HIGHER EDUCATION MARKETING
AS SEEN IN THE
NOV/DEC 2011 ISSUE OF
Todays’ Campus
PREPARING
OUR STUDENTS
FOR THE GLOBAL
MARKETPLACE
By
Stacie Nevadomski Berdan
oday’s campus counselors and
professors must prepare our
students to get jobs in the
global marketplace.
Most employers want and need
globally-minded and experienced
employees, especially executives. Having global experience continues to
move from “nice” to “must-have” as a
driver for career success. Hiring managers
may be just as likely to sit in Bangalore as
in Boston, and your students’ future employers
may be sourcing from South Africa to manufacture
in Chengdu to sell throughout LatAm. Witness the growing
number of Americans heading abroad to look for work, a
reversal of trends that brought most of our grandparents
or great-grandparents to America a century or more ago.
Students must expand their horizons to consider an international career. Many economies around the world are growing rapidly and the competition is fierce. Countries like
China, Brazil, India and UAE have growth rates 3-4 times
that of the U.S. Singapore and Hong Kong boast unemployment numbers of less than 3 percent. American students
willing to study foreign languages and cultures, study or
intern abroad, and generally prepare to work in an interconnected world will have exponentially greater career
opportunities on graduation, whether they work here or
abroad.
How exactly can soon-to-be graduates prepare themselves for interviews with employers who want global workers? How can job seekers best find an international job?
How can you help them navigate the maze of the everchanging global job search?
Those questions are answered in my latest book, GO
GLOBAL! Launching an International Career Here or Abroad. In
it, I present step-by-step advice on how students and young
T
©2011 Today’s Campus LLC. All rights reserved.
professionals can develop the necessary
skills to land a job in a world that is
becoming increasingly global. Go
Global! serves as the go-to resource for
counselors, advisers, students—even
parents—on how to tackle this exciting yet daunting challenge with substantive information based on research
and my years of experience working
globally.
Many job seekers mistakenly think that
domestic job search approach and materials
can simply be tweaked for international positions.
Not so. Global employers need to know as much about an
applicant’s international credentials as they do about their
professional abilities. I’ve worked with many campus counselors who appreciate this, but have a hard time helping
their students package their skills. Even though they know
in their gut that students need to do it, many counselors
don’t have significant international experience to help
them. Moreover, students (and their parents) don’t necessarily think they need to look for global jobs.
But as long as our higher-ed institutions embrace the
importance of increasing students’ international exposure
while on campus, everyone can work toward adequately
preparing them for the global marketplace.
Proper preparation begins with Thinking Globally, i.e.,
counselors can help students cultivate a global mindset. I
have found that students don’t read newspapers much,
but they are online 24/7 and so must be encouraged to
follow world news, pay attention to global stock markets
and currencies, keep an eye on overarching global events
and international business trends. They should follow
global organizations and targeted companies on social
media sites; and they can also follow me on Facebook,
Twitter and Linkedin for regular global news updates.
TODAYSCAMPUS.COM | NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2011
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HIGHER EDUCATION MARKETING
WHAT IS THE MOST DIFFICULT PART
OF JOB SEARCH PREPARATION?
3% Applying online
Tailoring
cover
letters
16%
Writing the
resume
28%
53%
Defining Skills/
Elevator pitch
This approach must be encouraged in all students, not
just business students. The vast majority of graduates are
hired by the private sector, and so even if they are pursuing
a liberal arts or engineering degree, they need to be aware
of what corporations are doing around the world. An exercise I recommend to students that counselors can implement on campus is to help students connect between
global news and their own job search. For example, where
is there a need for Portugese-speaking engineers (Brazil)?
Which countries are most important to finance majors
(Hong Kong, New York and London)? Has the Arab Spring
opened up opportunities in tech, communications and
journalism majors (yes)?
Tomorrow it will change, and so as campus advisers,
you need to help them stay on top of the evolving global
jobs marketplace.
Once students begin to think globally, they can then
be encouraged to see the value in—and then take advantage of—the variety of international opportunities on campus. Here are five pointers that I recommend every
counselor share with students:
䡲 PURSUE LANGUAGE STUDY. All students should
be encouraged to graduate as close to bilingual as
possible. In addition to classes, informal language
study opportunities abound and students don’t often
realize how helpful international clubs, language
tables, regular tutoring swaps and cultural societies
can be to language acquisition.
