How to Move Abroad: Because Getting There Starts With Getting Hired

A client this week is living the digital nomad dream in Spain. Remote contract, digital nomad visa, the whole thing. And he came to me because the contract could dry up at any moment and he has no idea what happens next.

This episode is for him. And honestly, for a lot of you.

Remote doesn’t mean portable. Your US employer saying “you can work from anywhere” almost certainly means anywhere in the US, and there’s probably a location clause buried in your contract that proves it. Add return to office mandates that show up...

You clicked the box. You feel like you did something. You didn’t.

This week I’m breaking down why “open to relocation” on LinkedIn is basically just telling the world you want to leave — and why that’s not the same thing as getting hired abroad. Recruiters search by location first. If your profile still says Kansas City, nobody in Frankfurt is coming for you.

BUT. That same box inside your own company’s HR system? Whole different story. That one I actually use — and it’s how I got my first job abroad and how my husband...

“There is no way I’m putting THAT on my resume.”

Right... don’t be mad, but your American is showing.

If you’re applying for jobs in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Spain, or Portugal and you’re refusing to put a photo, a birthdate, or your nationality on your CV — you’re taking yourself out of the running before anyone’s read a single word.

This week I’m breaking down the three things that trip Americans up on European CVs. The photo, the birthdate, and your permit status. What they actually mean, what I personally do...

Last week I drove to a lake to run 22K — my last long training run before a race this weekend. I had my gear, my energy bar, my whole situation sorted.

I made it 150 meters before I tripped over a tree root and went down with road rash all the way down my arm.

I scraped myself up, assessed the situation, and went home.

I had another run scheduled for Monday. I ran it. Outside. Same surfaces, same risk of tree roots. And the race is still happening this weekend.

That's wh...

I just got back from a yoga retreat on a Greek island. To get there I had to take a nine hour ferry. I hate boats. I get motion sick like it's my actual job. I almost didn't go because of the ferry.

And somewhere around hour four, slightly green, staring at the horizon, I thought about your international job search. Because that ferry is exactly what this feels like.

Swaying. No end in sight. Desperate to get off. Knowing the only way to the island is staying on.

This week I'm talking...

It's a trap.

Not my words. Admiral Ackbar's. But also — absolutely — your international job application process.

You find the posting. You tailor your resume. You hit submit. You hear nothing. You apply again. And again. And again. And you start wondering what's wrong with you.

Nothing is wrong with you. You walked into a trap called ATS — Applicant Tracking System — the software that sits between your resume and an actual human being who could hire you. And if your resume doesn't speak its language, no human ever sees your name.

This week I'm...

My official job title is a bunch of gibberish. Lead for BD... What is that. What does that mean. If you're a recruiter in Switzerland who's never worked in pharmaceutical business development and contract manufacturing — you have no idea. And you have approximately zero seconds of patience to figure it out before you move to the next application.

What I actually am is a Quality Director. Same job. Completely different title. And that difference is the difference between a recruiter understanding what I do in three seconds and a recruiter moving on.

This week I'm ta...

When I transferred my job from Vienna to Zurich within the same company, I still had to apply for it. And interview for it. Because Switzerland considered it a new position — and before my company could give it to me, they had to prove to Swiss authorities that no local candidate could do what I do.

For my own job. That I was already doing.

This week I'm talking about the legal reality of international hiring that almost nobody explains clearly — why employers in most European countries are required to demonstrate they couldn't find a loca...

When you hear the word football you think Patrick Mahomes and Tom Brady. The rest of the world hears it and thinks Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi. Same word. Completely different game.

And this is the most accurate description of what is happening in your international job search right now.

You have been doing everything right — the resume, the cover letter, the applications, the follow ups. That's football. That's the game you know. But the moment you decided to land a job abroad you walked onto a FOOTBALL pitch in full pads and a helmet an...

You've applied to a lot of jobs. Maybe hundreds. And you keep hearing nothing, or you get to the final round and they hire the local candidate, and you're starting to wonder what's wrong with you.

Nothing is wrong with you. Your experience is not the problem.

Your strategy is the problem. And that is actually the best possible news because strategy can be fixed.

