3 THINGS YOU MUST DO IF YOU ARE A FORMER ENTREPRENEUR AND WANT TO GET A JOB IN CANADA
It is quite amazing how many people hide the fact that they used to or still own and run a business when applying for an overseas job. At Uniivaa, we see this first hand especially when working with international candidates who have run their own companies.
In some cases, we hear from international business owners that they do not want the potential employer to know they failed at running a business. Other times we are told that employers think that a person who has run a business for any significant length of time will not be able to take orders from a boss.
The unfortunate reality is that there is much truth to this negative stereotype of former business owners becoming employees. Perhaps more so in the world of international recruiting where there is less opportunity for the candidate to meet or even speak to the potential employer in person. However, there is a way to fight against this stereotype. Here are the three things that you must do as a former international entrepreneur looking to get a job overseas.
Highlight your Industry Expertise as a guarantee of Competency:
The sad thing about working in a company as an employee is that you spend most of your time sitting at a desk working on just a tiny piece of the business puzzle. It is very rare that any employee gets a big picture view of the industry that they are working in even as an executive vice president of the company. Marketers do marketing and operations people do operations. However, business owners know the industry that they compete in from the inside out. This is very valuable to a potential employer. For example, at Uniivaa we help roofing companies find international roofers and there is nothing more valuable to a roofing employer than someone who has run their own roofing business and has an understanding of the importance of sales, customers service, safety and time management. A common fear of employers hiring international candidates is incompetence. Your job as a former business owner is to position the depth and breadth of your industry expertise as a sort of guarantee that you will be able to do the job once you arrive.
Demonstrate your Passion as a proxy for Loyalty:
We cannot tell you how many times we have seen an employer refuse to interview a candidate with spectacular credentials because of the issue of passion, or the perceived lack thereof. Usually it happens in the following manner. The employer reads over the work experience of a candidate and sees that they have taken jobs in multiple industries. Alternatively, they see that a person has an impressive education as an Engineer, but have decided to work as a Business Analyst. When an employer is thinking about international candidates, they do not have the time to mess around with people who they feel are not passionate about the employer’s line of business. There is nothing worse for an employer than wasting time bringing over an international employee who suddenly realized that the construction industry is not for them. However, there is nothing better than a person who is so passionate about a line of business or industry that they have decided to start up or run his or her own business in that very industry! No employer can ever be sure that an employee will be loyal and stick around once they arrive in the country. However, demonstrating your passion for the employer’s industry through your own experience as a business owner in that very industry goes a long way to showing the employer that you are the type of person who will be around for a long time.
Emphasize how your Initiative will lead to happiness in the Local City:
Moving to a new country with a different culture and a different climate is a very difficult thing to do. Employers know this. This is especially true of employers who are located in smaller and more remote locations. What employers are looking for from international candidates are people who will be successful at this transition in both work and life. This requires employees to have a certain measure of initiative and self-motivation. Finding a good place to live, making friends, getting along with co-workers and assimilating into the local culture are all things universally understood to result in a successful long-term employee. Of course, it is almost impossible for the employer to know in advance whether an employee will find happiness within a certain local city. However, running a business requires a great deal of initiative and self motivation, and your job is to emphasize that the same initiative that allowed you to run your business will allow you to fit in and find happiness in the local city.
Finding a job overseas presents itself with many challenges. Competency, Loyalty and Happiness in the local city are three of the main hiring criteria employers evaluate given the unique circumstances of international hiring. Fortunately, as a business owner you have the tools to address these challenges in a way that the traditional employee competing against your for the same position cannot. Ultimately, doing these three things is a must if you want the best chance of getting a job overseas as an international candidate.