Introduction

I've been living the expatriate lifestyle for several years now and I’ve become increasingly aware of the number of people in the same situation as me; choosing to follow your spouses career around the world.  In both government and private sector situations, this can mean moving locations every 2 - 5 years. For the employed personnel this is stressful enough, but for the spouse and other family members it often means leaving a perfectly good job or small business just to start again in an unfamiliar city, without networks of contacts and the stigma that you may only be there for a few years.

What I’ve also come to realize is that the collective Knowledge, Skills and Abilities of these people, coupled with their distributed geographic locations is an asset available to the business community, both large and small in a variety of ways.

There are many thousands of individuals in this situation distributed around the world in major cities from every conceivable background and skill set. Surveys have shown that these people are keen to work in their chosen profession but often settle for other positions due to their situations. 

The Trailing Spouse Network is an initiative to build a community of professional, technical and creative people find productive and satisfying work, wherever they may find themseleves around the world...

The Power of Networking

The problem of spousal employment for expat families has existed for some time. The missing link has been a dynamic community of like-minded professionals that can harness the collective resources of people in this situation.

Several on-line forums currently serve the expatriate and Foreign Service communities on a range of issues. Of note are Tales from a Small Planet and the AAFSW, but none of these groups focus on employment and work opportunities.

The countless Job Search sites provide opportunities but can be extremely overwhelming and have a sense of ‘needle in a haystack’ when it comes to finding regular work suiting your skills.

My goal is to create a community where expatriated Business, Technical and Creative Professionals can communicate about global and virtual work opportunities. Some initial objectives are:  

• Collective Marketing of services to the broader business community
• Identify and align with local and global business networks
• Establish the Expat’ Professionals Yellow Pages
• Arrange by Skill, Location, availability etc.
• Establish the Global Business Yellow Pages
• Businesses that are receptive to Telework / Virtual assistants
• Compilation of existing telework resources
• Review and discussion of technologies and resources
• Establish the Global Business Development Network
• Expat’s with Business Development skills that can represent others to identify and develop opportunities in their local regions
• Establish the Technology Solutions Group
• Expat’s that can assist with technology issues related with the Virtual work environment.