Noticeably, there is an increasing number of individuals like me who moved to Singapore to fulfill their own personal aspirations.  We’ve opted to become “Permanent Residents” (PRs) under Singapore immigration law. As PRs rather than expatriates coming in for an international assignment, you don’t receive the perks given to you using a company’s expatriate benefits. But you don’t have a boss to tell you that your journey is over and that you will be sent home tomorrow – something we’ve witnessed, sadly, too often recently.

Why choose Singapore?

In fact, the reason my wife and I wanted to move to Asia in the first place is because of the “buzz” we felt while on a backpacking holiday visiting Southeast Asia in 2004.  Then, the process was to identify what talent we bring to the table and where it would fit best.  In my case, I brought many years of international business experience in technology market segments.  I was looking to lead teams across Asia and where I would live is an important aspect of finding that type of opportunity.  In Asia, the leading cities or states for regional roles are Hong Kong, Singapore, followed by Kuala Lumpur and Bangkok.  All have pros and cons, and you need to understand what influences your decision to pick one.

Singapore has many compelling points in its favor:

• Ease of doing business – Singapore ranks #1 in the world year after year;
• Ease of communicating – English is the official working language;
• Ease of traveling around Asia with ultra modern broadband communication infrastructures;
• Political stability – Singapore is often labeled as the Switzerland of Asia;
• Wide selection of international schools;
• Security with an amazingly low crime and corruption environment

In our case, those arguments were  influential, but the main drivers for us were Singapore’s favorable taxation and immigration rules.  While seeking potential business ventures or job opportunities, Singapore remains a very easy place to relocate.  However, you must make sure you do your homework because without any income or revenue, Singapore can be a very expensive place to stay.

As for taxes, it is most favorable after Hong Kong in Asia, or the emerging Middle Eastern countries.    Here are a few more tax tips about Singapore:

• Simple GST (Goods and Services Tax) flat rate at 7%;
• Income tax paid once a year and generally, it takes a whopping 30 seconds to submit your online tax return;
• Income tax rate of around 15% for mid to high-income earners, or roughly one month of your yearly salary;
• No capital gains tax except for few highly speculative investments like real estate (no wonder there is a Singapore Monopoly game version)

So, in the end, although we had to align our salary income down to local salary rates, our bank account shows higher net savings against earning Euros in Europe after a full year.   So, this is very cool but there are also challenges to living and working in Singapore.

Challenges living and working in Singapore

If you aren’t entrepreneurial, finding work in Singapore is a challenge that again you must plan carefully.  In general, companies won’t elect to hire foreigners and pay their moves to Singapore.  Most online job databases always refer to Singaporean and/or Permanent Residents only.  So, you must come to Singapore prepared to hunt for your opportunity in order to land a work visa pass (equivalent of the green card).

However, there are pockets of markets where Singapore is very active to attract talents from outside.  Some that I noticed are related to multimedia such as 3D creations, software gaming development, biomedical engineering, and petrochemicals.  Check the excellent Singapore government Web sites – such as Contact Singapore’s which has a portal with jobs for global talent – to find out more.  If you are looking at markets that are well developed like telecommunications, information technologies (IT), finance and banking, you are competing with very talented local Singaporeans.  Singaporeans are multi-lingual.  Aside from English they may speak Mandarin, Cantonese, Malay, Hindi, or Tamil. The quest requires that you promote unique skill sets for local or international businesses to select you.

The second most important aspect is where you will live.  Rentals are very speculative in Singapore and it is a very stressful experience to try to understand the rental costs by areas of the city.  There are hordes of real estate agents who will show you dozens of flats or landed property houses, and the rents are generally prohibitive.  You have plenty of semi or fully-furnished apartments to choose from too.

Moreover, one must be particular when moving with kids as education is a very personal decision. International schools are private and therefore expensive, thus designed for expatriate benefits and not for local income earners.  The cost can reach around US$10K to US$15K per child annually. The public school system is a far more affordable option, but may not be adapted to your set of values.

