Introducing Vikki, the newest addition to our Team!
Most of us at some point in our lives have wondered what it would be like to
work and live abroad. Interestingly a study by PricewaterhouseCoopers
(PwC) identified that 80% of recent university leavers want to work abroad at
some point in their career. When you are young with relatively few ties,
working abroad can have huge benefits to your burgeoning career, giving you not
only precious foreign language skills, but allowing you to live your personal
dreams.
Talking from personal experience, deciding to uproot your life when you have
more commitments can be an emotional rollercoaster. Let me share my
story...
I was working for a local authority in a highly stressful role involving the
Equal Pay Review for about 6000 employees. We were lucky, my husband and
I had good jobs, a house, a beautiful son and we lived in a beach town on the
south coast. Most would think our life was perfect, and to a degree it
was. Although I had always felt the need to spread my wings. Unlike a
number of my friends and family I didn't jump on the gap year bandwagon and
backpack my way across the places I'd seen in the Leonardo DiCaprio's film The
Beach. So the travel bug came back to bite me, and boy did it bite
hard. My husband worked for JPMorgan and after years of not quite making
the progress he deserved, he approached a few contacts in the States
(networking skills fully deployed!). The testing of the waters paid off
and after some internal wrangling, a trip to the US Embassy and 4 months we
boarded the plane to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
It's not as easy as you think to just apply for a job abroad, especially in the
USA. JPMorgan sponsored my husband and arranged for all the Visas and Embassy
paperwork. They even assigned a Relocation Specialist, although we had
very minimal contact with them, it was nice to know we had one.
Hurdle #1
One thing we could've done more advice about was relocation costs. If
you are lucky enough to be offered a role abroad, make sure you do your
homework on how much it costs to move belongings , visit the country to look at
housing and set up costs for renting a place to live. My advice, whatever
figure they offer you, go back and ask for double the amount.
Hurdle #2
Swallow the cost and take up international bank account. One little known
fact, no matter how good your credit rating is, it is NOT transferable to the
USA. You arrive as a credit ghost. The USA runs on credit, you
cannot get any form of credit card, mobile phone contract or get decent rates
on car insurance unless your credit rating is good.
The only way to get a good credit rating is to get credit and you can't get any
credit without a credit rating - chicken and egg spring to mind. At least
with an international account you can get a credit card and access to expert
help understanding the mountains of tax forms which are different for each
state by the way!
Hurdle #3
HealthCare - yes we all moan about the NHS, you won't after spending anytime in
the US healthcare system. How anyone affords to pay for critical care I
do not know. If your job comes with Health Insurance, find out someone who can
explain in layman's terms what it covers and how much it costs. Don't
fall in to the trap of paying the lowest amount - you'll regret it when you get
a bill from your doctor asking for $200 just for looking at your sore throat
last week.
Hurdle #4
Driving - do not expect US driver to wave you through a junction, give way
(yield) or wait and allow you to parallel park on a main road. It will
not happen, you will find yourself wishing for British drivers, yes even the
ones in white vans.
I could go on, but I may turn my experiences in to a best seller featuring
starcrossed lovers with a fondness for dunkin donuts and S&M. Giving away
all my material would be best seller suicide. So I'm moving on to
something more constructive...
The Workplace
Working in the US is very different to working in the UK. However, thank your lucky stars for your 20 days
paid holiday and bank holidays. In the US the average worker gets 10 days
paid holiday in addition to the US bank holidays, however not all of them
are considered 'official' days by all companies so be warned. You don't get paid sick leave, you have to earn it. Some organisations may give you a
bank of sick days (up to six days and 2 personal days. Oh and on another note Boxing Day does not
exist in the US, so booking it off is a must!
The workers in the US are broken up in to 2 main categories by the FLSA (Fair
Labor Standards Act) - Non Exempt (those who are paid an hourly rate and are
eligible for overtime of 1.5 over 40 hours a week) and Non-Exempt (those who
are paid a guaranteed salary and are not eligible for any overtime).
The rules about which jobs fail in to which categories are very complicated,
but in general there are three
typical categories of exempt job duties, called "executive,"
"professional," and "administrative." It is
likely as a graduate or professional you will be an exempt employee. It
is usually expected for an exempt employee to work 40+ hours a week, on average
the real time spent at work is 55 hours. Long days...
Most companies seem to pay bi weekly or weekly rather than monthly, personally
I think this is a great advantage over the mostly monthly pay of the UK.
It allows for easier budgeting and not having to stretch money to the end of
the month is always great.
Language
Be prepared to be asked the inevitable questions, "Are you from
England?" and "Do you live in London?" I would strongly
suggest referring all UK geographical locations to their proximity to London. On the other hand having an English accent
works wonders for your profile. People
remember you, they’re interested and engaged.
This can be turned to your advantage, it’s a icebreaker of the biggest
magnitude. A standout accent can attract
positive and negative attention so you should be aware of how and when to use
it.
The People
On the whole we met the
warmest people and made some amazing lifelong friends. I think Americans get a bit of a raw deal;
British folk tend to think of them of brash and arrogant. I’m sure our reputation is no better. There are always bad apples in a cart,
accepting people for who they are is our biggest challenge as human
beings. Not everyone will get along, but
that’s life.
So you’re probably reading this and thinking we didn’t enjoy our time in
the US. On the contrary, we are richer
for the experience, more rounded and most importantly we followed our dreams. Although I did rather miss chocolate hobnobs
more than I thought I would.
~ Vikki
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