It's the dream of many, many thousands, even millions of people: to leave their home countries and to live and work legally in another country, or to have a job that allows them to travel all around the world. That dream often involves a magical rich foreigner that will appear and sponsor them to move elsewhere.
The problem: the dream is impossible for MOST people.
To legally live and work in a country where you do not have a passport, you have to have a job offer by a company in that country - and such jobs are extremely hard to get. Extraordinarily hard. In the vast majority of countries, there are already plenty of people to do the work that's needed. In countries where you see very large numbers of immigrants living and working, the immigrants are often in the country illegally and doing very low-paid work, like picking produce in fields, and they are targets of financial exploitation, violence and other crimes - and often, the police won't help, because they are in the country illegally.
This page is intended to explain the realities of legally
working abroad. But please note: I have NOTHING to sell you.
I do not employ anyone. Do NOT write me and ask for more advice.
I am sharing this in order to stop people from posting to Quora and Reddit over and over
and over, begging for magical information to help them move to
another country to work - and, I hope, to stop those people from
inviting scammers to contact them (that is exactly what you do
when you post online and say, "How can I live my country?").
Whatever you do: NEVER pay for a job. NEVER. Never pay a registration fee, a subscription, a deposit, a travel fee, an application fee, NOTHING. Ever. Any job that asks you for money is a scam.
Do not write me and say, "I got this offer for a job. Is it a scam?" I've just told you that it is.
Do not write me and say, "Where can I work?" Everything I know is
on the page you are reading now.
Some people with a Master's degree in education and extensive experience teaching have been able to secure teaching jobs at private schools in other countries if that country has a severe lack of such expert teachers. To find such jobs, you have to go to the web sites of private schools and see what employment openings they have, or you look in trade publications for professional teachers.
If you marry someone from another country, you may be
able to move with them to another country and, once there, obtain
a work visa that would allow you to pursue work of any kind in
that country. Laws vary from country to country. When researching
this, look on the official web site of the country that your
spouse is from - do not trust any other web site's information
about a country's immigration laws. And note that many require
that you have a substantial amount of money in a bank account
before your spouse is allowed to join you - to prove that your
spouse will not get to the country and then immediately require
government support for food, medical care, etc.
If you work for a large, multi-national company, they probably have an internal recruitment process for certain jobs. They are not going to recruit janitors, secretaries, etc. - they recruit people working in industrial design, IT, engineering, etc. that ALREADY work for the company.
You greatly increase the chance of working abroad if you are multi-lingual. You need to be able to WORK, without translation assistance, in English and at least one other language.
Languages that are in most demand in hospitality jobs, other than English:
Any second language is going to be helpful in your pursuit of working abroad.
There are very few people who travel the world and make enough money to completely support themselves by designing web sites, translating, editing, designing graphics, managing a social media account, writing, etc. You will see a lot of articles claiming you can do this, but the reality is that it is extremely difficult to be able to do this kind of work. First, you have to be a well-known, highly-experienced professional with a long list of previous employers and clients who adore your work so much that they keep coming back to you over and over to hire you. Without a portfolio of many happy clients ready to hire you over and over, you aren't going to be a digital nomad.
Yes, there are social media influencers who make a great deal of money. They are, relatively speaking, few of them. The vast majority of people who try to be professional influencers FAIL - they make NO money. You have to be doing something or writing something so amazing that many thousands of people want to read or watch it at least every week in order to make money as a social media influencer. It is absolutely a full time job, incredibly intense, and you rarely get time off - and if you do take time off, you will see a substantial or even complete drop in income.
If you want to translate this document into another language and post it on your own web site, feel free - however, please do not use the author's name anywhere on the site.
Also see:
For People That Want Refugee or Asylum Status: Realities You Need to Know.
What Work-At-Home / Remote Jobs Look Like and how to avoid scams.
How to Get a Paid Job with the
United Nations or other international humanitarian or
development organization.
Ideas for Leadership
Volunteering Activities
A long list of ideas for a person, especially a young person, to
create or lead an impactful project for a community and to have
a leadership role as a volunteer. These can also be activities
for a Capstone project, the Girl Scouts Gold Award, the Duke of
Edinburgh's Award (U.K.), a mitzvah project, or even scholarship
consideration.
How you can advocate for an issue important to you. If there is something you want to tell people about, to prompt them to care, even to prompt them to action, this resource is for you.
Beware of pay day loans, quick loans, cash advances, etc. How to stop being a slave to debt.
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