Any regrets?

Singapore was a gamble five years ago, but we have no regrets making that move.  We think we have adapted well to the local culture and enjoy local foods and the lifestyle that the region offers.  We do accept that Singapore is not America, certainly not Germany, nor Australia for proximity sake, for its more lavish work-life balance.  You move to Singapore like you would move to New York, London, Tokyo, or Hong Kong, it is to change your life, catapult your career, and create a better life for yourself and family.  This can mean more work than life balance.  After some years, you may elect to stay or decide to return to your home country.  However, I have noticed that those who live close to a decade in Singapore have often elected Singapore as their home for good.  So, very soon I might catch myself answering the usual question of where you are from, and reply, “Singapore!”

Yves Nolin is a sales & marketing manager, Asia Pacific and Japan for a leading Fortune 100 IT Company. Yves is from Montreal and has lived in Singapore since 2005. Prior to moving to Singapore, he spent 11 years in Germany, where he met his wife working a similar a role for the telecommunication industry covering Europe, Africa and the Middle East.

India, Brazil and Eastern Europe are among the destinations that would also impress a global-minded recruiter or hiring manager. But China has unique advantages for “westerners” to consider such as the world’s fastest growing economy, and an acute shortage of experienced managers, especially those who can work with English-speaking customers.

“The war for talent in China is bigger than the dot-com days of 1999,” in the U.S., says Shanghai-based Frank Mulligan, an expatriate Irishman, blogger, and recruiter with Accetis International. The war, as Mulligan puts it, is driving up salaries and staff attrition. “The salary increases are nine to ten percent a year. But the real increases are much higher. The average turnover is in eighteen months. But if you change jobs the average increase [in pay]is thirty percent. ”

Those numbers tend to make job seekers listen closely. But of course that’s just the beginning of the story.

To better evaluate the nuances of the job market in China these are some of the more striking facts and trends highlighted by talent-sourcing experts. These data points and insights were culled from a series of presentations at a US-China HR Conference, run by XMei International.

• In China, says Mulligan, there’s no secrecy on salary – everybody knows what everybody makes. This adds some complications for managers who wish to selectively reward one employee but not his or her peers, too.
• This point is a bit difficult to appreciate from afar, but one of the cultural challenges of mixing western managers with Chinese teams is that the former tend to work sequentially while Asian employees prefer synchronous work styles, observes Mulligan. “In synchronic time, flexibility is the key. Options are kept open as long as possible.” This dichotomy is a challenge in recruiting or retaining talented employees.
• “Chinese people prefer instant communications,” says Mulligan. “For the hiring process you can skip to SMS and do much better [than e-mail or other forms of communication].”
• In China, locally-developed talent is called (affectionately) “red-necks.” Chinese who return after studying or working overseas are called “sea-turtles.” The sea-turtles are higher paid and more highly coveted than red-necks. Ray Zhang, a recruiter at Pepsico in China (a proud red-neck), says one third of the sea-turtles work for multinational companies. Sea-turtles are considered more flexible and culturally adaptive than red-necks.
• In a typical year China graduates three to four million students. But in 2007, a demographic anomaly, six million students entered the workforce. But of these, only thirty percent held a bachelor degree or above, reports Pepsico’s Zhang. A management consultancy recently suggested that perhaps only 10% of Chinese graduates are ready to work for western companies.

As Chinese continues its amazing growth and continues to open up more industries such as banking,  It’s becoming easier for recruiters to coax western executives to test the waters. “Everybody wants to have it on their CV – three years in China,” says Mulligan. Perhaps, but not everyone will have the courage to try.

Professionally, my background is in high technology having been mentored in Silicon Valley by some amazingly talented individuals. One mentor asked me at a major trade show, what made me passionate professionally when I wake up in the morning? Without hesitation, I replied, “Handling the market entry responsibilities for Asia-Pacific for a Valley-based tech firm.” It was the right answer – he essentially hired me on-the-spot.

