Member-only story
4 Unexpected Lessons Learnt Working Abroad
Recently I have been lucky enough to have the opportunity to work in Johannesburg, South Africa with my job as a Management consultant. Having never been to South Africa before and being fully aware of the country’s apartheid history and recent dialogue about xenophobia, I was nervous but excited and definitely wanted to seize the opportunity.
So far it has been an amazing experience that I would highly recommend.
South Africa is a beautiful sunny country and it has been great to learn about and work in financial services in a different country To encourage other millennials to push themselves to seize opportunities to work abroad, especially in another continent, I thought I would share this blog covering 4 unexpected lessons learnt working abroad.
Your communication skills will be tested
Working abroad has made me very aware just how important clear communication (and when required), clarification is. Even in a country where the main working language is English, working in South Africa, I was reminded that cross-cultural working makes it easier for misinterpretation simply because you cannot assume everyone understands things in the same way. For example, traffic lights in South Africa are called ‘Robots’ and ‘Howzit?’ is a common phrase that can mean Hello or You…
