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Articles by Elaina Giolando
Put Down Your Phone: Why Presence Is the Best Gift You’ll Ever Give
Have you ever been in a room full of people but felt that no one was paying attention to anyone? Or have you been to an event where people seemed more concerned about making it look like they were having fun on social media instead of actually having fun in real life? Technology is rapidly taking over our lives. It dominates our interactions in both social and works situations.
What it's actually like to become a digital nomad
MY STORY, IN BRIEF: I left a job in management consulting in New York two-and-a-half years ago. Then I worked in a brutally demanding — and absolutely exhilarating — business development role for another two years, where I traveled to a new country to live and work every few months across Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East. It was the polar opposite of a corporate 9 to 5: results-oriented, self-motivated, and entrepreneurial.
The Pros and Cons of Learning a Language Online
While thinking about your dream language learning program, it is important to understand the benefits and drawbacks of learning a language online. Whether or not a program is in person or hosted virtually, a quality program will balance cultural context with language learning skills, such as active skills (speaking, writing) and passive skills (listening, reading).
Chinese Language Schools in Singapore
Average Chinese Language School Tuition in Singapore The tuition fees vary greatly, depending on the number of hours, whether it's group or private tuition, and whether the course is intense or regular. Fees can start at around $400 for 10 two-hour lessons, but can also rise to $2000. Some schools offer trial lessons, which can be a useful way of ascertaining whether you feel the course is right for you.
How I’ve Learned To Get Someone To Put Down Their Phone And Listen
Over the past few years, researchers have found the mere presence of a phone in front of two people trying to have a conversation can distract them both. With a device in sight, the brain anticipates a potential disruption–and focusing gets even harder when the task at hand is more cognitively challenging than just talking. What does that mean for team productivity when everyone brings their devices to meetings, tapping away on them while someone up front is trying to speak?
How I've Learned To Get Someone To Put Down Their Phone And Listen
Over the past few years, researchers have found the mere presence of a phone in front of two people trying to have a conversation can distract them both. With a device in sight, the brain anticipates a potential disruption–and focusing gets even harder when the task at hand is more cognitively challenging than just talking. What does that mean for team productivity when everyone brings their devices to meetings, tapping away on them while someone up front is trying to speak?
Six Ways I Built A Career Traveling The World In My 20s
However, I used to have a much less exciting job. Having worked in the consulting division of a huge multinational company, I know what it feels like to be plugging away in a cubicle in New York or Chicago. But what I’ve found–completely by accident, in retrospect–is that there are a few clear strategies for launching the globe-trotting career of your dreams. Here are six of the ways I’ve managed to pull it off.
This Is How Your Random Facebook Friends Can Help You Land Your Dream Job
When you think of how many Facebook friends you’ve accrued over the years, your head probably spins. Many of them are random people you met briefly or never officially met at all. There’s the fiancée of the groom’s cousin you chatted with at that wedding last summer (she’s a lab technician or something, right?).
What Motorbiking Across Bali Taught Me About Life
Bali is stupidly beautiful, but you wouldn’t notice it at first when you land at Denpasar airport and make the two-hour journey north to Ubud. What you do notice are Balinese families stacked onto motorcycles like small houses of cards, babies swaddled in the left nook of the drivers’ arms like coconuts and only slightly older children hanging on the back, dozing off as if they were sitting in the backseat of the car.
I've worked in a dozen countries — here are the 9 biggest mistakes people make when looking for a job overseas
I’ve worked in more than a dozen countries over the past three years — including Mongolia, South Africa, Turkey, Qatar, and Nigeria — but I used to have a much less exciting job working in the consulting division of a huge multinational company in New York City. Having spent my college years studying Chinese and conducting research in Latin America, I dedicated my post-grad nights and weekends to figuring out how to put my International Relations degree and foreign language skills to good use.
I’m Living Proof That It’s Time To Redefine The “American Dream”
I’m 27, which means I belong to a demographic that government data and corporate research suggest is missing out on the American Dream. We live at home, change jobs every other year, and are unemployed or underemployed for long stretches. And make no mistake: that’s true of many of my peers. But while the obstacles we face are real—and unevenly portioned out—the statistics don’t capture the nuances of millennial life. At least not mine.
Want To Live And Work Overseas? Take This Two-Week Trip First
You can only get so far by thinking about stuff. Sometimes you just have to go for it. Maybe “going for it” for you means landing a full-time job someplace abroad, or maybe it’s becoming a digital nomad–traveling around the world continuously and working for yourself. But whichever path you’ve got your eye on, you’ll eventually get to a point where you’ve done a ton of research, lots of mulling it over, and now feel both really inspired and completely hopeless.