I realize that living and working in Asia isn’t for everyone. From my experiences, perspective and vantage point here are some comparisons and contrasts between living and working in S. Korea and the US.

Positives:

• S. Koreans are very hard working people who take great pride in their work.
• They’re also very dedicated to both their position as well as their respective employers (this is especially true when someone works for any of S. Korea’s best known firms such as Samsung, LG, etc.)
• They have a great sense of unity and focus on what is best for the team, group, company, etc. This was clearly evident recently when S. Korea sent the nation’s first astronaut into space via a partnership with the Russian Space Agency; the center of Seoul was filled with S. Koreans dressed in the countries’ colors – watching the launch live on national TV. Moreover, the tragic oil-spill that struck the coast (late last year) saw volunteers from all parts of the country come out in droves (literally overnight) to begin the process of cleaning up the disaster area.
• South Koreans are very proud of their nation and the developments they’ve accomplished as one of “Asia’s Economic Miracles.” Across S. Korea, there’s a myriad of public works projects, new high-rises, and renovations, just about everywhere you venture.
• There’s a tremendous focus in S. Korea on being educated in the West (which includes studying English as a second language). In light of S. Korea’s insatiable thirst for English – there is no shortage of demand for English teachers.

The ‘not so positives’:

• The S. Korean style of management is by edict whereas meetings are essentially a medium of one-way communication from the predominately male boss to his subordinates.
• Despite their ‘dedication’ S. Koreans are overwhelmingly dissatisfied with what they see as the limitations of the aforementioned management style/career opportunities (it is no surprise that Korean women are dissatisfied in this respect).
• Paradoxically, despite the focus on unity many S. Koreans also complain that the sacrifices that they make within their personal lives are due to ‘unreasonable expectations’ regarding fulfilling their jobs (such as working late, taking work home, coming in on weekends, etc.)
• Perhaps the best example of this ‘sacrifice’ is (the) ‘binge-drinking’ in S. Korea (which is #1 in the world). South Koreans believe that ‘office unity is created/solidified, business problems are resolved, and that staff worker harder through getting inebriated on their national drink ’soju.’ As a Westerner, I have witnessed this happen 7 days a week!
• Furthermore, despite being ‘proud’ roughly 75% of S. Koreans would also leave the country given the opportunity. Moreover, unfortunately, for the past several years, S. Korea has led the OECD in the highest rates of suicide. Some of these societal conditions are attributed to the immense competition within S. Korea – that begins when young children start attending various ‘cram’ schools to study English, Math, Science, etc. Moreover, attending a cram school (at a minimum) is from about age 4 until (at least) 18 years old!
• Yet, another striking paradox is despite the highest per capita spending on ESL (in Asia) – the nation is ranked last in English language proficiency in the region. To illustrate, recently, a respected Korean professor wrote a scathing report called the ‘Hi-Bye’ man indicting the nation’s obsession with cram schools and how little value is created when someone whose studied English for over a decade (on average) is only capable of saying, “Hi and/or good-bye” with any level of confidence and proficiency.

Adjustments:

Although there’s no shortage of demand for ESL professionals, unless you speak Korean fluently, your career opportunities are limited (as the nation is still roughly 99% Korean).

Though living and working in S. Korea is challenging for outsiders, the country offers state of the art network speeds and cell-phone services. 

On balance, for a city of roughly 10 million, Seoul is very safe – even as it becomes more cosmopolitan. As for the Seoul expat community, it tends to be weighted more towards the ‘ESL’ crowd vs. working professionals. However, that trend is changing as S. Korean Pop Music (K-Pop) and (TV) dramas continue gaining popularity globally, and, in turn, drawing major international cultural attractions ranging from Andre Boccelli, Eric Clapton, Cirque Du Soleil to exhibits of Van Gogh and Picasso, selling out venues (in Seoul) regularly.

