Wednesday, January 20, 2016

Looking for a Job in a Foreign Land

As I have done in past blogs, I will present a challenge from the card game “Bounce Back.” The game is a tool that we have been using in teaching the skills and the attitudes of resilience. It is a serious game that asks you to apply the skills and the attitudes of resilience to a specific challenge and describe how you would respond to that challenge using these skills. Just like life, you don’t know what challenge you will be dealt.
Here’s one that relates to finding a job in a foreign country. It is foreign because it is all new to you. You’re a professional, or you were a professional in your homeland. You, unfortunately, have not been able to meet the certification requirements for licensure for that profession in the United States. It seems the only jobs that people think you qualify for are a nurse’s aid or a fast food worker. What are the skills and the attitudes of resilience that would help you to deal with this situation?
First off, we would encourage you to be flexible. This is a situation that requires flexibility. Being rigid out of pride will not be helpful. Perhaps you will have to take a job that pays less and you might have considered to be beneath you in the past. This, however, may be a step toward finding your way back in to a job that you enjoy and do well.
It will also be important to connect with other people and to make connections in this country. Networking is the way most people find jobs, whether they are new to this country or have lived here all their life.
Communication will be important. Communication about the feelings of frustration that you are having with locating a job. It will be important to vent and discharge many of these feelings so they don’t get in the way of you being able to find a job. Feelings act as a filter. They can distort the way we think about things and encourage us to behave in ways that may not, in the end, be in your best interest.
Be self-confident. This too will pass. You will eventually find work. Self-confidence will also help you deal with the anxiety that you may feel about not working and the fear that you may feel of not ever working again in your profession. Don’t give up. Believe in yourself. Perseverance will impress others and will encourage others to persevere in trying to assist you in locating work and hopefully being able to return to the profession that you have been trained in and practiced in the past.
You may have come up with other skills and attitudes that you could apply to this situation. As we said earlier, every situation and every individual is different. And again, we would encourage you to talk through this with others about how they have dealt with the same challenge or a similar one and how they feel you might best deal with the present challenge.
Being out of work is just one of the challenges that you are facing in your new country. Be optimistic. Better times will come. And because you’re out of work doesn’t mean that everything has changed in your life. Look for those things that are still the same. Begrateful for the things that you still have. And don’t blame yourself. Blaming yourself or blaming others for your present situation is not going to help you resolve it.
We have found over the years that using this game and asking people to respond to these challenges requires people to really look at a specific situation and to actually demonstrate how they would apply the skills and the attitudes of resilience to the challenge.

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