This week I'm starting a new arc focused entirely on landing a job abroad — and we're starting with mindset because none of the tactical stuff works if the fo...

When I moved to Switzerland I didn't speak German. And I was fine. I worked for a global company, English was the working language, I could do my job completely competently without it.

And then I moved to Vienna. And I had a direct report who didn't feel comfortable speaking English. And suddenly I had to manage someone... in German. And that changed everything about how I learned.

This week I'm talking about the language barrier and your career abroad. The three levels of language need and which one applies to you. Why Foreign Fridays...

My daughter and I are reading Harry Potter right now. Goblet of Fire specifically. And somewhere between the dragon and the lake and the maze I realized ... this is exactly what moving abroad feels like.

Quick note upfront: JK Rowling has said and done things I don't agree with and won't pretend otherwise. The story belongs to the readers now. So we're talking about the story.

This week I'm mapping the Triwizard Tournament onto the move abroad process.

The dragon: the obstacle you didn't fully see coming that you have to get through...

Nobody goes from the couch to running 10 kilometers without training. It doesn't matter how motivated you are, how badly you want it, or how expensive your shoes are. The distance requires training. The training takes time. And the time is not optional.

Moving abroad is exactly the same.

This week I'm using running — actual running, the specific experience of sitting in the driveway wondering if you just go, the first kilometer feeling great, kilometer two where you want to die — to talk about what the move abroad process actually looks like from the inside. Why you...

Twelve years in and three moves later, I'm going back to 2013 — the Switzerland move, the one that started it all — and telling you exactly what I'd do differently.

The good stuff first: negotiating to keep my job across an ocean, moving the cats the right way, and doing a scouting trip to find our apartment before we arrived. All of it worth it.

And then the honest part. The queen size sleigh bed that didn't fit. The cookie sheets that didn't fit the oven. The $2,000 we had in the bank when we needed three months of r...

I cannot swim. I know the theory. I've watched people do it my entire life. I could explain the mechanics to you in detail.

And if you threw me in a pool right now the outcome would not be good.

This week I'm talking about why moving abroad is the same — why you cannot read or research your way into being ready for something you can only learn by doing. Why the not knowing yet is not the problem. Why the falling down on the ice is not failure, it's the process. And why my da...

You've been googling moving abroad for weeks. Maybe months. And the information you've found is — some of it useful, some of it outdated, and some of it confidently, specifically wrong in ways that are sending your planning in the wrong direction.

This week I'm going through the biggest things Google gets wrong about moving abroad. The money number that doesn't apply to you. The digital nomad visa obsession. The Schengen confusion. The backwards order of operations. The you stop paying US taxes when you leave myth that could actually get you in legal trouble.

Google is...

I've restarted this episode three times. I've made coffee I didn't drink. I've listened to approximately four true crime podcasts this week and I know more about cases in rural Ohio than I do about my own content plan.

And I'm guessing you have a version of this too. Not about a podcast. About the move. The research you've been doing. The applications you've been sending. The thing you've been working toward that hasn't quite shown up back yet.

This week I'm talking about the in-between. The hardest part that nobody names. The place where...

I am, in English, reasonably funny. Quick. Articulate. I can read a room.

In German, even after years, I am a flattened version of myself. I can express the basic version of an idea. I cannot do nuance. The jokes don't translate. And in social situations I go quiet — not because I have less to say, but because the gap between what I want to say and what I'm capable of saying is genuinely embarrassing.

This week I'm talking about something I call competence grief ... the real, disorienting loss that comes from being good at th...

You've optimized your LinkedIn profile. You have the right keywords, the right headline, the right summary. You're applying to listings that match your experience. You're posting content to stay visible.

And nothing is happening.

This week I'm telling you why. LinkedIn is not a job hunting platform — it's social media for people who are at work. And the difference between those two things matters enormously when you're trying to get a job in another country as a foreign applicant hitting apply from six thousand miles away.

What LinkedIn is actually good for. What it...

Moving abroad is a privilege. I'm going to say that clearly and then spend the whole episode explaining what I mean by it — because I don't mean what you might think I mean.

