‘What can an international professional experience teach you?’

Living and working abroad can be challenging and starting such an experience on your own can be scary: you will have to get comfortable with a new way of living, make new friends and break with your comfortable routines. But an international professional experience can also teach you a lot. 

Firstly, it is good to break away from your normal and comfortable bubble once in a while.

By doing new things and meeting new people, you will gain different skills and get new perspectives while creating an international network. At home, your friends often have the same opinions as you do, so by going abroad and meeting new people from different cultures, you get to know new viewpoints and might gain a different mindset.

This is even truer when you work in a corporate company in another country. You will not only get to know how other people in a different culture think but also how they work together. You will encounter different problems, culturally different situations you have to adapt to and be open-minded. By overcoming these challenges, you’ll gain more confidence in your work later on.

What skills do you develop while working abroad?

There are certain skills that you demonstrate by having international work experience on your CV. When you are challenged in a different environment it makes you independent, confident, you will gain problem-solving skills and of course language skills. Working abroad shows that you are willing to learn new things and that you have a sense of adventure. All these things demonstrate that you develop yourself and want to keep developing yourself.

Thus, a professional experience abroad is not only great to be able to add exciting working experience to your resume, but also to develop yourself personally.

This post was written by AIESEC in the Netherlands. We offer international voluntary projects and professional internships with the aim of developing leadership in youth.