cat. In this article, I tried to collect key points related to finding a job based on personal experience.
Why precisely abroad
There are many answers to this seemingly simple question. Many people choose foreign countries to avoid the scoop of legacy, social injustice, various persecutions, or simply earn more money. Although in most cases the money option probably wins. Each determines the reason for himself, each one. Maybe someone is already tired of sitting on the Internet via VPN. I once had a dream to live in a place where the sun shines all year round and the ocean is within walking distance. And when such an opportunity appeared, I without hesitation grabbed onto it and moved to California. Despite the high cost of living, this place is probably one of the best in the world for an IT specialist. Sufficiently high salaries, and the concentration of startups per square kilometer just rolls over. Plus, year-round sunshine, beaches and even ski resorts are a couple of hours away. In fairness, I note that I lived in California for a short time (less than a year): I received a very profitable offer and moved to Washington.
Which country to choose
Perhaps this question is not too simple. During my professional career (I work as a programmer for about 8 years) I received invitations to interview in many different countries: USA, Canada, England, France, Austria, Switzerland, Czech Republic, Netherlands, Finland, South Korea, Japan, Malaysia, Indonesia, Australia . Just no longer remember, but this list should already be enough to choose. I successfully passed the interviews in the USA and the Czech Republic, failed in England and France. For the most part, the rest of the invitations were rejected even before the interview stage due to lack of interest.
What you need to be able to
In the disclaimer of this article, I immediately made a reservation that my experience is related to professional activities in the field of IT. In my opinion for an IT specialist to find a job abroad is easier. Profession in IT implies less difficulty in searching. I will explain a little what I mean. For example, a doctor of any category for work in the United States must undergo training in local educational institutions to obtain accreditation. The same is true for many other specialties that require local knowledge, legislation, norms, practices, etc. A programmer, if he has the necessary experience with the required technologies, can start working without a crust from world-renowned universities such as MIT or Stanford. But it is necessary to soberly assess their chances. If you can easily find a job in your city, Moscow or St. Petersburg, then I think that this is quite enough to start sending out resumes to foreign companies. If, however, difficulties arise during the interviews, it is worth starting with tightening your professional level, while simultaneously doing mailing. It is always necessary to develop and improve, but in the case of a job search, you can focus on the most necessary knowledge and pull it up first.
Naturally, it is necessary to remember that knowledge of a foreign language is necessary, but I want to talk about this in more detail in a separate section.
For the benefit of the interviews
I always liked to go on interviews, for me it was always something like a free exam. Large companies hunt all the time, so it is quite difficult to remain without interviews. The minimum for me has always been the rule: one interview per month. Of course, not always interviews are useful, moreover, a huge part of interviews is conducted by people who understand little of this. On Habré enough articles about it.
In my practice, there were about 2-3 cases that ended in a very unpleasant experience. For example, I was on an interview in one of the major Moscow banks. Not one or two people came to the meeting, as is customary, but a whole team of four people.
Only one of them was a programmer, but the person had an excessively excessive QS. After a series of questions, it became clear that the future will only be a waste of time. Having explained to everyone that I consider the rest of the meeting only a waste of time, I thanked everyone and ended with this interview.
In all other cases, I always managed to understand what I am doing well and what is worth learning. I would like to caution that the goal was not just to get a hand in the interviews, but to really work on the errors afterwards. Thus, it came to an understanding of which books should be read, which courses to take, and so on. In many cases, the interviewer himself gave recommendations on what work to do better. But nowadays there is another practice when feedback is given to you only in the form of the answer “Yes” or “No”. But even in this case, focusing on your own feelings, you can learn what is a strong point for you, and you still need to work on something else. Coming out of the interview, throw in the notebook key points that later try to make out in more detail.
It is worth emphasizing separately that by holding your hand on the pulse in this way, you will always know what the market situation is like now and have an idea about the current salary forks.
If possible, try to conduct or at least participate in the interviews yourself. This can help you identify your strengths and weaknesses. In one of the large companies in Moscow, I had the opportunity to conduct about fifteen interviews. The conclusions for me were very unexpected. It turned out that the average level of candidates is rather weak, and of the twenty face-to-face interviews, the offer was done only to one. What finally became the reason for my conversation with the authorities about my salary, but this is a slightly different story.
