In da funk?

Hello peeps!

I made it round and came back in one piece!  I am home now, and it feels good - catching up with friends and having a taster of the English summer for a few days. I even brought back with me that fresh perspective I was hoping to find during my travels. All is well, now time to pull my sleeves up and get stuck in - I need a job...

The eagle has landed
Image courtesy of artur84 / Freedigitalphotos.net

If you are like me, freshly arrived and full of bordering-on-maniac energy, you start experiencing a little funk right about... now!

Worry not, peeps, you are not alone. In this post I will share a few tips to help keep da funk away and keep moral up while job hunting when returning home after your travels.

Before going any further though, stop a moment and take stock of what you have just done.

Hopefully you did not get mugged, assaulted, impossibly lost or taken hostage - or any of the other things you were worried about when you sat in the plane that would take you to yonder way so many months ago.

My worst fear was getting ill. I did and I was on my own but I managed. I might never go back to Vietnam because of this unfortunate memory, but I survived. Very close second was bed bugs. I was absolutely paranoid about getting bitten. I got eaten alive, twice, but again I survived.

Whatever your horror stories, you survived. You are a hell of a lot more resilient than you give yourself credit for!

So now you are back, and things are bound to be very busy for the first few days.

My to do list seemed endless - pick up the car from the garage, deal with the flat battery, sort out car insurance, MOT and servicing, fight off the cold nibbling at my little feet, update LinkedIn, register for the job seeker  allowance - and get told I cannot get anything for the next 3 months, arrange to sleep at friends, comb through the job boards... I have indeed been busy enough to run away from da funk.

Chances are though, once you are a bit more settled, da funk will somehow manage to catch up. The weather is a bit miserable and definitely colder, the meager remains of your saving are melting away, you are still trying to figure out what kind of jobs to apply for and the turn over of new vacancies advertised is unfortunately quite low.

You are stuck, and moral is noticeably taking a plunge. But, remember, you are more resilient than you give yourself credit for!

There is not much you can do about the job market, once you have done all the network activation, contact reaching out and applications you can do. You just have to sit tight and wait for answers and new ads to come up, no other choice.

The choice is somewhere else though - leave da funk take over and curl up on the sofa, or start moving again and run away from it. Here are my top 5 tips to start moving again:


1. Looking for a job is a full time job

Obviously, you will have to spend a lot of time on this - specially if you need to start working soon-ish! Job hunting should be your main daily activity, almost like a 9-to-5 kind of schedule.
Online job boards are a great tool, but networking with recruiters/friends/old colleagues is also very helpful. After all, two, three or more pairs of eyes are better than one when looking for something. I would advise to spread your time 2/3 online and 1/3 networking, adjusting the ratio as needed.

2. Make a plan - everybody loves a good plan!

Mapping out an action plan usually helps with calming the little panic troll in your brain as you feel more in control of events, so plan for different scenarios:

- Plan A, deadline highlighted in the calendar: focus is entirely on the 'perfect job', what is is, how you plan on finding it and how long you allow. How long you spend on plan A will entirely depend on how urgently you need to start earning again.

- Plan B, with deadline: still includes a part of looking for that perfect job, but the focus will have to shift to widen the scope of your search. That could be looking for part time jobs, contracts or more junior positions.

- Plan C, with deadline: now you need to do some lateral thinking to widen further the scope of your search - other industry, further afield, re-training... This is crunch time! By now, you should be qualifying for job seeker help from your local Job Centre so make full use of it.

Job search action plan
Image courtesy of Luigi Diamanti / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

3. Get some exercise

As much as curling up on that sofa and watching movies all day sounds appealing, go out of the house and do some exercise. On top of helping with letting some steam off, exercise gets you tired so you sleep better at nigh, rather than tossing and turning in bed worrying about things beyond your control.
Having challenged a friend to a half Ironman next year, I decided to join the local Triathlon club and start training for the event. Hello, endorphin rush!

4. Have some 'me time'

Go on, curl up, watch movies, go shopping, have your hair done, do the crazy dance listening to the radio, bake, catch up with friends, go to the museum...

Add a little of TLC
Image courtesy of Stuart Miles / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

There should be something to look forward to, if not everyday at least twice times a week.

5. Keep things in perspective

Unless your parents own a business and take you on straight away, it WILL take more than a couple of weeks to find a job. Also, getting your applications rejected time after time is stressful and disheartening, but again, try keep in mind that you will eventually get into employment. It might take longer than you would want, and it might not be your dream job, but it is money in the bank. Which brings me to...