I Took a Career Break Gap Year… and Didn't Ruin My Career | Go Overseas
How you talk about and evaluate your decision to take time off will dictate how everyone else sees that decision, too. I met a girl at a networking event in Berlin recently who hadn't worked in 3 years. I asked her if she was nervous about getting hired again after that long of a break, and her response was essentially: "No way. I've had the time of my life, learned stuff that someone who's been in the office for the past 3 years hasn't learned, and I'm fresh.
10 Tips for Working Abroad in a Foreign Language | Go Overseas
We sat waiting in a surprisingly well-furnished boardroom, nervously laying out our materials, and contemplating how we -- an American girl and a Polish guy -- had landed ourselves in Paraguay to complete an economic report on the country for a British newspaper. In Spanish. Sure, I had studied abroad in Spanish-speaking countries and even had an internship in Guatemala during college, so my company was probably convinced I had the requisite background for this assignment.
How to Use an Informational Interview to Get a Job Abroad | Go Overseas
If you're looking to score a job or internship internationally, the key to success in your global job search is to build a global network. One of the best ways to go about doing this is to reach out to people of interest to you in your target country via LinkedIn, company websites, or personal blogs and approach them for an informational interview. So then, what is "informational interviewing" exactly?
How to Write a Resume for Anywhere in the World | Go Overseas
I'll never forget sitting in my living room in Nigeria with a colleague from Portugal after he asked me to share my resume with him. He had a Spanish friend applying for a job in Germany and she was asking for inspiration and examples. Given that I was an American working for a European company in Africa, he assumed I had the perfect resume. So did I. Until he took one look at it and said, "Uh, where's the rest of it?
Tips for Acing Your Interview for an International Internship | Go Overseas
1. Do Your Research This is absolutely critical. The secret to landing a job that you may not be totally qualified for is that the employer wants someone who understands what he or she is getting into. You can score major bonus points over other candidates simply by having a crystal clear idea of the company, role, and what they need right now, beyond what’s merely in the job description. Spend an enormous amount of time researching the organization you’re applying to.
9 Real Benefits of Learning a Second Language
TLDR đź‘€ You'll get paid more You'll be more desired on the job market Your memory will improve You'll gain new social experiences and better integrate into cultures abroad You'll reportedly become more attractive Your brain will thank you You'll be a better multi-tasker You'll feel like a whole new person You'll become more empathetic I recently started a new job in the Mexico City office of a major Silicon Valley company.
Benefits of Getting Your Masters in Ireland vs. the US | Go Overseas
If you're considering studying a Master's degree overseas, you may be wondering how doing a Master's degree in Ireland will affect your post-graduate job opportunities? Does having your Master's from overseas negatively affect your career prospects? The short answer is: no, but it does depend on your desired field of study. In general, it isn't a good idea to study law, medicine, or any other field that requires a post-graduate certification specific to the country where you'll be practicing.
Reasons Why Studying Abroad Cheaply is More Authentic (And How You Can Do It!) | Go Overseas
Many study abroad experiences are unforgettable. My fondest memories of studying abroad in China include being invited to countless birthday dinners by Chinese students, enjoying downtown Xiamen nightlife with only young Chinese people around, and grilling shao kao in the back alleys of obscure parts of the city.
Six Ways I Built A Career Traveling The World In My 20s
At 27, I have almost a decade of meaningful international experience. I’ve worked professionally in more than a dozen countries, including Mongolia, South Africa, Turkey, Qatar, and Nigeria, and now I’m part of the international operations team of a major Silicon Valley startup in Mexico and Australia. However, I used to have a much less exciting job.
The '3-second rule' will help you live a more authentic life
For all the various questions I get from readers of my blog, from "How do I land my dream job?" and "How can I network with confidence?" to "How do I nail all my job interviews?" and "I have no idea what to do next in my life, what do I do?", there is really just one answer: You have to know what you want. Have you ever gone shopping without a list?
How My First Sales Job Traveling The World Changed My Career
It was a Friday morning and I happened to be drinking vodka. I don’t even drink, but I'd just closed a deal with the CEO of a Mongolian hedge fund and he insisted on drinking shots to celebrate. From his boardroom on the twelfth floor, I could see the frozen streets of Ulaanbaatar below, a foreboding reminder that I still had the rest of winter in the world’s coldest capital city to suffer through, not to mention a half-million dollar target to hit.
Why Study Abroad in Berlin? | Go Overseas
Berlin is not only the capital of Germany, but also in many ways the capital of Europe, sitting at the crossroads of the East and West. Germany serves as the continent's largest economy and the world's fourth largest overall. It's a major player in industry, engineering, science, and renewable energy, and Berlin has recently been dubbed the start-up capital of Europe, surpassing London after the 2016 Brexit decision.
