The Essential Guide to Landing a Global Assignment

by Melissa Llarena

Experiencing the world on your employer’s dime via a global assignment is increasingly becoming harder to realize without answering key questions. Global assignments are big risks for firms, so you must do your homework prior to launching conversations around your desire to work abroad. High-profile HR professionals who’ve assembled compensation packages for global transfers at the big four accounting firms candidly shared how expensive mobility initiatives are. Sending you outside of your home country can cost a firm three to five times your base pay. There are further costs that add thousands more for your employer, like an early return before your contract expires. For this reason, approximately 50 percent of companies have or plan to increase the number of expatriates hired locally, which makes relocating employees even less vital to a firm’s success.Many firms make it harder to land these opportunities by requiring a business case. 51% of companies surveyed in 2012 assess your candidacy on a cost-benefit analysis. Some ask for your own self-assessment to inform their decision-making. Therefore, it is important to think logically about your candidacy before asking for a global assignment. The following discussion addresses what you must consider when itching for a global assignment and what to do if you lack the necessary attributes to advance with that big “ask” for a relocation, and it also gives you a start to structuring your business case. Start by considering six key questions to give you the most compelling reasons as to why you should be assigned abroad.

7 pages, Kindle Edition

Published May 13, 2015