Cultural Differences in Working in Different Countries and Foreign Companies

Topics

• Where do you want to work?
  • People wanted to work in the US, UK, EU or any English-speaking country

• Who wants to work in?
  • The US and EU were the top places to work of people who raised their hands

• Working in the US, being able to be hired and fired more easily
  • Different culture than Europe and Japan, with more short-term focus on jobs rather than long-term stability or regulation.

• Cultural differences in working in a foreign culture or even a foreign company
  • Long hours in a Japanese company, and possible overworking without much increase in productivity. More flexible systems in foreign companies, but with an international job, emails and calls can come in at all hours depending on where the other person is. Really valuable experience to work in a Japanese firm to understand Japanese expectations and standards for work.

• Japanese working practices
• If you have Japanese customers, or work with Japanese colleagues, you should understand and work in line with them. The benefits are better communication and also to get understanding of your own work-style.

• Benefits of working and understanding Japanese customer’s expectations
• They have high standards
• They don’t like mistakes so will ask for investigations into what went wrong and how to prevent re-occurrence
• They favor teamwork and collaboration even when reviewing errors and problems.

• Having a Linkedin profile
• The benefits are being able to connect with overseas people and start communications. Recruiters can also find you, along with hiring companies. It ca be a useful tool to investigate potential hiring companies, to find the human resources person or to find a hiring manager.

• Getting a response from overseas companies when applying via a website
• There might be no response and just silence. It can be good to look for a niche, like language skills to try to increase the chances of a contact based on your skills even if you are overseas.

• Tips on trying to look for jobs that sponsor
• Include the visa type in the search word or phrase to see if job specs include it, example “sponsorship”, “H1B”.

• Finding the motivation for companies to sponsor your visa
• What is your rare value over a native member of that country, or someone who doesn’t need a visa. Try to answer that question, or understand how they sponsor or if they do.

• Working illegally on 3 month tourist visas
• There are small companies that hire programmers or others to visit the US and work on a “business trip” as contractors. This is one way to do it, but one would need to pass immigration either on a tourist visa, or explain it was a short business trip.

• Working in Canada  
• Working in Canada requires a company to sponsor if it’s an employment visa

• Understanding the visa system of the country you want to work in
• United States

• Canada
• United Kingdom
• France
• Singapore
• Sweden

• Working in New York or the West Coast, Mid-west, Southeast or Southwest
• Depending on the industry, there are more jobs in a particular area,
• Each area has a Japanese chamber of commerce, with links to other Japanese businesses that could provide information on jobs and employers
• For example New York
• Japan Chamber of Commerce
• Studying abroad as a first job to finding a job
• Australia
• Getting a work-pass in Singapore, easier than other countries?
• More commercial, fairly open to skilled foreign workers
• Pasona Singapore
• Looking for jobs on Online job boards
• Indeed
• Choosing your keywords in searches
• Including visa sponsorships in keywords
• Looking at companies who can sponsor
• Using Foreign Chambers of Commerce to identify companies
• Swedish Chamber of Commerce
• US chamber of commerce
•  

article version: 9.4.2