What Do Employers Think of International Experience? | Go Overseas
Whether you’ve gone overseas for a gap year, internship, volunteer experience, or study abroad, it can be challenging to communicate the lessons you learned and the skills you gained to an employer. Not to mention the most pressing question of all: how will they evaluate my time abroad? Am I less employable because I did something more unconventional? And how do I use what they think about international experience to sell myself and my time overseas even more convincingly?
8 lies you're telling yourself while trying to find your purpose in life
Thirty years ago, a job title told others how you earned money. Today, a job title tells others who you are. In a highly capitalistic society, it makes sense that our sense of self would be derived from how we earn money. We've been taught that there's who we are, what we love to do, and how we earn money, and somehow those all need to be one thing.
8 Lies You're Telling Yourself While Trying to Find Your Purpose in Life
Today, there's a lot of pressure to have a job that encompasses your passion. Flickr/Ana Rodríguez Carrington Thirty years ago, a job title told others how you earned money. Today, a job title tells others who you are. In a highly capitalistic society, it makes sense that our sense of self would be derived from how we earn money. We've been taught that there's who we are, what we love to do, and how we earn money, and somehow those all need to be one thing.
Being Miserable at Work Doesn’t Mean You Have to Quit
Quitting a job has become very sexy. There has always been a certain allure associated with running off to travel the world or start a company, but the fascination with Silicon Valley has inundated us with these kinds of stories. For young people, this can result in an overly simplistic mentality: I’m either happy or I’m not; I either love my job or I have to quit; I either work for “the man” or work for myself.
The Counterintuitive Career Lesson I Learned By Traveling The World
I purposely don’t tell my family about the "crazy" things I do when I travel. They only found out that I'd hitchhiked through Burma, motorbiked across southern India, or walked alone across the Egyptian-Israeli border at sunrise well after the fact. Because I know what they’d say: Can’t you get kidnapped like that? Can’t you get robbed? Or harassed? Or hurt? And they'd have a point. Sure, all those mishaps are conceivable, but they aren't all that likely.
12 tiny transformations that will improve your life
I can't say it happened overnight. I've been on a journey to achieve greater mindfulness and calmness for some time now, especially because it's not something most of us can switch on or off and suddenly stop being a part of the "next!" generation, whose answer to most things is to just keep scrolling, clicking, and updating to discover what's better — and driving ourselves insane in the process.
Why Avoiding Student Loan Debt Was The Best Thing I Ever Did
Most of us want to do it all: find meaningful work, travel while we’re young, say no to the wrong opportunities, say yes to the right ones, experiment with entrepreneurship, save for the future and create a lifestyle that allows us to live life to the fullest.
The Perspective Shift You Need To Make If You're Always Feeling Unmotivated
I’ve been suffering from a bout of something bloggers and entrepreneurship gurus don’t seem to cover very often: feeling deeply, darkly unmotivated. Over the past few weeks, I’ve been living in one of the hippest and most inspirational cities on the planet, Berlin, and sticking my toes into what — with the recent Brexit decision — is about to be Europe’s most dynamic locale for technology, startups, art and creativity. But, I’d been dealing with serious “blinking cursor” syndrome.
5 ways travel ruined my life
THIS MAY SOUND like an odd title for a travel blogger to use, but it’s true – travel HAS ruined my life. Everyone says how amazing it sounds, that I travel all the time. That I disappear off on journeys around the world and see incredible places and have the best adventures. No one warned me about the negatives, about the downsides of travel, and jetting off to different countries all the time, and so I found them out the hard way.
What I learned at Burning Man and why you should go too
It was the middle of the night, and I couldn’t see more than two feet in front of me as white cake-like dust swirled around my face, clogging my nose and stinging the back of my throat. When the dust storm cleared, a 50-foot long fire-breathing dragon cruised across the horizon, music pulsated from 100 different mutant art vehicles, and 70,000 people in fur, neon lights, goggles, and dust masks biked among dozens of multi-story, LED art structures.
Why and How to Study Abroad as a Biology Major
As you probably already know, biology is the fastest-growing science today with applications to technology, healthcare, climate change, medicine, and even agriculture -- making it a great major for college students. Some biology students want to conduct research, others want to become doctors or teachers, but regardless of your ultimate professional objective, there are huge benefits from taking your studies overseas as a biology major.
How I've traveled the world for a year with less than 20k
It always feels great to accomplish a big goal. Ever since I started going abroad when I was 18, I promised myself I would take a full year off before I turned 30 to travel, and I’ll wrap up my 13th month on the road by my 27th birthday later this year. I’ve been making my way across Southeast Asia, India, Nepal, and Europe since August 2015, and everyone wants to know how I manage to do it, from a financial as well as career perspective.
8 Ways To Stop Being 'So American' When You Travel Abroad
The first time I went to Europe, I was visiting a friend who had been studying in the Czech Republic for six months. I’ll never forget our epic reunion in a local cafe. In all my excitement, I grabbed her in a huge hug and squealed loudly in delight. My lovely friend, by then acquainted with a more international standard of behavior, pulled me into our booth and whispered with a smile, “I’m so happy to see you! Remember, we’re in Europe now.
