International opportunities

[Krista Van Laan <vanlaan -at- GAMGEE -dot- NTC -dot- NOKIA -dot- COM>]

This is a supplement to George Mena's post about international
tech-writing job opportunities. He mentions places like
the Highway of Death and El Salvador, and talks about getting your
inoculations, but I believe there are more jobs available in countries
that don't require inoculations -- that is, countries that are
more developed and have a lot of high-tech activity. (Like Finland,
for example!)

I and two other list members, Don Plummer and Carol Chubiz, gave a
presentation at the last STC conference called "Job-Hunting in a Global
Market" about how a North American can search for a job overseas.
While researching, we were in touch with plenty of Americans who
have succeeded, as Carol and I have.

I think that the original people who asked about overseas
opportunities were new graduates, and I believe that inexperienced
technical writers do not have a very good chance at landing a job in
another country, unless they choose a country with a need for
technical writers and then move to that country and conduct the
search from there. Being hired long-distance is unlikely; there are
a lot of new graduates with excellent English in any European country.
But an *experienced* tech writer who wants to do it badly enough can
probably find something.

I'll send a copy of the Internet site list and bibliography that we
used during our presentation to anyone who requests it.
The web sites on the list are mostly companies that recruit
for overseas work, and some of the books in the bibliography include
country-by-country lists of companies that may hire foreigners.

 ========================================================================
Krista Van Laan                    Phone:   358 9 511 23684
Nokia Telecommunications Oy        GSM:     040 569 2819
Hiomotie 5 FIN-00380               Fax:     358 9 511 23554
Helsinki, Finland                  Email:   krista -dot- vanlaan -at- ntc -dot- nokia -dot- com

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