<p>please discuss</p>
<p>No, they don’t. It is not a differentiator in hiring in my view.</p>
<p>of course not, but i hope you’re not making your choices based on job prospects</p>
<p>i want to study abroad simply for the experience. i couldn’t care less what a prospective employer care about my study abroad.</p>
<p>Study abroad should be done first of all for the intellectual and experiential benefits. But as an employer, I most certainly look to see if someone has had an opportunity to study abroad. This probably depends on the field and the employer, but for us it is a signal of intellectual curiousity, broader world view, independence, and a wide range of other characteristics we look for in employees. It is not the only factor we look for, of course, but it adds to the resume.</p>
<p>I would think it depends on the employer. If you are applying for a job that somehow relates to the country and your discipline, it MIGHT be helpful for the company to see that,</p>
<p>Not much of a factor b/c it doesn’t relate to my practice. Also, intellectual curiosity and a broader world view are important, I prefer a candidate demonstrate those characteristics with experience more directly related to my office’s practice. </p>
<p>That said, study abroad, particularly programs that are at least a semester in length, are a very enriching experience and should be pursued on that basis alone.</p>
<p>It really depends. I’m going to assume that as an IR major study abroad will be considered a plus for my son. The fluency in two foreign languages was useful to me in getting jobs I would not have otherwise. I acquired that fluency through study abroad.</p>
<p>A recent study said that yes, it’s something desirable provided the person <em>lived</em> abroad, not just traveled there. Something about actually having to navigate a whole new society and learning to think on your feet helps you become a more useful member of a business team.</p>
<p>Only if you became fluent in the language which most don’t even come close to doing.</p>
<p>For many years I hired for a variety of international consulting jobs and needed employees who were able to speak different languages. Many perfected their language skills through studying abroad.</p>
<p>The ratio of students doing study abroad at my son’s state flagship university is now about 25%. They are really pushing to get it to 50%. It is one of their strategic goals. Why is it so important for universities, and the State Department (see Open Doors website of the Institute for International Education), if not for creating a different type of workforce? Is this a case where the benefit to the individual is less than the benefit to the society as a whole?</p>
<p>I’ve been involved with the hiring in my office for ~20 years. It would not be a factor in my field.</p>
<p>I would answer that the student if they are going to do this should do it for the experience, for learning about a new place, new people, etc rather then expecting it to necessarily “be a resume builder”. It is kind of like volunteer work showing up as EC’s on a college entrance exam to me, asking whether the candidate actually wanted to volunteer and make a difference or was doing so to make their resume look good…that said, it isn’t going to hurt them, in any event.</p>
<p>Where it might help is, for example, the student is studying a language and then applies it going to school overseas and the kid demonstrates true fluidity, that would be a plus. Also depends on the program, some overseas programs strike me more as transplanting a US environment to the foreign place then being really studying there…</p>
<p>As to why colleges and possibly the government are promoting it, these days, whether it means anything or not truly (and I make no claims), globalization, global community and the like are the buzzwords Du Jour, and colleges and governments have latched unto this like a lot of other things that have come and gone in the past, and by promoting ‘study abroad’ it is kind of supporting the buzzword idea, of exposing kids to other cultures, or being ready for the ‘global community’…in other words, i wouldn’t assume that because the government and/or the colleges are promoting this, that it is the same thing as being directly valuable in terms of employment, employers don’t always reflect what colleges and government promotes (25 years ago, academia on the heels of the success of Japan economically, along with the government, were promoting things like the team approach to everything, Kaizan and the like, seeing the ‘Japanese methods’ as the future…while there were places where this had impact, it also hasn’t become the widespread panacea they were promoting back then, for the simple reason that simple answers often don’t work to complex things:). </p>
<p>I think quite honestly that they should be promoting foreign language study at a serious level, for a number of reasons, and also should be promoting looking at how things operate globally, economically and socially, because many Americans are quite ignorant of what is going on, and these days that is critical, not just in business, but in living in this crazy world. If foreign study helps with that, it is great, but for most jobs and employers I suspect it isn’t as big a deal as for example, having worked or shown dedication and activity, grades and of course, relevance of coursework. If the reason for studying overseas is to boost employment chances alone, I would argue against it; if there is a reason, like hopefully genuine curiosity , and also the ability to really use language skills (can’t speak all that universally, but having known a number of people who did study abroad, a number of them didn’t really speak the language there and kind of treated it as an elongated vacation).</p>
<p>“As to why colleges and possibly the government are promoting it, these days, whether it means anything or not truly (and I make no claims), globalization, global community and the like are the buzzwords Du Jour,”</p>
<p>^^ Also, what is becomming increasingly popular are short-term (3-6wk) programs. Unlike the more traditional semester or year-long study abroad programs where the student applies his/her finaid to off-set the program fee, the short-term programs offer little or no finaid and are cash cows for the host school.</p>
<p>It’s like anything else: If you do something really interesting in a study abroad program and then present it enthusiastically, then it becomes a conversation starter, something that makes you stand out from the crowd, and helps get you hired.</p>
<p>You can’t say that “community service” (as a generic thing) gets you into college. Just hours listed on a resume? Probably not. Something that the admissions officers find interesting because of your terrific essay about it? Yes, absolutely, that can get you into college. </p>
<p>Same thing with a study abroad program.</p>
<p>The employer most animated about my semester abroad in Italy was the restauranteur in Boston’s LIttle Italy who needed a waitress. I worked there to save for graduate school. His customers spoke Sicilian and Calabrian dialects, rather than my Tuscan high-fallutin Italian, but they tipped in English. We all got along fine.</p>
<p>Professional interviewers zoomed in on that resume entry as an ice-breaker, especially within the decade following college graduation. I have no idea how it translated in the final job decision.</p>
<p>Depends on the position, but more often than not it’s not likely to have a huge impact… although the longer the time abroad the more unique such an experience it becomes. </p>
<p>However, regardless of if it has any direct impact it can still be a very enriching and rewarding experience. That in turn can certainly help one become a more well rounded and worldly individual, which could certainly be noticed by potential employers.</p>
<p>Particularly for those who haven’t previously spend much, or any, time outside the US a study abroad can certainly be a life changing experience.</p>
<p>I hire engineers and technicians, occasionally right out of college, and I care about study abroad. By itself it doesn’t get someone the job, but it does suggest a few personality traits that are important to me such as willingness to go outside one’s comfort zone, interest in something beyond a narrow field of study, and ability to deal with people from different cultural backgrounds.</p>
<p>How important this is depends on the position. If I need someone who will spend the next ten years designing machinery, then I probably wouldn’t care. But if I need someone who can interface with customers, coordinate project teams, and travel without hand-holding, I would view study abroad very positively.</p>
<p>Sometimes it can help in ways you might not expect. When my older son interviewed for his first job, his first interview of the day was with someone who was an avid photographer, and whose office walls were covered with photographs of the city where my son spent a semester abroad. That made for a great opening conversation.</p>
<p>Knew I’d find the study if I looked:</p>
<p>[Living</a> Outside the Box - Living abroad boosts creativity](<a href=“http://insight.kellogg.northwestern.edu/index.php/Kellogg/article/living_outside_the_box]Living”>http://insight.kellogg.northwestern.edu/index.php/Kellogg/article/living_outside_the_box)</p>
<p>If I were looking at the resume, it would sure make me wish that I had studied abroad.</p>