Reply to Trailing spouse in the Foreign Service when you already have an internationally focused career?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]This is our profile. My husband does international banking (wb, iadb) and i do child protection. In our last posting i was not allowed to work under the visani had so i netwoled like crazy anf got an offer with somebody who was willing to wait for my papers to be processed. It was great but highly unusual. I did work with a juge international ngo and if we had moved to another country i would have stayed with them. [b]I was not going to be an expat Wife![/b] You have to figure out what skills are the most in demand and build them as well as language skills. Try to be an expert in something and not a generalist as most countries have local talent to fill the generalist spots![/quote]

Judge much? What a nasty attitude. Not every trailing spouse is able to keep their career going and having to deal with people like this just adds to the stress of being one. [/quote]

No not judging but the assumption was that i would take tennis lessons and go to ceramics class witjput even trying to find a job. I was very committed to finding a job.[/quote]

OP here. Sounds like you've been to more than one post and been set on finding work at each - could you share how many tours you all have done and how many you were able to find work at? You sound similar to us in terms of professional profiles, so it's a helpful example. Thanks![/quote]

Yes I think our profiles are similar! As I mentioned I was incredibly committed to finding a job- we did not have kids and I really truly did not know what I would do not working. I first offered volunteer services and while people were interested, volunteering and interning are not very common outside of the western world so people were confused. I literally knocked on doors and used every single contact I had to get interviews with Directors of different NGOs. As long as you are not expecting an international posting, it should be ok. In our last posting I had a local contract with a local salary of $24,000 which of course was hilarious but I contributed to an interesting organization and kept my resume active. Then I worked really hard to be an asset to the NGO so that I could turn that experience into a wider regional role hence being able to move to another country with my husband. I also did all the research to figure out how to change my visa on my own. This was the hardest as I had to deal with tons of red tape, blah blah and eventually had to pay a paper-pusher to do most of the paper-pushing once I had collected the documents. I think in many countries this is typically how it is done. I did give up diplomatic immunity to have a work authorization but we did not care about that as I would still obviously be taken care of if we were to be evacuated (worse case scenario). Another approach is to land a consulting gig in country (again local salary) and turn this into something permanent. Most important is that you just don't give up- it will take time to get something, but its of course worth it so just remember why you are doing what you are doing in the first place! [/quote]

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