Misty Swiss landscapes, news and greetings: job4U2 Newsletter November 2012

November and its (from above…) romantic misty Swiss landscapes…

Maybe a little bit disturbing for the newly relocated people but they will soon discover that foggy days are nothing more than a transition period towards the Swiss winter and its associated snow festivities and fun.

Did you know that, with most companies and most professionals having now a profile on LinkedIn, a company page is an interesting additional tool in the recruiting process?  Applicants express their interest in following and companies can source motivated talents.

This month, we have been editing our LinkedIn company page, adding a short description of our services and some new features, follow us and be constantly informed about our recent updates.

Take a tour on the blog and read the last posts.

• Dual career partners: "success story saga" part.3
• Root cause analysis of your job search-part 2

We wish you a very nice month of November,

Kind regards,

Sandrine van den Oudenhoven
Director job4U2

"Relocation is a project for both"

Previous: Page updated on 2d of October 2012

job4U2: Archive October 2012 Newsletter job4U2

Page updated on 2 October 2012

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Last month, I shared with you the reasons why we, at job4U2, specifically support the international employees’ partners.

Some global surveys show that statistically, the accompanying partner is

• Married (90%)

• Between 25 and 44 years old (75%)

• Polyglot (80% speak 2 or more languages)

• Highly educated (80% hold university degrees)

• Experienced in relocating (60%)

• Professionally active prior to relocation (90%)

• Not professionally active during the assignment (75%)

• Wish to work (85%)

Our experience, at job4U2 is that each partner, while being unique, shares a common experience:

While the partner is relocating « on request » often from a large company, the accompanying spouse’s main reason for moving to Switzerland is to insure the family/couple remains under one roof.

This sometimes goes with some form of sacrifice, often on the career side.

Companies can easily ease the situation, by acknowledging their situation and showing respect and consideration for the efforts made by the partners.

Only raising the question of the partner career during the recruitment interview helps opening the discussion and facilitate the whole relocation process.

Beside our career support programs, specifically designed for the partners, job4U2 offer free resources, available to all accompanying partners in Switzerland through our blog and the LinkedIn group job4U2 Circle.

Take a tour and feel free to forward these links to accompanying partners in your network.

We wish you a very nice month of October,

You can subscribe to the monthly issue of the job4U2 newsletter by sending your request directly by mail here.

Kind regards

Sandrine van den Oudenhoven

Director job4U2

"Relocation is a project for both"

Previous: Page updated on 30 August 2012

Dual career partners: "success story saga" Conclusion.

The Success story saga was supposed to be a 3 parts blog. However today I feel inspired to share a bit further on the blog.

This is rather a confidential blog as I am not going to promote that one on the social media, and will keep it for the regular readers who have subscribed for a email alerts.

In dual career and in success story there’s also the satisfaction one finds in the professional life, and somewhere there’s also my satisfaction as entrepreneur and as a professional woman in my daily work.

This satisfaction is renewed every day though the people I meet in my professional activities.

The expat’s partners I coach give me so much …although they think that I am the one giving; It’s difficult to believe how riches are these meetings, how open-minded it is to share with them, for a little while, this adventure of relocating to Switzerland, of landing a new career here.

From spleen to joy and from discouragement to excitement:  this is a real school of life.

I am every day admiring the personalities that my job allows me to accompany for while, a few weeks, a few months; until my role becomes secondary and that they can embrace on their own their new career path.

One of the partners, I am working with at the moment, told me recently that he was amassed by the energy and the positive mindset I can deploy during our sessions.

This blog is a hat tip to him, he has probably understood it now: this energy is in fact, what he and my other clients do give to me and that I returned with the greatest pleasure.

I would also like to take the opportunity of this blog to say a big THANK YOU to the spouses who have accepted to share a bit of their story on this success story saga blog.

Sandrine van den Oudenhoven

job4U2, "relocation is a project for both"

Related posts:

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

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

Dual career partners: "success story saga" part.3

Dual career partners: "success story saga" part.3

By now, you are familiar with our saga, therefore, with no further comment, I let you enjoy the part 3 of the collected Spouse & Partner success stories.

