Want to come back and work in Sri Lanka? Make your years abroad count!

I always wanted to return to Sri Lanka someday and was always conscious of how the work I did while I was abroad was going to affect my employment potential back in Sri Lanka. In this post I am sharing some things I think you should consider doing to make your self more attractive to potential recruiters if you have plans to return to Sri Lanka in the future. My comments are slightly biased towards the IT industry but should serve as a guide to those in other industries as well.

The fact that you lived and worked in a foreign country for years is just not enough to increase your job potential in Sri Lanka unless you have used that time to increase your marketability. Someone who has worked as a Java Programmer for 10 years in a small-mid sized software house in a foreign country should not expect to come back and land a job at a very senior position just because he has 'worked abroad'. Especially in the IT industry in Sri Lanka, you will be surprised to see the number of young people who have really gone the distance in their careers, even as fresh grads, by participating in globally recognized hackathons, running multiple startups while still at university, google summer camps, publishing papers and speaking at conferences etc. So unless you have gone the extra mile yourself, average experience in a foreign country is only going to get you an average job which is probably far below your potential.

Do work that will be in demand in Sri Lanka a few years from now
Regardless of technological advancements, it takes awhile for latest thinking, techniques, methodologies and technologies to get recognized and instilled in Sri Lanka. This is where some forward thinking would help. Try to look for work that would potentially be in demand in Sri Lanka in a few years time. Having those skills and expertise will help you differentiate your pitch and put you ahead of other candidates since you have the potential to transform how companies work. A good example from a few years back, again in the IT industry, was around the introduction of Agile methodologies. I remember 'Agile' being spoken as THE way of working in the software industry in UK about 8 years ago and there were workshops everywhere and people who had just read about the subject were cashing in by doing trainings for companies who wanted to adopt Agile methodologies. However in Sri Lanka, companies really started exploring Agile in detail only 3-5 years ago and anyone who had been exposed to the Agile way of working at the time would definitely had great potential when it came to securing employment.

Brand yourself
Regardless of your move back decision it is in your interest to promote your work and get recognized for what you do. Use social media to talk about and promote your work and also voice your opinion about things unfolding in the industry around your area of expertise. Most importantly, in the interest of your move back decision, use your work to get linked up with like minded people in Sri Lanka who will have an influence over relevant companies and the industry.

Big brands matter
It is always better to be able to say you worked for a reputed global brand rather than a company that is relatively unheard of, especially in this part of the world. If you are in Telecoms, for example, if you have companies like Vodafone, O2 or T-Mobile on your CV then that would immediately get potential telecoms recruiters interested as they know what these companies have achieved and will expect you to have seen and learnt how they work and be able to bring some of that thinking to their companies. So if you have an idea to come back, try to get at least 1-2 global brands on your CV - it's not easy getting into such companies so will need some hard work!

Keep in touch!
If you had your primary/secondary education in Sri Lanka and had worked here for a few years then you need to make sure you keep in touch with people who were your friends, work colleagues, bosses etc at the time. Several years later you can be sure that most of them will be in senior positions in their respective fields and some may even be heading companies. They will be your social capital when navigating the job market in Sri Lanka. Even if they won't be able to offer you a job they will definitely have contacts who they can introduce you to. Old boy networks and connections go a very long way when it comes to finding work or getting anything done in Sri Lanka so its absolutely essential that you keep in touch with people if you are hoping to come back.

Follow your industry, relevant companies and key personalities
It is important that you know how your industry is changing or has changed over the years in Sri Lanka. New companies may have taken the top place in the industry and some older brands may have conceded to competition or not moved fast enough and succumbed to industry pressures. Know which companies are doing well and have the potential to do so for years to come. These are also the companies that will be most sought out by potential employees. It is also important to know who the key personalities are in your industry and what their vision is. There are many ways to follow all of these via online news papers, linkedin, twitter, facebook etc or even by catching up with friends and colleagues to discuss industry/company gossip! These will also help influence your move back decision and decide on timing, especially if decent employment is a key aspect on your agenda.

