Dual career partners: "success story saga" part.2

One month ago, you discovered the first chapter of the Dual career partners success story saga. 

If you remember well, the saga was first started to provide an answer to an accompanying spouse I met who wanted to meet more expat's partner who had successfully passed the stage of searching a job.

I received a lot of positive feedback and therefore am very happy the post today the part 2 of the saga:

"During summer 2010, when my husband was offered a job in Switzerland, I was just pregnant; this was a perfect timing for a change! We accepted the offer and moved with our newborn baby to Neuchatel, end of 2010.

I resigned from my position in Italy and took the opportunity of my first year in Switzerland to enjoy being with my daughter and to learn French.

Learning French went surprisingly very fast, but this is probably because I only had French-speaking friends: I quickly got to know many young mothers leaving around our place.

After one year, I decided it was time for me to go back to work; I was so impatient to discover the inside of the Swiss companies and to practice my French intensively.

We were very lucky: My husband company offers a career support program to the spouses of employees who were hired abroad.

Sandrine from job4U2 helped me to precise my professional project: I had so many ideas, I even considered creating my own business but realised I wanted to be part of a team.

We identified my strengths, my expertise areas and worked on the CV and the application file.

This was hard work, but I was quite satisfied with the result.

 

Sandrine wouldn’t let me apply blindly everywhere and insisted on defining who were the companies fitting best my profile and expectations.

I did not send that many applications, 3 or 4 maybe? I can’t remember. The interviews went pretty well (I was fully prepared!)

I signed my working contract just 3 months after we kicked off the program with a company located less than 10 min away from my home, it is a 90% occupation job which leave me time to be with my 2 years old daughter.

I have started working just after my holiday and from the first week onward I felt I was at the right place and realised how much I had missed working. I believe I have now found the right balance and have it all: A great job, A wonderful location to live, an happy family!"

P.T.

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Sandrine van den Oudenhoven

job4U2, "relocation is a project for both"

Related posts:

Dual career partners: "success story saga" part.1

Accompanying spouse: Who are they?

Root cause analysis of your job search

Searching a job in Switzerland can take a bit of time, however if after 3 to 6 months you do not see things moving; It may be time to take a short break and analyze the situation. Maybe your strategy needs to be adjusted.

As a small present to the job4U2 blog readers, we  offer a tool to support this analyze: The Rout Cause Analysis of your job search.


In the coming weeks, we will look in details to the 6 majors "failure" modes and list of the possible causes allowing you to identify precisely where is your room for improvement:

• I have not sent application yet

• I do not get any reaction to my application

• I receive only negative answers

• I am not selected for the second run

• I always go till the end and fail in the last mile

• The final offer does not match my expectation, I have to refuse

Do not miss any of these future blog entries: register on the blog for email alerts and please, share this article with your network.

Sandrine van den Oudenhoven

job4U2, "relocation is a project for both"

Related subjects:

• Root cause analysis of your job search-part 2: “I have not sent application yet.”
• How do I keep motivation high during my job search in Switzerland?
• Who is hiding my job market?

Copyright job4U2 2012

Networking events: 14 tips from Anna Persson

Not disclosing all my blogger secret, I can share one of my favorite method to write a post:  I start a new post with a word document with a title and a couple of direction lines and let it sleep for a while. When I have the article in mind, I write it down. 

Following my method, I started few days ago a paper on networking during events but in the meantime, I read the post of Anna Persson who is running her company 360entrepreneurship in Sweden, about networking at conferences. Nothing to add: It is complete, clear , fully transferable to Swiss events. Let me thank Anna and share it with you:

How to Optimize Your Networking at Conferences

by Anna Persson on September 2nd, 2012

Conferences and workshops are great places to meet the right people and start new business relationships. Here are some tips to help you connect with others at a business event. Networking today could mean business opportunities tomorrow.

Pre-conference preparation

1. Have a plan. People you want to meet (directly or the type of people), speakers you want to hear, and the exhibition stands you want to visit.

2. Blog or tweet about the fact that you’re going. Blog about the sessions you’re planning to attend. Find out the Twitter tag for the conference. Look up the speakers and some of the other participants’ blogs.

3. Set appointments in advance. If you know that there will be people attending whom you know that you would like to see, call or email a few weeks in advance to schedule a time to meet for coffee, a meal, or a drink.

During the conference

4. Talk to the people sitting next to you. Say hello and introduce yourself before the presentation starts. It’s a bit like sitting next to someone new on a plane. Unless you say something in the first few minutes you won’t say anything to each other at all. Right? Each day aim to sit next to new people.

5. Introduce others. When you meet cool people, be the one who connects them with others who might be beneficial to them.

6. Ask questions in  the Q& A’s. A good way of being noticed is to ask a question in the Q&A’s following a presentation. Stand up, and if someone is bringing you a microphone, wait for it before ask your question so that everybody can hear what you are saying. Start by stating your name and the  company/organisation you represent if your think that is important. Keep you question short and be specific! People always came up to me in the break and start talking to me about what I’d asked. Instantly easy.

7. Ask other people questions. Let’s face it, people are more interested in themselves that they are in you. So by asking questions, showing people you are interested in them, they’d be more likely to listen to your elevator speech when it’s your turn.

8. Guide the conversations. Use engaging, open end questions:

• What do you think about that session?
• What else are you looking forward to attending?
• What’s the most interesting thing you’ve learnt at the conference so far?
• Follow it by asking them how or why they got into their line of work and you might find yourself having an interesting and memorable conversations. Keep an ear out for things you can help with or people you can introduce.

Take advantage of the breaks

9. Put away your technology. The golden opportunity to network and start conversations, so don’t spend time attending to your phone, laptop etc. The signal you’re sending is that you are busy and not approachable.

10. Conference buddies. If you have a networking buddy, conferences are much nicer. They can step in and introduce themselves in order to elicit a name from someone you don’t want to admit you’ve forgotten.

11. Food & Drink. Conversation is easier when having some of the food (make a conversation about it). However it’s hard to talk with a mouth full, and it’s tricky to circulate with a plate full of stuff so take it easy.

After the conference

12. Follow up. Send the people you connected with, an email. Tell them you enjoyed the conversation and if it’s the right thing to do, suggest a follow up conversation.

13. Good practice for connecting with on Social Media. Bear in mind and be respectful of the fact that people might not use social networking the same way you do. Twitter is ok, you don’t need to ask for permission there. Personally I use LinkedIn a lot and I normally ask people I meet if they’d like to connect on Linked and I send them an invitation. A tip is to find out where on Social Media this person “hangs out” and connect with him/her there if that’s the place where you “hang out as well.

14. Blog about what you have learned at the conference.  Your notes will come in handy and write a post-conference summary.

A conference can be pricey and you also set aside your valuable time so make sure you make the most of it!

Read more about Anna Persson HERE

If you liked this blog, please share this article with your network and register on the blog for email alerts. 

Sandrine van den Oudenhoven

job4U2, "relocation is a project for both"

Related subjects:

• Networking for expatriate partners
• The unspoken rules of networking