"When my wife was offered the opportunity to relocate to Switzerland with her employer, I had been working for a global FMCG company in the UK for more than 10 years. Having enjoyed a very successful career, with plenty of opportunities for development, I felt I had reached a crossroads and decided it was time for a change. Although hesitant to leave my job, family & friends, following numerous sleepless nights I decided to make the move to Switzerland.  

 I had heard a lot of negative stories about relocation. However, from our perspective, thanks to the diligence of my wife’s company, everything went smoothly. As I did not know exactly where in Switzerland I would find work, we initially moved into temporary accommodation as a base for my job-search, supported by job4U2.

From the first meeting with the job4U2 consultant back in October 2011, through to final discussions about contract negotiations in May 2012, she has been a huge support to me. She managed expectations from the outset and gave structure to my job search. This allowed me to develop and maintain a comprehensive network here in Switzerland. Regular contact gave encouragement and direction during quiet periods and advice / guidance when things began to move. Even when my search was at an end, we have continued our dialogue as to how best (and when) to communicate my appointment to maintain a positive impression on the network I have established here (should I ever need to call on them again in the future).

Listening to the advice of my consultant, I set up my job search objectives to the level I would have done back in the UK. This allowed me to be fully motivated and enthusiastic when going for interviews. In the end, I was fortunate enough to be offered 2 contracts of employment. The most difficult part in the search became the final decision as to which contract to choose! Today, 4 months into my new role, I believe I made the right choice. 

I cannot stress enough how much value the support of a professional career coach added to my search here (which undoubtedly made our integration to Swiss life so much easier). There are good days and bad days throughout this process but the support of a company such as job4U2, for me, is invaluable."

R.E.

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 posts:

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

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

Root cause analysis of your job search-part 2: “I have not sent application yet.”

About one month ago I published a post to kick-off the root cause analysis of a job search. After being one month on line, this post has reached the top 5 of the articles published by job 4U2 during the last 12 months, demonstrating a strong interest of the readers in a process driven support to their job search.

No surprise for me in this result: There’s nothing more frustrating to dedicate a huge amount of energy to a critical project and to see little result if not any at all.

Taking the risk to create frustration to the ones of you who are already advanced in the job search process, I would like to take the time to start by the beginning (we talk here about a systematic approach and this is what we will deploy):

“I have not sent any application yet”

I hear the reaction (yes yes I do!): “No wonder he/she doesn’t have a job if he/she has not applied yet)”

Well, it’s is not this simple: I hear many people, telling me how frustrated they are about not working since they have relocated to Switzerland and who have not sent one single application letter.

Let’s go back to our root cause analysis chart and try to find the root cause for not having applied:

Understanding what prevents you from starting your job search project is of course not sufficient but is already a big step forward towards taking corrective action.

If you are in one of the situations highlighted by the root cause chart and need some help to find out what could be a corrective action, please post your comment here below.

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 posts:

How do I keep motivation high during my job search in Switzerland?

Root cause analysis of your job search

Root cause analysis of your job search-part 3: “I receive only negative answers.”

Copyright job4U2 2012

Newsletter archive - 30 August 2012

Page updated on 30 August 2012

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September: most companies are already kicking off budget 2013 preparation. At job4U2 we keep the focus on supporting Swiss based companies not only in their relocation offer efforts but also in the talent acquisition challenge: We continue to provide full care and attention to the accompanying partners because this is the way we can best support our clients in being successful in 2013.
Why supporting specifically the international employees’ partners?

• Without their acceptation, geographic mobility or international recruitment will not be accepted by the recruited employee.
• They are the cause number one of early assignment interruptions  
• Their well-being has a major impact on the well-being of the expat partner, thus on his/her performance at work.  
• They are the family social integration facilitator.  
• They usually take care of the whole relocation practical side.
• Their qualification and experience make them very valuable to the Swiss society.  

On the job4U2 blog, in these last weeks, the new posts covered a wide range of subjects of interest for dual career partners: interview, networking, etc
The LinkedIn circle, open to accompanying partners, head hunters and corporate recruiters is still growing with today more than 100 members exchanging tips and information about the Swiss job market.
Join us on these exchange places; we look forward to meeting you on line.
I wish you a very nice September,
Kind regards,

Sandrine van den Oudenhoven
Director job4U2
"Relocation is a project for both"

Previous: Page updated on 24 June2012

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You can still access to our former newsletters on the blog.

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.

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 posts:

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

Accompanying spouse: Who are they?