Looking to move to a new country? An international job search can be difficult after years of working in a different country. Your contacts can be your biggest asset when you’re looking to make a move, and you should use your network, whether from HBS, your professional background or personal acquaintances. This vast network can be located all over the world, but social media has the potential to bring everyone together and help you in your international search.
It’s a lot easier today to find potential contacts and weaker ties using sites like LinkedIn where you can see how you’re connected to people at organizations that interest you. You also can identify people who are doing work similar to what you want to do in the country where you want to relocate. Reading people’s profiles on LinkedIn is helpful because you can see how they describe the work they do in their own words. Companies use LinkedIn to share information so read their updates and follow them to keep abreast of their activities.
LinkedIn can also be a way for you to highlight your skill-set. If you become an active social media participant by blogging or sharing regular thoughts and updates in your area of expertise, people will quickly see your value and depth of knowledge. Putting your professional self out there in the public domain may help jobs come to you.
Another way to use LinkedIn to grow your network is to take advantage of the Harvard Business School University page. You’re able to segment alumni, both Exec Ed and MBA, based on geographic location, where they work, what industry they work in, their skill set and your degree of connection. If you find that you have connections in common, explain you’re looking to make a move and ask the mutual party to make an introduction.
In addition to your own social media presence, be sure to see what the companies and the people you want to connect with have to say on other social networks like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat, as well as Weibo and WeChat if you read Chinese. You generally don’t need an account to read what is being said, so be a savvy job seeker and use social media tools to the fullest to learn as much about companies and people as you possibly can.