7 words that have the potential to transform your life
Every month I work with dozens of young people from around the globe who have no idea what they’re doing with their lives (truth be told, most of us have no idea what we’re doing, yet we’re still here, doing it anyway), and I spend half an hour once a week telling them everything I know. I find a lot of common threads in these conversations and want to share my top takeaways with the hope they may help more people than those who choose to step into my virtual office.
Here's The One Thing You're Probably Getting Wrong About Networking
One of the most overused (and least understood) words in the professional development space starts with N. And that word is “networking.” If I use it in my articles or when working with clients, everybody’s like, “Yeah, yeah, I know. I’m supposed to go to events, pass out my business cards, send follow-up emails and suck up to people since it’s all about who you know…” And I want to say, “No. Stop right there.
7 Ways To Stop Doubting Your Career Path When No One Supports It
Last week I took four flights for two days straight to get from the capital of Nepal to my hometown of Buffalo, New York. I packed up the backpack I’d been living out of for eight months, plopped back down into the middle of America and the middle of something that looks like most people’s day-to-day reality.
How to Figure Out Your Life's Purpose
Every month I coach dozens of young people from around the globe who have no idea what they’re doing with their lives how to better plan their careers. Having found a number of common threads, I’ve put together some guidance for anyone seeking to determine their life’s purpose. Here are the main concepts to consider, distilled into seven key words: Most of my clients have no idea what they want.
The '3-second rule' will help you live a more authentic life
For all the various questions I get from readers of my blog, from "How do I land my dream job?" and "How can I network with confidence?" to "How do I nail all my job interviews?" and "I have no idea what to do next in my life, what do I do?", there is really just one answer: You have to know what you want. Have you ever gone shopping without a list?
A tiny habit that will make you smarter and more creative
Have you ever found yourself on a first date, trying to sound smart and talk about your favorite books, only to discover that almost everything you once devoured with enthusiasm has disappeared from memory? Or you can't even name the author of the last book you read? Or what about the great article in the New York Times you just read this morning? You might remember what it was generally about, but you can't speak about it intelligently. What gives? I'm no better.
I changed my life and career in 30 days
If you had told me on March 10, 2013 that in the next 4 weeks I would fly myself to Spain for a job interview, accept an offer to join a tiny European company (in an industry I didn't even know existed), willingly consent to move to a new country every 3 months as part of the position, and quit my job as a management consultant in New York City, I probably would have demanded you drag me to the nearest shrink to make sure I hadn't totally gone off the deep-end yet.
4 steps to identify your purpose
If your current job is draining and unfulfilling but you don't know what to do instead, or you're thinking about moving to a new city or country but you don't know where, or you want to go back to school but you're not sure what to study, then you're at one of the many crossroads of life, moments which require a deliberate pause to tap into the truth of the heart before going any further. So how do you do that? How do you find out what your deepest Inner Being really wants?
How to make the most of a job you don't find satisfying
Although the nature of the modern workforce is changing rapidly, many ambitious 20-somethings still find themselves as consultants, bankers, and analysts at some of the world’s largest companies, working 9 to 5 (or 5 to 9) by day, but dreaming of “doing their own thing” by night.
12 tiny transformations to improve life
I’ve been on a journey to achieve greater mindfulness and calmness for some time now, especially because it’s not something most of us can switch on or off and suddenly stop being a part of the “next!” generation, whose answer to most things is to just keep scrolling, clicking, and updating to discover what’s better — and driving ourselves insane in the process.
Ways Recent Grads Can Work and Travel Abroad for Free
Everyone wants to travel, and you're guilty as charged if you're reading this. Taking time off between work and school is one of the best things you can do, but it also takes a huge amount of courage, independence, planning, and financial savvy to make it happen. One of the things most people wonder about those who travel a lot is: how do they afford it? And as a sensible college grad, you're probably also wondering: is there a way to work and travel abroad for free?
8 ways I made travel a major part of my life and career
Here I go, spilling all my secrets again. As I write this from a cafe in Toronto, I’ve officially packed up and stored what’s left of what I own from the first time I sold it all and took a job overseas, and packed up a new 46 liter backpack for an indefinite trip to Southeast Asia and India.
Want to Work Abroad? Become a Digital Nomad
Beads of sweat fell into my eyes as I heaved my backpack into the small hostel room, swatting mosquitoes and collapsing onto a thin mattress. I had just gotten off a night bus from Rio de Janeiro in a tiny town in southern Brazil with no sleep and no plans. I was just happy to be alone for a few minutes. "You look like you've seen better days," called out a male voice in an undeniable American accent. My eyes shot open, startled.
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