America has a long history in South Korea and fortunately it’s a place where we still receive respect. Literally, just last week, an elderly Korean woman insisted that I take her subway seat, because she loves and appreciates America (it turned out she fled N. Korea during the Korean War).

Much like any place you visit, live, or work, your experience comes down to ‘what you make of it.’ In sum, being a ‘foreigner’ or a ‘stranger in a strange land’ is never easy. Nonetheless, as Gandhi once said, “you must become the change you wish to see occur in the world” and living abroad allows for ample opportunities to challenge or embrace that orientation.

John S. Rajeski is a High Tech professional with in-depth experience living and working in Asia. Fulfilling a long-standing objective of living and working permanently in SE Asia, he will be relocating to Singapore in June and is exploring his next career role.  

About two years ago, I was on a ski vacation with my family when my cell phone rang on the chair lift. It was my boss, telling me that he really needed me to relocate to the United Kingdom for a month. Two weeks later I was sipping a single malt Scotch in my Virgin Atlantic Upper Class seat/bed/pod thing somewhere over Newfoundland.

Turns out I had been selected to participate in the secondment of a handful of US personnel to my media company’s UK headquarters. The goal was to spread some of the Internet best practices developed in the US to the UK online operations.

It was a great idea, but the reality of situation was that we had to figure out how to make ourselves useful pretty much on our own. This was a new process for everyone, and understandably, some UK staffers might have felt like they were getting force-fed advice from a bunch of arrogant Americans with irrelevant qualifications.

How did we get things going? We tried several approaches:

1. We learned fast. It was critical to figure out what was important to each local operation and market, and not just rely on our stateside knowledge, which may or may not have been transferable.
2. We got to know people. We held wine-and-dine meet-and-greets, where we served cocktails and presented current best-practices thinking from the US to groups of local decision-makers – explaining how it had helped our businesses back home and tailoring it to their concerns. We also spent lots of time addressing questions. These events helped make sure that everyone knew who we were, and established our credentials.
3. We found small, solvable problems … and solved them. Once we showed some initial successes, resistance began to fade.
4. We focused. After getting the lay of the land, we tried to concentrate our efforts on a small number of critical projects. We helped out elsewhere, of course, but we made sure the most important projects were well cared for.

Not surprisingly, team members’ personal outcomes differed vastly. I was there for less than a month, and felt like I was leaving just as I was beginning to make real progress. Others seemed happy to head home as soon as possible. But at least one person used the foreign assignment as a springboard to a full-fledged global career. His stay was extended several times, and a few months after returning to the States, a position opened up and he was tapped to head back overseas and replace the person who had initiated the secondments.

The key to succeeding in this kind of environment, I think, was to embrace the ambiguity and uncertainty: to not stress over the lack of a job description, the vague criteria for measuring success, and the incredible amount of work that that needed to be done. By jumping in and doing something, we were eventually able to do something important.

But there are aspects of a global relocation that you might have overlooked. So before you sublet your place, loan out your car and put your books in storage, consider how you will manage these five challenges of expatriate life.

1. Managing your money

Thanks to the Internet, tracking bank accounts from anywhere is easy. But what will work overseas mean for your tax bill? U.S. citizens are required to report and pay taxes on money earned globally. You can receive a credit for taxes paid in a foreign country but you still need to file a tax return.

All aspiring expatriates should also take an inventory of the debts they must manage. Your move to another country doesn’t excuse you from paying that student loan bill – but you may be able to seek a deferment.

2. Keeping your partner happy

Moving abroad as a single person brings a host of challenges – even if you speak the local language. But taking a partner, as well as children, compounds the adjustments. Partner happiness, or lack thereof, is the primary reason international assignments fail.

That’s because the so-called “trailing spouse” is often left without the support to ensure that the experience is rewarding for them as well, says Robin Pascoe, a former “trailing spouse” who has written extensively about family relocation issues. She says the foundation for a positive experience must be “put into place from day one.” She adds, “That can mean supporting a home business, ensuring a work permit is obtained, making sure he/she has the right computer equipment … or just a sympathetic ear.”

