This jobs site wants you to ditch your 9-to-5 and work on a tropical island for a year
We all dream of adventure. We muse about the day we’ll break free from our day-to-day grinds and journey to a far off land with a blank slate and a whole new environment to explore.
But even if the opportunity surfaces, uncertainties hold us back, and the biggest uncertainty is often employment. Will I be able to find a job? What if I don’t enjoy it? Even if the work is okay, what if the food doesn’t agree with me or I find cultural barriers just too big to overcome? It seems all too likely that an adventure could turn into a disaster, leaving you unemployed, broke, and stranded in a strange place with no friends.
To soften the landing for prospective adventurers, a young startup from Estonia wants to help balance the risks and rewards. Jobbatical is a jobs site specifically targeted at skilled professionals who want to try their hand at working in another country. The site currently focuses on IT-related work, with temporary jobs ranging from three to 12 months long.
Now six months into its beta period, Jobbatical offers applicants a choice of about 400 jobs in dozens of countries. Founder Karoli Hindriks says the demand has outstripped supply, with thousands of job seekers in Jobbatical’s community. Typical employers are startups and social enterprises. The startup has 600 employer accounts, but not all of them have posted jobs.
Asia has become a major destination for Jobbatical’s early users. Singapore has more openings than any other country, followed by Hong Kong. Malaysia is another popular choice, and the startup also has jobs in South Korea, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, India, and Indonesia.
"When you are sitting somewhere in Northern Europe or Canada, then working in a startup on a tropical island is like a dream!" Hindriks says.
Dating before marriage
A job ad posted on Jobbatical.
While Asia seems happy to hire talent from overseas, professionals from the region are less inclined to try Jobbatical themselves. The top two countries for talent are the US and Brazil, third is the European Union – particularly northern Europe. Most Asian cultures are quite risk averse in comparison, and the idea of taking a temp job abroad is still a new prospect.
But that perception is slowly evolving, Hindriks says. She likens Jobbatical to "dating before marriage," allowing employees to try out a new country and job before they make a bigger commitment. "For a job seeker, it is hard to make a decision to relocate to a new place forever at once. An agreed timeframe smooths that," she says.
Whether that job seeker is looking to woo a potential long-term partner or just fool around is up to them. Hindriks says she sees both, but Jobbatical doesn’t have the data yet to confidently speak about what new hires do after their initial term is up.
"For us the main thing is to keep building the community with both a certain skill set and mindset – globetrotting tech talent. Asia being the source of both exciting markets that European companies want to reach, but do not have the necessary know-how in their teams, and therefore talent, who could help them."
When it comes to IT talent, however, many companies simply prefer to outsource. Sites like Elance-Odesk and Freelancer make it easy to hire foreign talent on a budget. But Hindriks says Jobbatical fulfills a different role. "In many ways we are defining ourselves as the ‘Elance-Odesk’ with the on-board experience. Simple tasks can be done remotely, but if a person joins in to help build your product, then you want that person to be in your team, understanding where you are heading," she says. "And if a European startup is building a product or a service that is also targeting an Asian market, then the hassle of bringing in the talent is much smaller than building it wrong in the first place."
Jobbatical team. Karoli Hindriks pictured 4th from left. Photo by Anu Hammer.
Beyond just posting the jobs, Jobbatical offers a shortlisting service where it conducts the employee vetting process for the employer. "We are also developing visa and relocation services," Hindriks says. "That’s all on the roadmap."
Applying to jobs from overseas cold – that is, without any prior network or references – is usually a disheartening affair. It takes a lot of sifting through shady wanted ads for English teaching gigs and pay-to-work scams to find a very small number of legitimate gems. And even when such a gem turns up, you likely won’t be the first to have noticed its shine. Without a network in place, the best option is often to move in first and find work later, but that’s a risky gamble. The market is ripe for disruption, and Jobbatical might just be the startup to kickstart a new generation of globetrotting adventurers.
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