Keep track of your earning potential 
A highly accomplished professional who had been away for 10+ years and was thinking of coming back recently asked me if he should pitch in the range of Rs. 150,000 per month. Knowing his experience, achievements and potential, I was sure he can earn well above Rs. 500,000 per month - he was very surprised when I told him this! He hadn't followed the industry and how things had changed and was still in the mind set that 80-100K was a high salary, as it was when he left the country. If you haven't done your research and pitch at a very low or high rate your potential employees are going to take you for a joke and you will loose credibility. At the same time, you need to know your  limits as well. A fresh graduate from a foreign university may not be able to demand a 6 figure salary unless he/she has significant achievements to back it up. On the other extreme, a Rs. 1M+ per month salary is not unheard of now but is not for everyone and is not something you should aim for just because you lived abroad, unless you have the credentials, experience and personal brand to demand it.

Not everyone will have a long term plan of coming back to Sri Lanka and sometimes family circumstance may force people to change course and make a sudden decision to return back. Some of the aspects I have mentioned above are worth doing regardless of your move back decision. Even if you have decided to settle in a foreign country, having these links with Sri Lanka may come in handy some day if you think of establishing a business or returning back for retirement or even want to do some consulting to get away from the cold months! The important thing is to make your years abroad count - as Steve Jobs said, you will be able to connect the dots some day!

Tips for making it work in Sri Lanka

Few tips for making it work here - I will keep adding to the list as and when I think realize more:

1. DO NOT get involved in politics and keep a distance from politicians
2. If you want to do business, keep it small - the larger it gets the more you need to deal with the government, politicians and inefficiency. This will just deeply frustrate you.
3. Most people in Sri Lanka are very curious and nosy and want to know a lot about you, your job, relations, income, property, kids etc etc. Try to identify such people early before you open out about your life and problems and keep a distance.
4. Most Sri Lankans will have an opinion about what you do and how you do it. You need to learn to deal with it - ignore most of it and avoid discussing such matters with opinionated people. 
5. The inverse of the above also important - if you can help it keep your opinions to yourself - especially if it is to do with criticism then people are unlikely to backdown whatever you say and it will only stress you out more.
6. If you need to commute to Colombo for work or school, leave home early and get to your destination early, traffic at rush hour is horrendous and will just make you tired and stressed up before you get there and will just ruin your day. Its the same in the evenings - either leave early or leave late. You will feel more relaxed and happy when you get home if you avoid traffic.
7. Try to get out of the city often. There are so many lovely places in Sri Lanka to visit, relax and enjoy - beaches, wild life, hill country, historic sites etc. You can easily find affordable places for accommodation in most destinations to suit your budget so it doesn't have to be a very costly affair.
8. Visit rural Sri Lanka and spend some time with the less privileged - anything you give them, including your smile, will put a huge smile on their faces and make you feel really good and make your stay in Sri Lanka really worth it!

Moving back to Sri Lanka? Expect Challenges!

The decision to move back to Sri Lanka after over a decade is a daunting one. While we started thinking about moving back in 2010, when we actually started working through the details of moving back it turned out to be extremely stressful. The research and planning for a potential return started in 2011, with an expected return towards the latter part of 2012. There were so many things to consider and decisions to be made which made us defer the move by a year to late 2013.

The research started by talking to a lot of people both in Sri Lanka and in England. These people included family, relatives, friends, former colleagues in Sri Lanka, teachers, people who had gone back to Sri Lanka, people who had settled in UK and other countries but had briefly contemplated moving back but for some reason decided not to etc. While we did get a lot of advise and from everyone we spoke to, both for and against the move, on hindsight we probably took it a little too far by seeking opinions from too many people. We had always wanted to come back to Sri Lanka so every time someone spoke to us about the positives of moving back we were thrilled as it was more like approving our decision. Comments like 'great decision', 'nothing like home', 'parents and family will be thrilled', 'situation in Sri Lanka is improving' all gave us a lot of encouragement. But at the same time it was extremely discouraging and heartbreaking to hear the opposite; there were times we thought we should just forget about it and make up our minds to settle down in England. There were people who literally said 'you're mad/crazy/nuts/stupid' to go back to that country!' 'Country is going to the dogs', 'things are going backwards', 'corruption',  'cost of living', 'it's so hot there and mosquitos all over', 'why do you want to come back to this country when you have a good life there?', 'you won't survive more than 1 year there',  'traffic is terrible', 'people are looking to leave the country' etc etc. We were sure that most of these comments were true indeed but it was our mistake to actually go behind for advise knowing what the response will be in most cases. It was actually disappointing to hear some of the comments from people who had lived in Sri Lanka for 20-30 years before moving out now say things that implied that Sri Lanka was a God-forbidden country! Anyway, listening to comments and getting opinions from all around really held us back several times - may be we were not bold enough to make the decision without consulting people who we thought would advise us wisely. So my advise is to limit the number of opinions you seek - gather lots of information and make your decision independently!

