Returning to Indonesia 1998/1999

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Section I: Get Started Now

Getting Started: Planning and Setting Goals

Before you begin your job search, it is important to analyze how you have changed and what these changes mean for your personal and professional goals. Are your original goals for your professional future still valid? Or, on the basis of your experience abroad, have you consciously or unconsciously established new goals for the next stage of your life?

To answer these questions, we suggest you try the following exercise. Write down on a piece of paper your answers to the following questions. Be as specific and detailed as possible. These answers will be important clues for your transition back to Indonesia and for your transition from college life to the workplace.

Self-assessment

• What were your original goals and expectations for your education in the United States before you arrived? To what extent have you succeeded in accomplishing them?
• In what ways have you changed as a result of living and studying in the United States? Which of those changes are you happy with, and which are a problem for you?

Career goals and expectations

• How has your image of your professional career changed? Is that image still in flux, or has it been stabilized for you for some time?
• What knowledge and skills have you acquired while in an American university? How do you see using and developing skills further in your professional life in Indonesia?
• Is there a demand for your knowledge and these skills in Indonesia? What people in which positions in Indonesia are doing things you would like to be doing in five or ten years?

The job search before your return

Now that your self-assessment is underway, you are ready to explore professional fields relevant to your interests. We recommend a two-phase process. The first phase is networking and information gathering. This involves studying prospective organizations and contacting key professionals who have information about, and personal contacts within, those organizations.

The second phase is the actual pursuit of specific leads for job openings. The more effort you make in the networking phase, the more successful you are likely to be in the actual search for available positions back in Indonesia.