Your manager catches you after a meeting. The company is growing its team in another country and wants a few experienced people to help set it up. Would you consider moving there for two or three years? There would be a relocation package, and it would look very good on your record.
It is flattering, and it can be a wonderful thing to do. It is also two decisions disguised as one. There is a career decision and there is a life decision, and the excitement of the offer tends to blur them together. Take them one at a time.
On the career side, ask what the job actually is. Building a new team from scratch is very different from joining one that already exists. Find out who you would report to, what level you would be, and what success looks like at the end of the two years. If nobody can answer that yet, it is worth knowing.
Then ask about the money in local terms, not just the headline number. Housing, tax, healthcare, schooling and pension can turn a generous figure into an ordinary one. If the company pays for some of these at first, find out when that stops.
Ask what happens if it does not work out. If you want to come back after a year, is there a role waiting, or will you be looking for one? If you are on a visa sponsored by your employer, what happens to your right to stay if you are made redundant or want to change jobs? These are not pessimistic questions. They are the ones people wish they had asked.
The life side is yours to work through, but it deserves the same seriousness. If you have a partner, can they work there, and do they want to? What about elderly parents, friendships, the language? A good move for your career that makes your household miserable is not a good move.
Talk to someone who has already done it, ideally at your company. They will tell you what the relocation guide left out.
And get the important parts in writing before you sign anything. Verbal promises about future roles have a way of being forgotten when the person who made them moves on.
If it still feels right after all of that, go. Very few experiences will teach you as much.
– Asael Shinder
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