Cost of living is a major concern. If you have been out for over a decade you will notice a huge difference from how much the cost of products and services have gone up. Depending on the life style and standard of living you want to maintain, an average middle class family of four will need between Rs.100,000 and Rs. 200,000 to get through the month - excluding any loans that need to be paid! Salaries have gone up though, mainly at senior levels in the private sector. But at junior levels it will be a struggle, especially if you are to support a family and build some savings for the future. Having said that, there is still a huge majority of people who get through the month with an income of less than Rs. 10,000. They have found ways to adapt to the challenges by sticking to the basics and living very simple life styles. So if you really want to come back and don't see potential to earn a decent salary, then expect to sacrifice on some comforts. It would be to your benefit if you can create additional streams of income for the family.

Education for children is another major concern. The government schools in Sri Lanka still teach in the same way they did 30 years ago. Their aim is get children to to get through exams and not to help them understand concepts so that they would be able to apply them to real life situations. There is a huge level of competition, even at grade 1 or 2, where small children spend most of their evenings in tuition classes instead of playing and doing everything else that children are supposed to do. Even some parents are very competitive and push their children so that they could show off to others that their children did well in their term tests. This aspect unfortunately seems to be getting worse, especially in government sector schools. There is more hope with private schools - some have altered their curriculum to better suit children of today and employ modern ways of teaching to help students understand concepts; still a long way off from what is offered in western countries. However there is huge competition to admit children into these schools and often require personal connections to school administrators and hefty donations as much as Rs. 500,000 to ensure a place at school. The next level of schooling is to consider international schools - and there are plenty of them now - where a foreign curriculum and modern teaching methods are followed to provide a high standards of education that is, in some cases, comparable to what is offered in western countries. However this comes at a price - monthly fees can vary from as high as Rs.25,000 to Rs.175,000! So this is something you will need to consider, especially if your children are in good schools abroad now and you don't want to deprive them of a quality education. A point to note though is that if the reason you are coming back to Sri Lanka has a lot to do with culture and ensuring the children get a good grounding in the Sri Lankan value system, then you will need to consider either a reputed government school or private school. It is unlikely that they will get the same grounding in an international school. However you will need to weigh the pros and cons of each.

If you are living a comfortable and relatively relaxed life abroad now, you will need to realize that it will change drastically if you move back. If you are Sri Lankan, you are likely to have many relatives and friends around. There will be many, overlapping social commitments that you will be obliged to attend. Relaxed sundays and evening walks in the park will become a distant memory unless you can diplomatically dodge some of these to create time for yourself. Traffic, especially in Colombo, is horrendous. Expect to spend at least 2-3 hours on the road just for the daily commute depending on where you live and work. The heat can be unbearable during certain months. If you are to use an air conditioner in your house then you are going to go beyond the expense levels I stated above due to high electricity bills. Mosquitos are galore! You will get used to them after awhile but the worrying factor is around the diseases they spread - mainly dengue which can be fatal if not properly diagnosed and neglected. So this should be a concern for families, especially with young children.

General inefficiency, political instability, high-levels of corruption and favouritism are all aspects that impact anyone living in Sri Lanka. You will need to face a lot of such situations when carrying out your day to day activities. Customer service is very poor compared to levels of service in some developed countries. There are not a lot of services available online yet (although this is improving quite a bit now). So overall getting things done will not be easy so expect to be frustrated often!

What I have shared above is a result of the research that I did before moving back to Sri Lanka combined with some experiences from having lived here for a few months now. Overall, if you are still struggling with the decision about moving back then know that there is no right or wrong decision when it comes to this matter. People will have opinions about what you should to do but my advise is that you listen to a few but follow your heart. It should be a very personal decision and suite your own circumstances and should not be influenced by the circumstances or life choices of someone else. If you have the ability to do so then it is always good to have a back-up plan so that you can go back some time in the future. But this should not be a concrete plan that you will fallback to as soon as you face the first obstacle in Sri Lanka. Even if you don't have a means of going back, if you have lived in Sri Lanka before, you will know in your heart that you can somehow make it work if you want to! If you really want to follow your heart and come back home then maintain very low expectations and you will be just fine!

