More companies are turning to professional services to help their employees' spouses continue their careers while on assignment. Follow Joanna Parfitt's guide to what's available.

Despite an increasingly global society the problem of the expatriate spouse maintaining his or her career remains at large.

The 'dual career' issue is not going to go away - because the number-one reason for foreign assignment failure remains spousal and familial discontent.

Increasingly companies are realising that self-employment and portable careers are an alternative solution.

 According to Dr Elisabeth Marx, in her book Breaking Through Culture Shock 75 percent of international managers are involved in a dual career scenario. Now that more couples find themselves in a dual career situation prior to the expatriation of one partner, this is reflected in the large numbers of accompanying partners who want to find fulfilling occupation while overseas.

But there is no doubt that 'on-the-economy' careers are the hardest to track down and hang onto.

Not only that, the high cost of living in some countries, coupled with the family's desire to maintain an overseas lifestyle, means that many repatriating partners need to work on their return too.

What follows is an overview of the major problems and some of the methods currently being used to solve them.

Many countries pose the following problems to the spouse:

• Lack of work permit
• Language issues
• Cultural issues
• Lack of jobs available (local employees have priority)
• Inevitable lack of spouse's long-term commitment
• Incompatible certification/licensing
• Spouse's lack of transferable skills

As yet, work permits are still not readily available for spouses of expatriate employees in the USA. Laura Herring, President of the Impact Group in Missouri has spent over ten years helping partners to overcome the problem.

"We currently help the spouses of more than 250 corporations in 4500 locations," she says. "By next March we will have helped 15,000 people to find work of some kind".

Nevertheless, Herring suggests that any spouse wanting to work in the US should find his or her own permit and position beforehand. Applying for a work permit once you have relocated makes things much more difficult.

Dual career services and job centres

Today it seems as if more and more companies are turning to the services of people like Herring as a proactive step towards solving the dual career problem, worldwide.

Netexpat is a company that specialises in providing one-to-one career coaching.

Ricklin-Echiksen Associates and The Impact Group are actively recruiting people with both expatriate and counselling experience to add to their international team of consultants. This is a growing business.

Yet career and life coaching are not the only solution. The Shell Spouse Employment Centre, based in the Hague, offer a rich resource of information and support to all partners.

Recently they added a 'road show' to the list, and a small team now travels to Shell sites worldwide to conduct a short series of workshops on topics such as interview techniques and CV compilation.

Shell also offer to pay a certain amount towards retraining and education as well as websites and locally based support centres run by volunteers.

A recent initiative from 'Schlumberger wife' Roselyne Doucet is Partnerjob.com, which is a searchable database of short-term vacancies that are available to spouses.

"Partnerjob has a number of sponsors, largely with a French connection," explains Doucet.

"Each company is able to post its vacancies, while each partner can post his or her CV online."

The project was recently presented to the CBI's European Mobility Forum in London to great acclaim.

What companies are doing

The list of initiatives currently employed by corporations is vast, but by no means exhaustive. Here follows a list of just some of the efforts made by a variety of international companies:

• Look into the possibilities of a dual assignment, offering the spouse a position within employee organisation, even if previously not employed by them.
• Discuss possibility of telecommuting contract with partner's current employer.
• Provision of career counselling (CV development, interview techniques, identification of transferable skills) so spouses can spend time away on career and personal development.
• Assistance acquiring visas and work permits.
• Provision of books or other resources, such as A Career in Your Suitcase or Working Abroad titles.
• Provision of free email account and Internet access, intranet, resources, together with installation, training and support.
• Provision of job search and networking resources (International Directory of Employment Agencies and Recruiters, addresses of expatriate organisations)
• Creation and maintenance of database of information and resources, setting up conference room and phone line for spouses, resource library with materials on local community, directory of expatriates.
• Financial funding of retraining (usually to a ceiling of around 3,300 euros per assignment).
• Financial funding to compensate for job loss to be used for any purpose.
• Creation and support of local volunteer bases, training courses, resource libraries, job research positions.
• Provision of employment within company's own local support centre.
• Creation of a job hotline in which project-based jobs are available.
• Provision of free telephone helpline or email support.
• Provision of language training.
• Access to employment opportunity magazines and newspapers.
• Financial compensation if no work permit is available.
• Support the partner's return home several times a year for professional conferences or workshops so that they may keep up to date in their field.
• Funding membership of support groups or professional networks.
• Assistance with finding an internship.

Useful related websites:

www.the-impact-group.com
www.netexpat.com
www.womanabroad.com
www.partnerjob.com

Ricklin-Echiksen Associates can be contacted on srgreacareers@worldnet.att.net

Shell sites
www.outpostexpat.nl
www.incnetwork.demon.co.uk

Joanna Parfitt is an international journalist, author, publisher and presenter who specialises in expatriate issues and the portable career. In 1998 she wrote and published a book entitled A Career in Your Suitcase and regularly runs workshops on the topic.