First and foremost, I’d like to acknowledge the fear, frustration, or confusion that can happen when you’re looking for a job, especially for expats. I’ve been an expat and immigrant in many places (having lived and worked all around the world), so I definitely empathize with your context.

I’d like you to shift perspectives to see your global experience as an asset and not a problem. Even for those who have re-expatriated to their home country, realize that having a global mindset is 100% transferable. This is true even if you feel that your experience is not exactly transferable in the new context.

Here are ten pieces of advice to leverage your global experience to land a role:

Tip 1. Use your global mindset: Think and reflect on what working in this new context entails by using your understanding of the world around you. This tip about reflection takes us to the importance of planning.

Tip 2. Plan your job hunt / search: Be precise with your job search goal-setting by prioritizing and set realistic parameters for which to measure success, especially as you are in a new environment (culture, country, and/or company).

Tip 3. Be creative: Organizations wish to hear more about how you get to the goals and your way of thinking. Hiring managers appreciate scrappiness, and whatever you do, you should be able understand and explain why you do it.

Tip 4. Leverage your unconventional education: Whether it’s taking an unusual path to a job or on-the-job knowledge training, you should always use your education (even if it’s from untraditional institutions). Also, realize that your global experience means a lot – there’s no education quite like figuring out a new country, environment, way of life, etc.

Tip 5. Be resilient: Remember that it’s 2018, and there are so many possibilities these days, including paths to jobs. A little patience can also go a long way.

Tip 6. Be curious: Always be learning and attempting to create connections between seemingly disparate ideas and things. This leads not only to innovations, but it also opens new doors, as it’s a great way to make connections with people.

Tip 7. Build relationships: Keep in touch with your current personal and professional connections, and don’t be afraid to reach out to new ones. One of the biggest perks of working around the world is understanding the people, as you get nowhere without it. Realize that companies and cultures are defined by the people, and that’s a truism anywhere globally.

Tip 8. Know your impact: This starts with always adding value to the organization, especially at the interview stage. You must learn the key value of the business, know the key performance indicators (KPIs) you’re being measured on, and map how your experience matches up. Knowing how to work with these KPIs and understanding how you make a difference in achieving these goals are crucial.

Tip 9. Be ready, but also okay with the unexpected: Think out different scenarios / different paths to the goal to your dream, but just know that things don’t always go according to plan. The point is that it’s okay to fail! Ventures fail, companies close, you don’t reach your goals… but you learn.

Tip 10. Join a mastermind group: Sometimes you can plan as much as you can, and surprises still come up, and something unexpected might turn out better than the original plan. The world, and life in general, is naturally full of surprises.

A mastermind group is a peer-to-peer mentoring concept used to help members weather the storms and surprises in life. Being a member of a mastermind is helpful for you to solve your issues with input and advice from the rest of the group. The top reasons why people join a mastermind is to gain increased: accountability, support / feedback, collaboration, and network / resources. This helps with goal-setting, planning, and building relationships, which are all very important, as discussed above.

You can learn more about our mastermind and sign-up for the waitlist at www.pidaar.com.

Lida Tohidi is a tech founder and startup advisor who has initiated, led, and completed projects in Australia, Bénin, Canada, France, Italy, Japan, Malawi, Switzerland, the UAE, UK, and USA. In short, she has lived and worked on all continents (though still awaiting an invitation from Antarctica :D), and speaks 3 languages well (and another 3 poorly).

She is passionate about mindfulness, as well as diversity and inclusion in tech and beyond, and she honored this by speaking. She firmly believes in life-long learning and that experiences that allow her to unplug from the daily hustle and bustle of being an entrepreneur and plug into a meaningful community are very important. She makes time for them, especially for coaching relationships and mastermind groups. Learn more and connect with Lida on her personal website, Pidari Consultancy, and Twitter.