About english
English has become the de facto standard in many industries. IT industry is no exception. Most publications, lectures, books, video / audio lessons and other materials are primarily published in English. Sometimes it’s not so easy to wait for a localized version, and after waiting you can get a very dubious translation quality. I somehow had a chance to start reading a book on C ++ in the Russian translation: at times I had to re-read some paragraphs several times. Having suffered from a localized version of the book, I simply switched to the original version, and to my surprise, it became much easier to perceive information. Over time, I completely switched to reading professional literature in English.
Nowadays, knowledge of English is no longer surprising. And the slogans of language schools that knowledge of a foreign language will help you find better paying jobs are outdated. But without knowledge of the language, looking for work abroad is inappropriate.
I happened to attend meetings with several companies in Los Angeles, almost entirely composed of Russian-speaking programmers (in some places even for an interview). But you should not limit your choice of potential employers in advance; language learning should be prioritized on a par with pulling up your technical knowledge.
There are many options for learning these days. In my subjective opinion, online schools have not brought me tangible results. If your English is at an elementary level, then the foundation is better to form by studying full-time.
The learning process itself can be integrated into many things from everyday life. For example, if you are watching TV shows or movies, try to find an opportunity to watch this series in the original voice acting. Perhaps for someone it will be hard, in this case, you can look in the dubbing, but with English subtitles. Over time, it is desirable to abandon the credits in order to develop the skill of perception of speech by ear.
But in order to really start talking in a foreign language, speaking practice is necessary. Living in big cities, you can find a huge number of clubs of interest, communication in which occurs exclusively in foreign languages. I happened to visit the Mafia players club several times in English. But even more successful was the conversational practice club, in which classes were paid for by the employer.
To expand vocabulary in the vastness of the network, you can find the top three thousand most frequently used words in the English language version of the Oxford Dictionary. I printed and laminated the A4 sheet with all the words and their translations in the column opposite. And for six months, every day I learned a couple of dozen new words on the way to the university. To date, I know about 95% of the words from this list, and this is more than enough to support a conversation or an interview. And as you learn new words, in order to consolidate this knowledge, you need to use them as often as possible. A very useful exercise is a simple monologue for a few minutes: try to plan tomorrow, thinking out loud in English.
About resume
An important component when applying for a job is a resume. During the interviews I encountered various versions of the summary: a ten-page treatise on the candidate’s life history, a resume with a bunch of infographics, a resume-essay, and so on. In most cases, too original resumes do not play a big role. Before a resume falls into the hands of a person or group of people who make hiring decisions, it passes through a recruiter, manager, interviewer, etc. A summary of a couple of pages, a concise extract of the candidate’s experience, is the best option. It allows for a minimum amount of time to understand whether the candidate is suitable or not, and whether to invite him to an in-person meeting.
When making a resume should pay attention to the following items: education, key skills, the last 3-4 jobs, the stack of technologies used and certification. You should not inflate the section about yourself, it suffices to limit yourself to two or three sentences.
It is also necessary to remember that the resume should contain all the necessary contact information, preferably on each page.
Many recruiting companies use automatic parsers and crawlers to search for candidates. Therefore, when drafting a resume, it is better to make sure that all key skills are listed literally, so that the program can index your resume.
There are services that help you draw your resume. Most of them have a trial period and the opportunity to see the results of the parser. Since I started working as a database developer, many parsers paid attention to the names of the databases, the name of the integration tools, which ultimately referred my resume to the database developers in the resulting summary. To avoid this, I simply reduced the description of my first job to a minimum.
Where to look for a job
The most popular resource for job search is Lindkedin. This resource is not available in Russia, but I think finding a way out and getting through should not be a problem for you. After making a resume, it’s worth updating your profile on Linkkedin. Do not forget to indicate that you are in search of work, this can be done in your account settings.
A huge number of vacancies is published on resources for programmers. On StackOverflow there is a separate job site with vacancies. Most simulators for solving problems with interviews also publish vacancies (Leetcode, HackerRank, etc.).
In addition, if you have decided on a country where you would like to work, you should add local sites to this list. In the US, many vacancies are published on such resources as Indeed, Dice, and others.
