If you are leaving your hometown to work overseas for the first time, there are certain things you need to do especially if you are from the western world and have no reliable person to check your mails or take care of payments and answer your home phone.
Before talking about the “things you need to do”, there are “things you need to know” and information your company need to provide.
- First thing to know from your company is your Visa status in the country you will work in. I mean you need to know If you are going as a tourist visa, business visa or residency visa ..etc. Many countries will allow a temporary workforce to work temporarily with a “business” visa with multiple entry instead of the normal “work residency” visa. The Residency visa usually takes more time and cost more. Some companies prefer to hire you and bring you in with a tourist visa and then after the usual probation period start to work on your residency visa.
- The above is normal practice, and should not affect you in any way, only that in many countries you cannot rent long term, or open a bank account, or rent a car without residency visa (depending also on your nationality). Because of all that, you need to know how the company will pay you during the period when you have no local bank account.
- If the company wanted to transfer the salary to your home bank account means you must pay bank transfer fees. Also, not all places you will go will accept credit card, you will need some cash to pay for your rent, taxi, food in some cases and other small grocery. Also, know that some countries prefer Visa Cards, and Mastercard only. However, American Express, Discovery and Diners Club are not accepted unless you are going to international brand hotels or international rent a car place which are more expensive. Note that all these cards from your home country will charge you transactions fees of 2%-3% (exchange rate fees).
I did not know all that details the first time I left overseas and worked for another company, so I had to borrow money from colleagues and later ask my wife to transfer money to their accounts. It is very unpleasant situation.
Insist to have a residency visa upon arrival and understand the logistics of opening a bank account and obtaining phone and internet card upon arrival. Also, ask the arrangement of the first week accommodation, transport…etc till you can find a place to rent, and have a rent car. Also ask what is needed from your home country as documentations and paperwork so you can drive in the new country you are working in.
- Make sure someone from the company will be there to pick you up from the airport, some countries hiring a taxi for the first time can be challenging.
- If you will go with tourist visa and the company promised you that later you can obtain the residency, make sure they will pay for the expenses of sending you back home for processing the residency visa (most countries will need your visa be issued from your home country). Also, make sure the period that you will stay home waiting for the residency visa, will be payable.
After you sort out all the above logistics, there are some of the tings you need to do before you leave your home country.
- You need to talk to your bank and credit card company:
- Make sure your bank knows you will leave, and you will receive money transfers from overseas.
- You must know if your bank does operate in the country you are going too. If you are from the US ask your Bank for their “SWIFT” code, because all overseas banks will need the Bank “SWIFT” to transfer money, in addition to the routing number which already shown on your checkbook (we do not use SWIFT codes inside the US).
- Make sure your credit card company (Visa and Master Card) know you are traveling and ask them if they have any programs that if you use their cards overseas, they will not charge you the 2-3% exchange fees. That will help you use the card you have till you get a card from the country you are working in.
- The other important thing is to put your finances back home in order before you leave:
- Make sure your credit cards are 100% on autopay, also download the credit card app on your phone or laptop to have access to your card info at any time in case they block the card, or you lost or destroy your card. You need the app also to check your card for weird activities.
- Make sure your cards are valid for considerable amount of time, because most cards will not send the new card to you overseas.
- Make sure you have your car payment, house payment, insurance, water, electricity, gas, and all other payments on autopay. In addition, make sure you have online banking to make sure you can track all these payments from time to time.
- Make sure your mortgage company knows you are traveling and give someone the permission to talk on your behalf because most mortgage company want to talk only to you. I almost lost my house due to this small technical issue.
- If you have a security system in the house, make sure you tell the company you are traveling. If you will put the house for rent, cancel that alarm, otherwise you will be fined big money for false alarms that your renter will not care to pay attention too (yes it happened to me).
- See if you phone can roam, also create one of these VOIP numbers like Skype, or Google FI phone or something like that with the same code of your country and put that as an alternative number. Sometimes when you call your bank or other agencies back home, you will need to be on hold for half an hour and you do not want to be on hold using your international number.
- If you do not have anyone in your house to get your mail, maybe you divert the mail to your son/daughter, parent, or close relative’s house. In case something comes, and you were not there to act, they can alert you.
- If you have pet and you will take it with you, think twice, many countries are not as pet friendly as the US. Make sure you understand the shipping and clearing costs and regulations if you will ship the pet. My cat was in terrible situation when I finally cleared her from the customs in Riyadh.
- Make sure you understand the country’s laws. Most people will not mind if you did something rude. They know you are from different culture. However, if you do something illegal, by mistake or due to not knowing the rules in the country, the authorities might not be so forgiving. So, do not worry too much about how to eat certain food at first, you will learn that eventually, but pay attention and worry more about the difference in laws between your country and the country you are going too. Ask the company and they will inform you.
These are some of the issues I faced and would like people to know to make your first days or weeks more comfortable.
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