Most travelers are tourists until they start working in another land. It’s only through work that you begin to understand the rhythms, pace, pastimes and outlook that make a place unique.
There are a number of good resources on the net for finding work abroad. Below are a few of the best.
For Australia, My Career does a search of metro papers that are a part of the Fairfax Digital Network. Similarly, in New Zealand, Seek does a round-up of jobs in En Zed.
“Ask not what your country can do….” For nearly 40 years President Kennedy’s initiative has been sending young Americans abroad. Currently there are over 6,500 Peace Corps volunteers working in 77 countries around the world to bring clean water to communities, teach children, protect the environment, help start new small businesses, and prevent the spread of AIDS.
We met a girl recently who had been working on an organic farm in the state of Bahia, in the tropical north of Brazil. She spent all her free time down at the beach surfing. Sounds like a good way to beat winter. Other would-be farmers might want to check with WWOOF, World-Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms. For a small fee, they provide lists of farms in places like New Zealand and Australia that will host itinerant laborers.
BackDoorJobs is the promo site for a book of the same name, but it has a lot of useful info on summer jobs, internships and work abroad.
Two indie job sites were merged in the AboutJobs network. Summerjobs.com is fast, far reaching and free and the Overseas Jobs Express is a newsletter that makes its keep selling employment information, but its website has some worthwhile sample listings across a broad range of industries.
One of the first online employment brokers, CareerMosiac is now CareerBuilder. It’s still one of the biggest and they’ve grown to include an impressive list of international affliates.
The Web has also made inroads in the time-honored tradition of hanging around harbor bars to find work. These sites may help you find a crew job on a boat:
Finally, don’t overlook Craigslist. This soup-to-nuts classified service now spans the globe.