I moved to Switzerland with less than $2,000 in the bank. I also had a relocation package, a transferable job, a university education, and a US passport. Both of those things were true at the same time. And I think that's actually the more honest version of this conversation than either extreme — not only rich people can move abroad, and also not everyone can move abro...

You've been using visa, permit, and residency like they mean the same thing. They don't. And it's sending your research in the wrong direction.

This week I'm walking through the vocabulary of moving abroad — not in a glossary kind of way, just in a these words matter and here's why kind of way. Visa vs. permit. Temporary vs. permanent residency. Citizenship vs. naturalization. Schengen vs. EU. Domicile. Leave to remain. All of it.

Because the more fluent you get in this language the clearer your planning becomes. And right now a lot of you are go...

In this episode, I'm just chatting about what it's really like to live abroad and what I miss most about the US. There's no task on this one... just me and you sharing how it actually feels to live abroad.

I had cancer at thirty. I've navigated healthcare in two countries with that history, including a high-risk pregnancy in Switzerland that cost me nothing beyond my regular insurance premium.

This week I'm talking about what healthcare in Europe actually looks like — how most of Europe's systems work for legal residents, what makes Switzerland different, whether doctors speak English, and what to do about the gap between leaving your American coverage and getting onto a new system.

Also: if you've been telling yourself you can't move abroad because of your health situation — please listen to this one...

Here's the thing nobody says clearly enough: moving abroad is not opting out. You still file US taxes. You still carry that passport and get the face when someone finds out you're American. You still feel the dollar losing value in your actual bank account. You are still affected by what happens there.

This week I'm making the case for why your vote matters more from abroad than you might think ... and why five million Americans living outside the US not voting is one of the most quietly consequential political facts nobody talks about.

FVAP...

Nobody wants to talk about taxes. Until the IRS sends them a letter, at which point everybody wants to talk about taxes very urgently.

This week I'm giving you the heads up before that happens. The basics of what Americans abroad actually need to know about US taxes — why you still have to file even when you live somewhere else, why you probably won't owe anything, what FBAR is and why the penalties for missing it are genuinely alarming, and what to do about your state taxes before you leave.

This is not tax advice. I...

Someone I know just got accepted into a Master's program in France. She's in her thirties. She's moving in September. And she is not doing this because she couldn't think of anything else — she's doing it because it is one of the smartest moves I've seen someone make in a long time.

This week I'm making the case for the student visa as a legitimate, strategic, completely underrated pathway for adults who want to move abroad. We're talking about what a student visa actually gives you, why earning a local degree dramatically changes your job prospects in th...

This one is for the person who has been doing the work. Really doing it — hiring coaches, rewriting the resume, applying and applying and applying — and still not moving.

This week I'm talking about what's actually happening when the job-first strategy isn't working, why the problem is sometimes structural and not personal, and the questions worth sitting with honestly when you've been at this long enough that the effort and the results have completely stopped matching.

Also: the thing career coaches often don't say, why being on the ground changes everything, and why your first move...

My daughter has been in schools in two countries across three different systems — a bilingual Swedish-German private school in Vienna, a German-English bilingual private school in Switzerland, and next year the local Swiss public school. Every single one of those decisions was made deliberately, for specific reasons, with real trade-offs.

This week I'm talking about what I actually learned navigating school systems abroad — the real cost of international school versus local school, what the Swiss tracking system at grade six means and why it matters more than most expat content will tell you, and the questions you actu...

You have the plan. You have the country, the visa, the number, the Tuesday Test results. You know this works.

Now you have to tell people.

This week I'm walking through every type of person you're going to tell about your move abroad — the Catastrophizer, the Underminer, the one who makes it about themselves, the Unsolicited Expert, and the rare and precious Quiet Supportive One — and exactly how to handle each of them without abandoning your plan or your sanity.

Also: the partner conversation, the people who won't come around, and what you actu...

You picked a country. Amazing. Now let's find out if it actually works.

Not the Instagram version — anyone can imagine themselves somewhere beautiful on a Saturday with a glass of wine and nowhere to be. The Tuesday version. The one where you need to buy toilet paper and find a dentist and figure out whether your visa actually works and whether you can afford to live there on your actual budget.