3. Taking care of you

Living in a foreign country can compromise even the toughest of immune systems. You may find yourself with a particularly bad case of the flu or an infection that is new to you. To make matters worse, drugs that are over-the-counter back home may be only available with a prescription in your new country. Bring along a supply of medicine that you know works for you.

4. Accepting the differences

You already know that you can’t expect ice in your soda and that there may not be a Starbucks or familiar restaurant in your new city. But are you prepared to translate every ingredient for a recipe you want to try? Are you someone who won’t be frazzled when you have to figure out how to find a plumber? Have you ever navigated around a foreign city that lacked street signs? Many aspiring expatriates are captured by the romance of a life abroad but fail to realize that just about every aspect of their daily life will be completely different. It’s essential to adopt a “when-in-Rome” attitude about the ups and downs, because you can’t switch it off.

5. Wherever you go, there you are

Pascoe points out that many people go abroad “thinking they can leave their troubles – and their personalities – behind. The biggest shock is that everything moves with a person, including a propensity for workaholism or any other ‘ism.’ You can’t run away from yourself.”  

Before you make your decision to live overseas, be honest with yourself about why you’re doing it.

When the Runald’s pine for Sweden they go to the nearest Ikea store, which conveniently stocks Swedish meatballs and beverages. Whenever they want to see ice hockey, they watch games online. Whenever they miss their friends and family, they hop onto Skype or e-mail and exchange photos.

“You learn a lot about yourself when you live abroad and you learn things about your partner,” Patrik says. “Losing your safety net means you rely more on each other as a couple. It forces you to get new friends and make new connections. My relationship with my wife became stronger.”

The roundabout journey from Stockholm to a Muslim country may have puzzled some of their friends, but the Runald’s each come from a family of world-travelers. “I come from a family used to travel and living abroad,” he says. Patrik’s father lives in Singapore and Susanne’s family recently settled in Montreal. He has a sister who was born in the Philippines – fairly exotic for a Scandinavian.

Patrik has a pretty cool but demanding career: He is F-Secure’s security response manager, managing a team of experts who monitor internet based threats 24/7 and devise antidotes for viruses, spam and phishing attacks. He’s not sure where he will go next, but North America holds some appeal to him: “I have started over three times. I’m only 30 years old and I don’t feel ready to settle down.”

Here’s Patrik’s advice to future expatriates:

• “You have to be open-minded. You have to realize that things aren’t what you’re used to. You have to expect things to work differently [than in your] native country.
• “You have to have drive otherwise it doesn’t work. You have to make your own future and your own life. In some cases a company will give you a position abroad, but in most cases you have to make a case so the company will provide you with the opportunity.
• “Do research on country you’re moving to – it might not be what you expected. Having visited Singapore for one or two weeks every year since 1995, I thought I knew the place but I didn’t. On the Internet there are lots of expat discussion forums where you can ask questions [such as] how much salary do I need to live a comfortable life? How does the health system work? How much does a car cost? If you’re working for a company that can get you in touch with a relocation company - obviously that’s a great help.
• “This can put an enormous amount of pressure on a relationship. You learn a lot about yourself and your partner and your relationship. In the case of me and my wife it strengthened our relationship. We were fortunate that we both work for the same company and the company was able to provide work for us in both countries.
• “Moving to London was a great first step for us. It was different enough for us to learn about ourselves and what it is to live abroad and still close enough so that we could go home to Sweden on a weekend. We benefitted by not taking a giant step immediately. We have no plans to ever move back to Sweden – that’s how much we like living abroad.”

India, Brazil and Eastern Europe are among the destinations that would also impress a global-minded recruiter or hiring manager. But China has unique advantages for “westerners” to consider such as the world’s fastest growing economy, and an acute shortage of experienced managers, especially those who can work with English-speaking customers.

