What traveling brings to my professional life.
I have been travelling from the age of four and it’s definitely the trump card of my resume. Travelling will always make people dream and show a lot about you. It’s not about going to a place and to visit, it’s a real adventure and you are the hero!
This person dares!
We are not talking about a holiday with Mum and Dad, but about your trip that you have planned without help. This is the place that you have chosen and the adventures are things that you desire to experience.
While some dreamers tend to stay in their comfort zone, you have the drive to experience new things! A lot of people want to travel more or be part of an experience such as backpacking for a year, but they don’t dare leaving the classical way of growing.
Let me share a little story that I tell my friends who are scared of changes:
“One day I had an interview with the marketing manager of a company. I was quite surprised because my interviewer asked me more questions about my travels such as “why did you go there?” or “What have you learned from that experience?”. She thought it was more relevant to the business and proof of my real values. At the end of the interview she told me that she has another candidate for the job who attended a better university than mine and is a bit older, but she will probably hire me because my lifestyle is a proof that I have the nerve to run the marketing strategy.”
If you dare to live the life you want, people will believe in you and in your ability to excel.
This person has several visions!
When you travel you have to forget about your culture to adopt another one, and you know how culture can affect your vision. People around the world don’t grow up the same way.
According to the Indigenous Australians, every creatures in this world are as sacred as humans and they have to be respected. For example a crocodile is allowed to live wherever he wants and respond to his needs the way he wants, and nobody is allowed to take control of it. Accordingly to this philosophy, if anyone get hurt by a crocodile, it’s not the crocodile responsibility, because we all know what a predator it is. It happens often that Indigenous kids get eaten by a crocodile while playing in the river. The community will think that this is the children fault and they cannot blame the crocodile for being what it is, thus they would never kill the crocodile for eating their own children.
Are you shocked by such a story? If you are open minded enough and used to experience different cultures you shouldn’t be.
Because you are use to change your culture and you vision of life, you get different visions that you are able to adapt in function of the situations you face. This is something rare and a good gift to a company.
This person can move!
This is not easy to be “supertramp”. Indeed you have to accept living in a different country, far from your family, friends and habits for a while.
Nowadays companies need flexible people, able to move in function of their needs. This is something quite hard to find. Traveling in a professional purpose is not the same thing as traveling for holiday or as a student. Your company could need you in countries that are not necessary the ones you would like to go to, especially to live. Traveling in India to change your vision of the world during a month, is not the same as living in New Delhi for years.
As a matter of fact, the most you travel and the most you are adventurous, the most you will have chance to generate interest.
This person is prepared for it!
With experiences, you know what is it to be surrounded by a new culture. You understand how it feels like to accustom yourself to something, you are not surprised anymore.
However most of the people are not like you and this is pretty hard to define how a person will react to an expatriation.
While we are abroad for a while, we all know more or less these stages of the expatriate’s adjustment. From the honeymoon where you just landed in the new country and feel amazed, through the culture shock and the gradual adjustment where you could feel homesick, to the mastery stage where you call it home. Nonetheless we all react differently to a new environment, and a person, even well prepared, who is not used to travel for so long could live these stages as a nightmare. This is normal because fortunately we are not all the same and are not made for the same things.
In this respect having a collection of countries on your resume is an assurance for your future boss because you have already passed these stages before.
This person is open minded!
Finally, travelling changes you into an open minded person, eager to learn or share his experiences. Indeed you are a person easy to work with and this is important for your future integration in the company. Your colleagues or even your managers would appreciate to face challenges and to exchange with you.
To put it in a nutshell, travelling gives me a certain self-confidence and skills that fit perfectly with the business world. There is nothing more respectable than somebody living the life he wants and managing everything to achieve his goals.