Subscribe to the latest vacancies, regularly respond to existing ones. But do not wait for the results immediately. Unfortunately, many companies are very reluctant to consider remote candidates, because This requires additional hassle with clearance permits. From my practice, I received answers to one of the fifty responses. And invitations to be interviewed were even less frequent.
On the other hand, you can send a resume directly to your chosen company. All major IT companies post vacancies on their websites. In this case, it would be very useful to write a cover letter in addition to the resume itself, stating in it why you are exactly in this position, reasons for your interest, readiness to consider relocation and listing your key qualities, skills and virtues. You should not copy a cover letter, it is always better to write a new one, taking into account the peculiarities of the company for which position you are applying for. Many recruiters consider the cover letters optional, but of course you decide. In my opinion a cover letter slightly increases your chances of getting noticed.
Interview abroad
Before you make an in-person meeting with a potential employer, you have a long way to go. The usual practice is either homework, online testing, telephone or video interview.
Online testing usually consists of solving problems with a time limit. After successful completion of the first stage, the recruiter will contact you to ask some formal questions and set a date for the interview.
As a rule, the hiring company pays you a ticket and hotel accommodation for the possibility of a full-time interview. In my case, I had to deal with the visa myself, having paid all related expenses.
At the same time, there is a small life hacking: in a conversation with a recruiter, I asked to book me a return ticket a day later, while clarifying that I would pay for the second night at the hotel myself. Thus, a couple of times I had the opportunity to spend the whole day besides traveling to an interview as a tourist, thus getting to know the city itself, where you may be settled.
Interviews in foreign companies are quite different from those that are usually held in Russia. Large companies try to evaluate you not only from a technical point of view, but also your personal qualities are assessed. Be prepared for different questions from the category “Tell us about the most difficult problem you have solved recently?” Or “Has there ever been a case in your career when you did not agree with the manager and acted differently?”. Many large companies generate corporate rules and principles. And the above questions are designed to assess how you meet them. Don't underestimate this part of the interview. It happens that the candidate brilliantly answered technical questions, but there were doubts that he was in line with the principles and the decision was made not in favor of the candidate.
What to expect
During the interview, you may be asked about your current salary. In my opinion, this question is not always correct, because given the difference in exchange rates, your current salary will always be lower. But you will almost never be given a salary for the position in question right away, only with the offer and only in the case of a positive decision.
How to understand how good is your offer? You should pay attention to the data on the Glassdoor site about wages in the company where you are trying to get. Also, it will not be unimportant to have an idea about the cost of living, medical services, transport, etc. in a new country, this can be done on the Numbeo website or by searching the information you need on the Internet.
In the US, Team Blind is a very popular application - an anonymous corporate messenger. Almost all employees from the TOP 5 IT companies use this application. The idea of the application is very simple: using a working email, the employee gets access to the application, thereby confirming that he really works for this company. Further communication within the application is anonymous. Frequently asked questions are questions about salary, bonuses, internal rules, etc. All that you know better before signing an offer.
If you have friends who live in this region, then do not neglect the opportunity to learn the opinion of local residents. Very many of my former colleagues have scattered around the world, and now I have the opportunity to find out how things are going in many different countries.
Conclusion
I summarize the above in a few points. In order to get a job abroad you need:
- Update your resume and start responding to vacancies in those countries / companies where you would be interested to work. The sooner you start doing this, the more chances you have
- If necessary, tighten the level of English
- Refresh technical knowledge, and start going to interviews, even if your current place is fine with you
- To be ready for face-to-face meeting, to have an idea about the company's field of activity, salary forks, internal corporate culture
Unfortunately, the tendency is that qualified personnel from Russia are leaking more and more each year. There is nothing you can do, in the end, everyone chooses what is best for himself. I do not call anyone for rampant emigration, but only share my experience of finding work abroad. Whatever your reasons are - the desire to live in an exotic country, earn money for an apartment / car or move to permanent residence.
Thanks for attention.
PS: Unfortunately, it is not possible to examine in detail all aspects in the format of a single article. Ask your questions in the comments, I will try to answer all. The most frequently asked questions are written in the following article.