Following on from my earlier article about the Top 6 Countries for Accountants to Live Based on Salary , this article includes some helpful hints and tips on how you might go about finding an overseas job as an accountant using your cloud accounting services.
Five steps you might want to explore to land an overseas job:
- Learn from your peers and people who have ALREADY done what you want to do – a great way to land an overseas job is to join relevant professional associations and attend meetings and events if you can. Learn from others who have worked internationally, both as an employed and self-employed accountant, and follow some of the steps that they took.
Check out the International Association of Accountants, Auditors, and Tax Consultants
- Take additional qualifications if necessary – consider where you might want to move to and see if it would be of benefit for you to take any additional exams. It might make it easier, or even be essential for you to find work, so if you’re serious about moving abroad consider this carefully.
- Flexible employment options – if you are employed, then you can explore whether there might be international options available. Whether that is a secondment abroad, working in an international office, splitting your time in between countries, or remote working for the UK office whilst living overseas, it pays to at least ask the question. Employers generally want to retain their top talent and are increasingly more open to flexible working options.
- Target the expat community in your target country – if the country that you would like to go and work in has a large expat community, then this is an ideal place to start your business development. Chances are that some of them will need an accountant to handle their UK affairs, even if they are living abroad. And even better, if you can also help them within the framework of their adopted country’s rules (if you’ve done additional qualifications!)
- Network, network, network – no avoiding this one. And you can use online methods. Getting a job overseas is going to require some effort on your part.
- Make relevant connections on LinkedIn/join groups – firms you could see yourself working with abroad, expat community groups, small businesses operating overseas.
- Write ‘thought leadership’ articles to get yourself noticed – you could do this on LinkedIn or via a blog on your own website
- Use Twitter to identify peers, mentors and clients. Follow them and try to establish a connection
And finally…
This is not part of the steps but if you are planning to move to a non-English speaking country, start learning the language! Not only will you be building a marketable skill that will give you a competitive advantage, but you will be meeting other people with a similar interest.
Article by Sara Sabin, Founder of ProCircle