(Cheeky) 6. Get ready to go again


If things really do not work out for you, how about packing your bags again and head back out travelling? Life is too short to be spent in a job you hate any longer than is necessary to save up a few quids and go again.
I am giving myself 6 months to get my perfect job. If not, I will just get whatever cash I can from a part time job and go travelling again. Better to sleep in a dorm and eat street food in Indonesia than spend winter in London :)

All packed, including the Milo :)

Last word...

Unless you are coming back to a job you already sorted out, it will not be a walk in the park. Any long term return back home will require a job hunt and it will take time to feel comfortable again - you are looking for a job, a flat, new habits, a social circle. But then again, you have done just that many times over, and on top of it, you had to learn new currency exchange rates and snippets of a new language!
So do not let the funk get you down though. Most of us have been through the same and have come out of it better off.

It was all worth it!

I am now going to follow my own advice. Wish me luck :)

Small ideas lead to big things

Wow, this is it – I am live on the world wide web!

Today Jobs4Nomads is being officially introduced to the world. What started as a small idea I was fiddling with in my little corner is now a fully operational tool I hope will make the road a little easier to navigate. The road to wherever takes your fancy.

The past couple of weeks I made big progress on my plans, starting by taking the decision to go, for real.  I want to go, I need to go, I am going! I have defined an itinerary and contacted travel agents to get the ball rolling on the ticket side of things. On top of getting visas, I also need to renew my passport. Not as straight forward as you would think if like me you are a French girl living in the UK and never bothered to register with the consulate!

So - itinerary  – sorted. How I get there – roughly sorted-ish (not really!). How I will finance all this – very vaguely considered. How to get a nomad job – well this is what this site is about.

I will populate it with the info I gather along the way, and using the powers of my amazingly charismatic persona (… and a nice pretty please…) my aim is to attract other nomads who will also contribute to the content. As the community grows, the information contained in these pages will be kept up to date thank to input from the nomads soon to be or already on the road. No point having the details of a teaching school or bar owner if the teaching school as long since being converted into a day care and the bar into a trendy hairdresser.

Have a look around, and if you find something interesting, spread the work and leave a little hello on the facebook page or send me an email. I promise to reply and give you a fool proof system for winning the lottery every week... OK, maybe not, but I with definitely say hi :)

Bon vent et bonne route!

Introducing... Me :)

Once upon a time, there was a princess... I wish! Being a princess would have been sweet,and I tried to convince my parents, but they were having none of the whole kingdom thing. So I still ain’t no princess!

Instead I am just a regular girl, living a regular life.

Born in the Caribbean, I left home when I was 17 on a one way ticket to France. I had enough of life on the islands and just wanted to see how if was across the Atlantic. After some time in the South of France, I decided to go see what all the fuss was about Australia. So I packed my bags once again, direction Melbourne, but this time got a return ticket – they are pretty strict those Australia Border Agents!

Australia was truly amazing, but as my visa ran out, I had to head back to Europe – they really are very strict those Australia Border Agents! Instead of Paris, I came to the UK and Maidenhead in the west of London is where I now call home. It’s a cute little city, leafy and somewhat sleepy but my flat by the river is the best! Most of my friends are here, my job is here and this is where I think I will settle eventually.

Still, a few weeks ago I took the decision to drop everything and head again for some unknown destination.

Why I hear you ask – why leave a steady job in this tough recession climate, leave my friends, leave a cosy little life in sunny England?

A few things got me to this point really:

1. It’s all doom and gloom at the moment. There is a recession going and all people can talk about are taxes, job cuts and how the Euro will eventually crash down – depressing.

2. I am still not on the property ladder and judging by the rate of house price increase, it will be some time until I get onto that first rung unless I rob a bank – very depressing.

3. I received my pension statement in June and good news – if I keep putting money away at the same level as I am now, when I retire at 60, my yearly pension will be a grand total of… wait for it… £8,000 – aaaaaaaarghhhhhh!!!

OMG!! What on earth happened? Something somehow went horribly wrong and the whole career/homeownership/behaving like an adult thing now looks less and less like the ultimate goal.

After the initial “OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG” moment I realised how far off the point I was – my life is about ME. I chose what I want to do and I do it. As long as it is legal(-ish..!) I should go for it.

And travelling around the globe is part of this life. Discovering new cultures, meeting new people, eating strange things and most importantly – wear my flip-flops all day and play with my toes in the sand. This is who I am.

So here we are, I have decided to drop everything and go see how things on the other side of the planet are. It will be more than likely the same as here – but I want to go see by myself!

First thing first though - Hi everybody, my name is Angela and I would like some help planning my trip of a lifetime.

:)