Dr. Dobb's Journal Fall 1998
When Health Market International engaged David Loewy, a Bedford, Massachusetts-based IT consultant, to develop a graphical user interface for front-end applications for its overseas operations, it transformed his career. Unlike other consultants who live overseas for six months to a year, Loewy opted to fly back to his wife and two children (at the company's expense) every other week, but traveled to six European countries in a year-and-a-half, spearheading the project. Consulting overseas helped him deal effectively with international colleagues, extended his support system globally, and sparked overseas assignments for United Airlines, Citibank, and Mercedes Benz.
Overseas assignments produce experiences "that many of my IT colleagues will never dream about," Loewy says. He remembers the evening in Oslo when a Norwegian colleague from SuperOffice took him to dinner before Christmas at a local restaurant, where the special of the night was reindeer in blueberry sauce (it didn't taste like chicken). Or the evening spent dining on whale in a small Norwegian town on the Arctic Circle. "I've heard the entire Wagner's Ring in Germany where the music was composed," he says, "dined in French inns, shopped in Hong Kong, seen Brueghel paintings in Belgium where they were painted."
Working overseas can boost an IT consultant's life in two ways: It is financially lucrative because living expenses are paid by the company, and the experience of living in a new country is often incomparable and priceless. IT consultants who have worked overseas relish the camaraderie on the job, the exhilaration of living in a different culture, and the special feeling of being an expatriate. Moreover, once an IT consultant builds a reputation for handling overseas assignments, it can lead to repeat work. Note, however, that contracting overseas does not appeal to everyone. Those who are inflexible, have strong family ties in the States, or are reluctant to make cultural adjustments should think about staying put. (See accompanying text box, "Should You Go Overseas?") But if you want to travel, you're in the right business.
Kevin Kelley, 40 years old, single, and living in Portland, Oregon, was yearning for an adventure. "I had never worked overseas or lived internationally. Knowing the rates were good, I figured I couldn't lose," he says, from Rijswijk, Netherlands, where he is serving as an MVS systems programmer for Shell Services International. Kelley answered an Internet ad for an IT staffing company. He signed a six-month contract in August 1997, gained a work permit, and after living in a Rijswijk hotel for five days, he rented a small house for six months in Delft, Netherlands, a "Hans Brinker kind of town," as he calls it. "I hope this assignment enhances my career, but I'm doing it for the experience and the novelty." His only setbacks involved encountering "runarounds" from some people who learned that he was a foreigner and had to rely on colleagues to translate governmental information from Dutch into English. Now his contract has been extended through the first of next year.
"If you're in the IT industry, you can write your own ticket in terms of geography," says Tony Balsamo, executive vice president of TAC Worldwide Companies, a Newton, Massachusetts-based contract staffing company. "The shortage of IT people is an issue globally," notes Stuart Emanuel, president of the Interim Technology Consulting Group.
But London-based William Grubbs, vice president for international operations at TAC, says that to keep costs down, most European companies hire locally rather than engage an American consultant and pay their living expenses. "For only 5 percent of the positions do we bring someone in from America. You have to be at the right place at the right time," he says. Still, international companies such as Rockwell, Digital, Motorola, and IBM place IT consultants in overseas assignments, as do select European-based companies.
Specialties that are most in demand in Europe include relational databases such as Oracle, Sybase, and Informix; Internet programming, including Oracle and Java; Year 2000, including mainframe expertise in Cobol and Pascal; SAP; MVS programming; networking skills such as Novell; and client/server expertise. IT staffing companies recommend that consultants market themselves as having expertise in one of the in-demand areas. "If you've had a smattering of skills from a variety of jobs, that won't get you a consulting position in Europe," Grubbs says. "You need a specialty." Typical assignments include a multinational chemical company implementing SAP to its European subsidiaries, a global bank rolling out a client service platform in Hong Kong, and a Big Six firm distributing Lotus Notes platforms across its European offices. IT consultants are hired mostly in the United Kingdom, Germany, Holland, and to a lesser extent Spain and Switzerland, followed by Eastern Europe and only a handful of positions emerging in Latin America. But Grubbs says the market for IT consultants in emerging Asian countries such as Malaysia and Indonesia is growing.
Despite the demand for IT expertise, experts say that a consultant making $75,000 to $100,000 a year in the States in most cases will make the equivalent salary overseas. "Only if a client is interested in a specific skill set will they go above American rates," says Steve Kenda, president of Kenda Systems Inc., a Salem, New Hampshire-based staffing company with offices in London, Amsterdam, and Düsseldorf. Some companies agree to completion bonuses of 5 to 10 percent of the annual salary. Most IT experts earn in the $40 to $60 an hour range in addition to having overseas living expenses paid by the employer. Loewy, who has managed projects with 250 people, negotiated a $120 an hour fee, a $70 per diem in the United Kingdom, round-trip coach airfare every other weekend to return home to his family, use of a rental car, and living accommodations in an upper-level hotel. Hardship assignments to countries where there is more danger, such as Colombia, can warrant a $15,000 bonus, notes Darren Simons, corporate manager in charge of strategic recruitment for Manpower Inc.
In order to gain a work permit, consultants become full-time employees of a staffing company for the duration of the assignment, which can last from three months to two years. Most firms ask for six-month agreements with a one-year noncompete clause. After that year is over, the consultant is free to negotiate positions on his own. Visas are not automatically granted; in fact, countries with high unemployment who want to protect jobs for their own citizens, like France, often reject visa applications. When a staffing company applies for a work permit, it must demonstrate that the IT consultant possesses skills that cannot be duplicated in the home country. Visa applications are rejected when the company "didn't prove they had a specific need, or there was a shortage of that skill set in the country," says Carlton Schowe of IMI Systems. (For more information on getting started, see the accompanying text box, "Getting Started.")
The most successful overseas candidates are "accommodating and open to new experiences, new cultures, meeting new friends, and even reading newspapers that see the U.S. from their country's viewpoint. "It's a major culture shock -- even in the U.K.," Schowe says. Apartments there, for example, are usually smaller and often lack central heating or air conditioning. Ilene Dolins, senior vice president at Windham International, a New York-based global relocation firm, says consultants sometimes have more trouble adjusting in English-speaking countries, where they least expect a need to adapt.
Other traps that can surface when the consultant goes overseas involve family and job issues. If a consultant's elderly mother faces medical problems in the States and her son is overseas, the problems seem exacerbated. In work-related issues, if the consultant and the assignment do not match, the consultant is stuck thousands of miles from home. Bruce Steinberg, director of research and public relations for the National Association of Temporary and Staffing Services, notes that a full-time employee who cannot cope with an international assignment may be fired, but a staffing company usually tries to work out another assignment with another overseas company.
Even when the assignment ends, repatriation can present problems. "After a two-year stint overseas," Dolins says, "you've changed and so has your country." She advises consultants to stay in touch with technical organizations, remain on mailing lists, and keep track of changes via the Internet.
Consultants who overcome the cultural and family adaptations can reap major career benefits. Balsamo says that as American companies go global, they want to hire consultants who have mastered global assignments. As one staffing expert notes, if a company has to choose between two candidates, one who has managed a Lotus Notes rollout at the London Stock Exchange and one with domestic experience, the international experience may tip the scale. "The skill of working with cross-cultural members and managing an international team is becoming more valuable," says Manpower's Simons.
International assignments, Loewy says, enabled him to raise his fees, broaden his experience, and manage complex projects in multinational locations. Consulting overseas "gives me credentials that pop out compared to other consultants, raises my visibility, and opens doors to international companies."
DDJ