Study and Work Abroad Advisor

Helping Students Plan

Study Abroad and International Careers

By Rosalind Hoffa and Bill Hoffa

More aware than their parents that they will spend their lives working in “the global marketplace,” growing numbers of college seniors set their sights on an international career in an international setting. As advisers know, this career goal is often inspired by a study abroad experience. Most students return from abroad confident that they have learned much about themselves and the world—which is usually true. Many immediately begin a search for some way to return to the scene of their enlightenment, believing that they have greatly increased their prospects of launching an international career.

Without question, the acquisition of genuine cross-cultural skills—including proficiency in a language beyond English—is the best way for U.S. graduates to qualify for a foreign-based career. However, the vast majority of U.S. students do not in fact acquire sufficient cross-cultural skills while studying abroad to qualify for the “international career” they imagine for themselves—given the short duration of their overseas stay and its often too Americanized context. Nor do they necessarily have the kinds of technical skills global employers are looking for. Even U.S. corporations are much more likely to offer overseas jobs to foreign nationals who have earned their academic degrees from U.S. institutions rather than to U.S. citizens.

Students from other countries spend from three to six years studying abroad in the U.S. They of course know their own language and culture, learn ours, and become fully capable of working in English. They earn their diplomas by meeting American academic standards and are trained, especially at the graduate school level, to use the world’s latest communications systems. Unlike most U.S. students who study abroad in humanities and social science areas, the degree specializations of foreign students are concentrated in areas most sought by global employers: business and management, engineering, the sciences and applied technologies. Finally, foreign nationals are generally less expensive to hire and train than U.S. citizens and more likely to make a long-term commitment, especially if they are employed on their native grounds.

But while the chances of U.S. graduates gaining plum positions with multinational corporations and immediately being posted abroad are slim, such careers represent only a small part of the global job market. Students who have had a “globalizing” experience can still qualify for all sorts of U.S.-based jobs which, by the interdependent nature of world economic activity, will be international in scope. In short, the study abroad experience, if it is not seen as an isolated and merely academic episode but as part of an undergraduate career-preparation continuum, can indeed lead directly into the global job market—if not to an immediate posting abroad.

At the end of the 20th century it is hard not to be involved in the global marketplace wherever one works and whatever one does—and those who demonstrate a high degree of international awareness are more likely to succeed. More and more employers recognize that applicants who have studied, worked, or even traveled extensively abroad are likely to possess qualities demanded by this new environment: maturity, self-confidence, flexibility, imagination, grit, and an awareness that the rest of the world does not always operate according to U.S. standards (or in English). College seniors who have had international experience and can bring a globalized awareness to the domestic workplace will necessarily have an advantage over those who can’t.

So, while being posted abroad permanently may not be possible, ample opportunities to connect domestic employ- ment with the world beyond our borders do exist. Many careers demand regular short trips abroad to conduct business, do market research, offer consultations, or oversee the expansion of new operations or the installation of new technologies.  Such home-based but still internationalized careers exist not only in commerce, banking, law, communications, engineering, and science, but also in the nonprofit service sector—in government, higher education, and volunteer service organizations.

Recognizing the Benefits

Study abroad has traditionally been seen and sold as a means of enriching and diversifying undergraduate studies. Its value has been judged by colleges and advisers largely on the basis of curriculum and academic quality, while its career-enhancing potential has largely been ignored—other than by language teachers or area studies scholars. Students were sometimes even led to believe that potential employers might view study abroad as evidence they had not been entirely serious in their studies. This is one of the (thankfully now dated) reasons given for women studying abroad in far greater proportions than men: men were told that they had to stay at home to concentrate on “serious” study and career preparation, while women were free to “cultivate” themselves overseas. Even today, at many institutions anything in the overseas experience which smacks of practical training—the primary example is of course an internship—is seen as a threat to the purity of the academic experience and is uncreditable.

If universities are serious about wanting to assist their students in gaining not only academic credit for their overseas studies but the global competence they need to become successful in the global marketplace, all the potential benefits of an overseas experience have to be more fully recognized and supported. This might begin with the open acknowledgment of something students have always known but institutions have failed to recognize: the “experiential” benefits living and learning within the cultural environment of another country are at least as important as the academic.

Campus Collaboration

For their students to have a chance at landing employment with a strong international focus, U.S. campuses must do much more to encourage students to consciously integrate their overseas experience into their career planning, not just their degree studies. In particular what is needed is more cooperation between study abroad and career services offices. At present it is the rare campus where the essential dialogue between these offices takes place on a regular basis.

Study abroad advisers are often unaware of the career implications of the counsel they provide. Long-term, fully-integrated programs are much more likely to provide students with the cross-cultural coping skills favored by global corporations and international service organizations. On the other hand, an in-depth exposure to only one country can sometimes blind students to the existence of dramatically differing cultures in others. And the right kind of short-term program—say, a six-week tour exploring the economy of Southeast Asia or the social welfare system in the Nordic countries—can be the bright, concrete particularity which will give one student’s resume the edge over others.

The growing student demand for international internship opportunities has come from their own sense that such a hands-on experience will be of practical benefit to them as they look for jobs. Study abroad programs which offer internships are thriving, as are the paid work abroad opportunities sponsored by such organizations as CIEE. It is helpful to have the combined resources and counsel of their own campus study abroad and career services advisers in such important planning.

Most students of course are not prepared to anticipate all the possible career implications of program selection. Still, it is important that those students who have clear ideas about their future career directions have access to the information and services of career services offices.

To career advisers it is a truism that an early start to thinking about the world that lies beyond the degree pays great dividends. Career counselors should be involved in assisting returned study or work abroad students to make sure their resumes and job applications fully reflect the skills and knowledge they have gained overseas. However, this retrospective assistance is not enough. There are many steps which students can take before, during, and after their overseas experience to maximize its globalizing potential and their own postgraduate prospects (see sidebar). But in order for this to happen, it is essential that academic and career offices collaborate to support student needs and interests.