䡲 TAKE GLOBALLY-ORIENTED COURSEWORK. Students should be advised to take international classes
within a major or coursework focused on specific
regions or cultures—or courses that address broad
global issues/globalization and classes on the global
marketplace. Your campus may even require international coursework (if not actual time abroad) for
graduation. Whether or not your school requires it,
encourage students that it is critical to long-term
success.
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NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2011 | TODAYSCAMPUS.COM
䡲 PARTICIPATE IN EXCHANGE OR STUDY ABROAD.
Study abroad is one of the best ways for a student
to acquire international qualifications before graduating. It’s important to emphasize with students
the importance of the right study abroad experience.
For example, it should have a solid reputation for
academic rigor and cross-cultural outreach, as well
as be integrated within the regular academic curriculum. Students should be encouraged to pursue nontraditional locations such as China, Brazil, UAE, so
that their time abroad—and ultimately the academic
learning and cross-cultural skills built—can be used
as a significant differentiator with potential employers in the job search.
䡲 WORK OR INTERN ABROAD. International internships and work abroad assignments can be some of
the most powerful preparation a student can have.
Real work experience differentiates all students and
the global experience tells future employers that students are risk takers, explorers, go-getters and have the
guts it takes to work in an unfamiliar environment.
䡲 ENCOURAGE THE GLOBAL EXPERIENCE. At its
heart, going global is a mindset, and so students
should be encouraged to join international campus
groups, take advantage of visiting international
experts and make friends with international students.
They should be encouraged to explore other cultures
here through art, music, movies, food and dance, as
well as through travel for personal pleasure or on
volunteer assignment.
Once students have acquired some international experience, it’s time to help them develop their Winning Global
Job-search Toolkit. It’s important to note that students
should not simply adapt their domestic approach; they
must pursue the global job search with a fundamentally
different mindset. This generally requires starting from
scratch, and you can play a critical role in helping them:
1. DEFINE THEIR GLOBAL BRAND. This is a thinking
exercise and you must help them define both their
hard and soft skills. Global employers need to know
as much about a candidate’s personality as they do
about her professional abilities. Have them do more
than vocalize: Ask them to write it down as that will
help them frame their experiences, skills and personality traits in ways that are both accurate and relevant. A candidate’s ability to package her personal
and professional skills and showcase cross-cultural
competence will be critical to landing that coveted
first assignment.
2. DRAFT THEIR ELEVATOR PITCH. When I lecture
on campuses, I ask students the most difficult aspect
in creating their job-search materials. More than half
©2011 Today’s Campus LLC. All rights reserved.
say defining their skills in an elevator pitch. Any successful elevator pitch includes both hard skills (e.g.,
professional qualifications, education and language
proficiency), and soft skills (e.g., personal attributes
and interests that make an excellent global worker).
Successful pitches are unique, catchy and brief, and
use active verbs. Students should be encouraged to
have two pitches—one with more international flair
than the other. And they should practice with advisers, professors and fellow students so that they
become completely comfortable saying it.
3. WRITE A SUPERB COVER LETTER. The same rules
apply as in the domestic search: Excellent writing,
professional presentation and content tailored to the
position and employer. In addition, an applicant’s
international persona must come through loud and
clear so that an employer’s interest will be piqued
by the relevant qualifications. I recommend that students draft their first cover letter in response to an
actual global job they want. And don’t forget to
remind them that eMail communications matter.
4. DRAFT THEIR GLOBAL RESUME OR CV. A good
global resume illustrates a student’s international
education, experience and skills. But rather than
organize the content around professional experience,
which is what the standard domestic resume does,
©2011 Today’s Campus LLC. All rights reserved.
the international resume should be built around the
international skill set. Global employers need to not
only understand what an applicant can do—her
technical skills—but also how to assess her ability to
operate in a foreign or cross-cultural environment.
5. BUILD AN ONLINE BRAND THROUGH SOCIAL
NETWORKING SITES. Although it can be a doubleedged sword, employers expect to find applicants
online and students can do a lot online to differentiate themselves. In addition, students should be prepared to address any negative issues that may come
up due to embarrassing online activities or photos.
Campus counselors play an important role in helping
students launch an international career. Many internationalists I know recall that their very first overseas post
came through a campus career center. Encourage students
to work with you, and they could strike out on their own
global career upon graduation. Go Global! TC
STACIE NEVADOMSKI BERDAN is an international careers expert and author of two books: Go
Global! Launching an International Career Here or
Abroad (September 2011), which is newly released
as an eBook on Amazon, B&N.com and iTunes, and
Get Ahead By Going Abroad (September 2007),
which won two business/careers awards.
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