My experience outside, advantage or handicap?
I spent a lot of time, money and sleep in one language, Russian, which speaks 300 million people and looks exotic in the curriculum, but which does not provide the slightest differential value in the Spanish labor market, for the simple reason that There are jobs related to Russia, certainly not in my sector. If some day there were, it must have been before the economic crisis. The number of Russian tourists has plummeted since 2012, a welcome not only for the tourism sector but also for real estate, luxury brands and everything that goes behind. Spain, on the other hand, does not buy neither arms nor gas, main exports of Moscow, with which there are no Russian companies operating here. In short, they are two countries with few commercial ties and I mention Russian in the curriculum more for bragging than anything else.
I also speak fluent English, seriously, it was the language I used at home these years. But the English does not provide differential value in a first screen, it is known that in Spain all schools have become 'bilingual' and on any curriculum speaks level 'sekspir'. My first stage in the job search is to meet acquaintances, colleagues in the sector, to formalize my return, ask for advice and turn on the radar, turn them into my 'representatives' in case an opportunity comes to their ears. They repeat to me that my time away is a tremendous experience, that with such a baggage it should not cost me to find work. But it costs, because the business culture in Spain is historically of panic to hire, they weigh in addition the years of crisis and the normative rigidity, so they are conservative in their election. I will not be the one to judge them.
But that prejudice is a handicap for the repatriated, whose profile is usually rather unorthodox and it is already known that what is different generates suspicion. Hiring is perceived in Spain as little less than a wedding, and one does not marry the weirdo. It is not a better or worse profile, but from point A to C the repatriate went through J and not B, short circuit. If your work spectrum is in private companies, you will definitely find your niche in multinationals, which logically value more than you really speak languages and that prospect of having resided abroad.
At the end there are days when you wake up, you pose if it was not wrong to go back, leave the comfort zone, but then remember that it is not the first time you start from scratch and you stand up, you did it in a foreign country and you can repeat it on your own, it is the fate of our generation.
