Hot Tip -- by Kristi Kerford

A hot tip to help people find overseas opportunities... I spent some time thinking about what would be the most useful information someone could use when considering overseas employment. After looking through some print resources and brainstorming about the standard job search techniques, it suddenly hit me. Useful information for international opportunities will likely be on the Internet. I put myself in the position of someone trying to find both employment or volunteer opportunities on-line. Where is the information? What follows is a brief description and links to some of the info that is out there.

One useful place to begin your search is on our site, nextNET.  There are two main areas that would be of interest. In our Jobsville section there is a list of on-line job boards. This includes a section specifically for International Jobs. As well, in the Set A Course section, which focuses on training and education opportunities, you will find information on how to gain experience from volunteering and working abroad.

Once leaving our site, the first place I decided to look was the Youth Resource Network (an HRDC site). A comprehensive site, the Youth Resource is a link library in which I found several pages that provided international information. I began by clicking on Job Opportunities and then International. This leads me to a list of International Job Boards. I found useful job boards from a wide range of countries, everywhere from the United States to Australia. Returning to the home page, I then clicked on Programs and Services, which brought me to International Exchanges. Lots of information on the government and non-profit agencies that provide opportunities for gaining experience abroad. Finally, I clicked on Information About Jobs and found International Employment. This focused on the issues and concerns you will need to think about before heading out, everything from employer profiles to health and travel insurance. Having exhausted this site, I decided to try my luck with the search engines.

I tried two strategies for finding information with the search engines. Using Altavista, I completed a search on international + employment + youth. This brought me about 50,000 possibilities which were geared mainly around government programs. I then tried LookSmart. Instead of designing my own search I used their categories. Beginning with Business and Finance and then International Business, I found a series of links on everything from Associations, Company Directories, Countries and Regions and more. Returning to their home page, I then looked in the category Reference and Education.  From there I chose Jobs and Careers and found links on everything from Regional Directories, Internships and Volunteering and Relocation Information. Definitely some useful information from the search engines, but sometimes it takes a little more digging to find the relevant sites.