“The war for talent in China is bigger than the dot-com days of 1999,” in the U.S., says Shanghai-based Frank Mulligan, an expatriate Irishman, blogger, and recruiter with Accetis International. The war, as Mulligan puts it, is driving up salaries and staff attrition. “The salary increases are nine to ten percent a year. But the real increases are much higher. The average turnover is in eighteen months. But if you change jobs the average increase [in pay] is thirty percent. ”

Those numbers tend to make job seekers listen closely. But of course that’s just the beginning of the story.

To better evaluate the nuances of the job market in China these are some of the more striking facts and trends highlighted by talent-sourcing experts. These data points and insights were culled from a series of presentations this week at a US-China HR Conference, run by XMei International.

• In China, says Mulligan, there’s no secrecy on salary – everybody knows what everybody makes. This adds some complications for managers who wish to selectively reward one employee but not his or her peers, too.
• This point is a bit difficult to appreciate from afar, but one of the cultural challenges of mixing western managers with Chinese teams is that the former tend to work sequentially while Asian employees prefer synchronous work styles, observes Mulligan. “In synchronic time, flexibility is the key. Options are kept open as long as possible.” This dichotomy is a challenge in recruiting or retaining talented employees.
• “Chinese people prefer instant communications,” says Mulligan. “For the hiring process you can skip to SMS and do much better [than e-mail or other forms of communication].”
• In China, locally-developed talent is called (affectionately) “red-necks.” Chinese who return after studying or working overseas are called “sea-turtles.” The sea-turtles are higher paid and more highly coveted than red-necks. Ray Zhang, a recruiter at Pepsico in China (a proud red-neck), says one third of the sea-turtles work for multinational companies. Sea-turtles are considered more flexible and culturally adaptive than red-necks.
• In a typical year China graduates three to four million students. In 2007, a demographic anomaly, six million students will enter the workforce. But of these, only thirty percent carry a bachelor degree or above, reports Pepsico’s Zhang. A management consultancy recently suggested that perhaps only 10% of Chinese graduates are ready to work for western companies.

As China continues its amazing growth and continues to open up more industries such as banking, it’s becoming easier for recruiters to coax western executives to test the waters. “Everybody wants to have it on their CV – three years in China,” says Mulligan. Perhaps, but not everyone will have the courage to try.

Today, the 35-year-old Canadian is an IT project manager for DHL in Singapore.

Spending her entire professional career abroad, Joy has worked as an embalmer in Japan, earned an MBA in Germany and helped run an IT department in Prague for an international law firm. She exemplifies how someone with an adventurous spirit and enterprising nature can carve out their own long-term expatriate career. 

From Europe to Asia, the trick to traversing cultures, she says, is to be a good guest. “Even though I may live, work and pay taxes in a country, I am still a visitor and I need to respect the culture in which I live,” she says. “Finding the right balance of graceful strength of character and flexibility is an art for an expat. It is something I aspire to achieve.”

After graduating from Carleton University in Ottawa with a degree in political science in 1997, Joy quickly discovered that the available jobs in her field were not to her liking. She had helped cover her university expenses by working as an embalmer and through the connection of a Canadian friend, she landed a job as an expatriate embalmer in Japan.

“I thought it would probably beat an office job in Ottawa,” she recalled.

She was right. After a year in Japan, she moved to Prague, which was at the apex of what has been described as the “Left Bank of the 90s.” She took a job as a shift manager at expat hub, the Globe Bookstore. It was there that she met Martin, a Prague native who is now her husband.

She held a series of jobs, including another year as an embalmer in Japan and as a legal assistant for law firm Squire, Sanders & Dempsey.

As she helped manage a large database for the firm, she started looking for a way to get an advanced degree at a university in Europe. She found a school in southern Germany in which the government covered tuition for all students – even foreigners.