This week I'm walking you through the Tuesday Test — five questions that tell you whether your country works for your real life or whether you...

Last week I made you cry. This week I'm giving you a break.

No frameworks, no heavy stuff, no seventeen-step process. Just the honest, slightly unhinged truth about why you're overcomplicating this — and the only three things you actually need right now to move this whole situation forward.

Spoiler: it's not a perfect plan. It's not a fully funded savings account. It's not a remote job and a signed lease and a detailed spreadsheet.

It's a country, a visa lane, and your actual number. That's it. We're covering all three and then I'm se...

I found out I had breast cancer at thirty years old. That's the real reason I moved abroad — not the job offer, not the adventure. The diagnosis that made one day stop being an option.

This week I'm telling you the actual story. The cancer. The friends I lost. My best friend of twenty years I haven't spoken to in eleven. The moment every single time I say goodbye to my mom at the airport. The weight of being far from home when things go wrong.

And then I'm telling you why I'd do it ag...

Everyone on the internet has an opinion about how much money you need to move abroad. Most of them are wrong — or at least, wrong for you.

This week I'm giving you a simple formula to calculate your actual savings target based on your specific situation: where you're going, which visa you're using, and how long you need to float yourself before income kicks in. Because your number is built from those things — not from a Reddit thread and not from what someone else paid to move to Barcelona in 2019.

I'm also getting into why the...

Moving abroad means making trade-offs. Every single person who has done it has had to make them — there is no version of this where you don't. The goal isn't to avoid them. It's to make them on purpose instead of by accident, because the accidental ones are the ones you end up resenting.

This week I'm breaking down the two trade-offs that trip people up the most — do you move now with less money or wait and keep saving, and do you ship your stuff or sell it all and start fresh. I'm also getting into how to s...

Once people realize moving abroad might actually be possible, this is where things usually go sideways.

In this episode, I talk through the exact places I see people overspend when they’re scared, where they cheap out and regret it later, and how fear quietly drives a lot of money decisions during an international move. This isn’t about perfect budgeting or cutting everything fun — it’s about making trade-offs intentionally instead of panicking your way through them.

If you want to move abroad without burning cash, burning out, or resenting every decision you make along th...

There’s a moment in the move-abroad process that almost no one talks about — and it’s not the exciting beginning or the adrenaline-filled end.

It’s the messy middle.

In this episode of How to Move Abroad, I talk about the exact point where most people quietly bow out of their plans — not because they ran the numbers and the numbers said no, but because they didn’t run the numbers and let fear fill in the blanks.

We’re talking about money in a way that actually helps you move forward — not finance-bro...

Appointments and processing timelines are the part of moving abroad people avoid until it is too late.

In this episode, I break down the difference between document timelines, appointment timelines, processing timelines, and your real life move timeline. I explain why appointments are often the real bottleneck, how to plan backwards so you stop getting surprised, and what to do when you cannot get a slot.

I also share my Austria appointment adventure and the lesson it taught me about building buffer time and backup plans.

Weekly task included: the Appointment Map.

In this episode, I break down the documents that control your moving abroad timeline, including passports, certified birth and marriage certificates, background checks, income proof, and when apostilles and translations matter.

I also explain the three ways people get delayed (wrong document version, authentication requirements, and expiration windows) and I give you a simple weekly task.

Grab PreparedAF to make your document checklist SIMPLE!

Follow me on Instagram @iammistelle

Moving abroad is not expensive in one big way. It is expensive in dozens of small ones. In this episode, I break down what you should DIY, what is worth paying for, and where people waste money out of overwhelm instead of strategy.

We talk about how to decide based on risk, timeline, and complexity, which parts of moving abroad are safe to do yourself, and when paying for professional help actually saves you time, money, and stress. I also share common traps like paying for country selection before knowing your visa and buying courses without an...

Proof of funds isn’t a personal attack... it’s a stability check. In this episode, I explain what proof of funds actually means in plain English, what typically counts as “proof” (income, savings, self-employment, combinations, and sometimes insurance), why the requirements change depending on your visa lane, and how to make a plan if you don’t meet the requirement yet, without turning it into a crisis.

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