"More Firms Send Novices Overseas"
By Kevin Voigt
Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal
CareerJournal.com

Working abroad can be a tough assignment—even for seasoned professionals—but things may be getting tougher. Recent research has shown that, increasingly, workers being sent overseas are likely to be international novices. The 2001 Global Relocation Trends Survey—co-sponsored by U.S.-based GMAC Global Relation Services, the National Foreign Trade Council and SHRM Global Forum—revealed that 75% of overseas assignees surveyed from 150 multinational companies had no previous international experience, compared with 45% in past surveys.

Especially for first-timers, it is important to carefully consider a foreign assignment before accepting it, says Margaret Shaffer, a professor of management at Hong Kong Baptist University who studies relocation issues. Ms. Shaffer's interest in relocation has been inspired by her own experience—she first came to Hong Kong for a four-year stint in 1978 and has been back in the region since 1995. Ms. Shaffer tells Getting Ahead the essential issues to think about before accepting a job abroad.

Career Prospects
When your boss asks you to consider an international post, the first question to ask should be asked of yourself about your career: What are my goals, and will I have the resources to achieve those goals in the post?

On this subject, your company might not be much help— 35% of the companies surveyed in the Global Relocation Survey say they have no idea what effect an international assignment has on their employees' careers. Half the companies surveyed don't track attrition rates. But anecdotal evidence from the survey and Ms. Shaffer's own research suggests that many companies have problems bringing employees back into the fold after a foreign posting. Reverse culture shock can be a problem, as can be adjusting to moving from a foreign assignment's corner office back into home office's cubicle maze. Reports of dissatisfaction upon return are commonplace, Ms. Shaffer says.

She advises people looking at taking up an overseas posting to seek assurances that there will be a position waiting for them when they return. (Few companies give such guarantees—only 34%, according to the survey.) "If so, will that position tap into newly learned skills? Some expats I've talked to have been frustrated on return. [They] come back doing the same thing they did before they left," Ms. Shaffer says.

Still, 36% surveyed believe an international assignment can put careers on the fast track. Is your company one of them? "Talk to other people who have been overseas, [with] the company and outside. Probe as to why you're being sent. Some companies specifically ask to send [people] to gain international experience. Most [send people] to solve an immediate problem. Sometimes, they send people to get [them] out of their hair," she says.

Does your company have a strong support program to help your career from suffering culture shock? To keep a connection with home office, find a mentor there "so you don't get this feeling of out of sight, out of mind," suggests Ms. Shaffer.

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