In 2002, she earned an MBA the Graduate School of Fachhochschule Esslingen. After returning to Prague, Joy went back to work for the firm, this time as its Trainer/Regional IT Deployments Manager for Europe and Asia. She spent much of her time on the road, training new law firm personnel in Milan, Moscow and Hong Kong. She was regularly tapped to give motivational training sessions.

Throughout, Joy continued to cultivate her language skills and, along with her native English, competently speaks Japanese, Czech, German and French.

That was no doubt a selling point when DHL hired her as a project manager last year in Prague. She was recently transferred to Singapore, which she described as a “bubble where people inside are completely mesmerized by daily life.”

“The quality of life is very high, the weather is great and the food is excellent,” she says of her newest home. “I could stay here for a few years, with a few jaunts to China and other countries in the area so I don’t get too soft in this shiny little bubble.”

In the current BusinessWeek, my former colleague Steve Hamm reports on how India’s decaying infrastructure undermines the country’s otherwise stellar economic growth. Hamm says India’s “economic boom is being built on the shakiest of foundations. Highways, modern bridges, world-class airports, reliable power, and clean water are in desperately short supply.”

Infrastructure is a classic business continuity issue. If you can’t keep the water flowing or fuel the power grid, then business-as-usual is next-to-impossible, right? Unquestionably, it’s a bigger headache for employers, rather than for workers. But would you rule out working in India or other locations because of poor infrastructure? Would you choose to live or work in Europe, Latin America or the Philippines instead?

Assuming the job opportunity is right, here are some of the primary filters I would apply to evaluating a country:

• Physical security & privacy (Is it safe?)
• Culture (What do I do on my time off? Can I communicate easily with others?)
• Weather (Comfort, time-off)
• Infrastructure (Public transportation, Internet access, housing, schools, etc.)
• Quality of food and restaurants (Okay, it’s my list, yours will vary)

Hamm’s article offers a cool bit of research in a chart comparing infrastructure in the U.S., China and India. It’s pretty clear that infrastructure helps drive macro-economic success, but will it impact your career path?

Undeterred, Herbert spent 10 years in Japan, including several years as the first non-Japanese hire of the country’s second largest pharmaceutical company, Sankyo Co. Ltd. “I wasn’t hired to put an international face on the company,” he says, “as much as to help them understand the U.S. legal market and recognize risks in western people and society.”

He was well-prepared the day he arrived in Tokyo at the outset of his legal career in February, 2000. Armed with a Curriculum Vitae (CV) written in Kanji, Herbert, who interviewed in Japanese, received multiple job offers at a Boston career fair sponsored by Japanese employers seeking Japanese students educated in America. (We will keep an eye on bilingual and global career fairs such as this recent one in New York City.)

Of course, fitting into the Japanese legal community is easier said than done for a Caucasian, even one conversant in both the language and customs. Sankyo “socializes” all of its new hires in a boot-camp type of orientation, says Herbert for whom the experience of living in a bachelor’s dormitory with communal facilities was not a dream come true. “I went through the orientation business program and learned how to bow, how to present my business card, how to answer the phones and write email in Japanese.”

Herbert returned to the states recently, recruited for a job in Atlanta with Smith, Gambrell & Russell, LLP, a law firm with a global business practice. “I have been making relatively regular trips to Tokyo, once every three months to visit clients and potential clients,” says Herbert. Like a true veteran, Herbert seeks advantages in the time-zone gap. “Email helps a lot. I can send an email in Japanese to someone during the day here and at about 8 p.m. or 9 p.m. Atlanta (ET) time they will see the email and I can view their response about 10 p.m. and respond if necessary.”

He recommends a global career path to those who seek his counsel. “I think there are great rewards associated with an international career or working in a country other than your own,” advises Herbert. “Being in a country and culture other than your own let’s you grow in ways you can’t grow back home – everything from trying different foods to learning a different language. Seeing how people do business a different way. It helps you to reexamine the way things are done here.”