Why I returned to Sri Lanka

I spent most of the last 11 years living outside of Sri Lanka, around 2 years in USA and 9 years in UK. This is basically all my wedded life and all of our children's lives. All trips abroad started off as a few months or a year or 2 years but then as new opportunities came about plans changed and our stay got prolonged year by year. There was never an intention to settle down outside of Sri Lanka but the longer you stay out and live in one place you get used to it more and more and start becoming comfortable and less likely to move again. However, although there were new opportunities and experiences to grab, the thought that we never wanted to settle outside Sri Lanka kept working on my mind and felt that we should at least try living in Sri Lanka again before the kids grow up. It's obviously not an easy decision after living outside for so long and hence took 3 years to actually finally make the decision and take the plunge. There were several factors that contributed to this decision - most of these factors were emotional and were driven by the heart but there are many other factors and challenges to consider and overcome (like the economic side of moving!) when actually going ahead with the move. 


Kids
Our kids hardly got exposure to their grand parents, relatives and most importantly their cultural roots. There is a huge difference in social values and interactions - in UK it was unlikely for them to make 'friends for life' from school, university and work. Interactions are often limited to school, except for the occasional play date, very different and less in frequency compared to how we used to interact with our friends when we were young. Once they go through their formal education and go to work, they are likely to have mostly colleagues and not friends, again very different to the life time bonds we build with work colleagues and frequent social events like trips and drinks and bajjaw parties! We realized that there is very less bonding between people in western cultures - a bit of a negative for brining up our kids outside of Sri Lanka. From an education perspective, the quality of the academic curriculum and methods of teaching are far better in England - they are better geared to help children understand concepts and acquire knowledge as opposed to learning just to pass exams, as it happens with the government curriculum in Sri Lanka. However for us, education, especially at the primary stages, meant not only academics. There is far more grounding and learning to be done in terms of culture, values, religion, social beliefs etc, all which are more difficult to teach children, the older they get. We felt that these are naturally engraved in children in Sri Lanka, through school and other social interactions, although to a lesser extent than the time we were in school, but to a better degree than western countries. May be from a purely academic perspective it would be better to be back in the UK when it is important for them to settle down to get a good quality education but for now we felt it was best if they got a good social and cultural grounding in Sri Lanka.

Parents
Our parents are slowly heading towards their golden years now. We want to spend more time with them and be closer to them while they can still enjoy life. Us being away meant that they will hardly know their grand children and not be able to experience the joys of having them around and spoil them. We felt that we need to be there for them now and not wait till they are old and disabled.

Substance in life
We always felt that life was more rich in substance in Sri Lanka. There is always a lot happening with relatives and friends around and seeing familiar situations evolving with time. There are jokes that our British friends would crack that we never understood and often situations that we would relate which they never understood. There is never a dull moment in Sri Lanka, always a party or wedding or funeral or some social gathering, although can be very tiring at times, they definitely add more substance to life.

Sense of belonging
After 9 years in UK, making so many friends, getting use to the culture and how things are done, we never really had a sense of belonging in countries outside of Sri Lanka. Occasionally there would be some situation in a shop or airport or playground where you would hear some remark (sometimes rather racial) where you really feel this is not where you belong.  

Career
Depending on what you do and the type of companies you want to work for, career progression can be rather limiting in western countries after one point. As with Sri Lanka, there is a some reliance on 'old boy networks' where relationships from universities or prior jobs really matter for more senior positions. While this can be overcome with time and a good performance track record, it is harder and would take longer. 

Friends

We made so many new friends in England over the years and established deeper bonds with friends who also moved to England around the same time. Our kids also made friends with our friends children. It would have been a hard decision to leave them and return back to SL after all these years if not for the technological advancements available today from social media to video calling which can help keep in touch easily, although it may not be the same.

As I said above, there are lots of other factors to consider like money, jobs, recreation, work life balance etc. But I was mainly following my heart so the other factors really become secondary and things to deal with and work out over time. I will share some further thoughts on those in a subsequent blog.