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EMIGRATION HAS RECEIVED nothing short of horrendous press in recent years, with numerous reports focusing on the numbers of young Irish people leaving the country and the finger being pointed at the economy and the government for this. But the reality is that young Irish people have emigrated temporarily for years, and the benefits of being an emigrant, both in personal terms and in terms of employment, cannot be underestimated, whether you go for work, study, or merely to travel.
I moved to London just over a year ago and I have come to leaps and bounds in that time as a person, and as a member of the work force. I have learned valuable skills I never knew I could learn by living away from Ireland. Additionally, both at home and abroad, as someone who has lived in another country, you instantly become a more attractive candidate for work, as upping sticks and leaving your life to experience something new is held in extremely high regard by employers.
Living abroad exposes you to new cultural challenges, which in the long-run benefits you both as a person and as an employee. Moving to a new country and mixing with colleagues there, as well as being incentivised to make new friends, helps you expand your social skills, making you much better at connecting with people, despite your different backgrounds.
Additionally, by experiencing new methods and societies, and listening to different experiences, it leads you to reflect on your own background and compare the pros and cons of how things are done in Ireland, so that you become more efficient at your work overall. As an emigrant you become better at comparisons, questioning and analysis. A broader, global mind makes a better employee and a more attractive candidate for a job.
Living abroad also makes you more accustomed to overcoming hurdles, especially homesickness. A candidate with proven experiences of overcoming difficult hurdles is instantly a more attractive candidate for a job. I live in London, so something I don’t benefit from, but many young Irish emigrants do, is being exposed to a different language. Employers, especially those in business, love to see an applicant who can comfortably speak more than one language.
The benefits of emigration, where employability is concerned, applies to getting work both at home and abroad. I once spoke with a recruitment agent from New Zealand, who said that Irish candidates are very attractive for him because he feels there is “something about a person who moves to the other side of the world that singles them out.” From a personal perspective, my employers were very impressed that I have moved to London to gain experience and I think it has definitely improved my job prospects here.
When emigrants return home, the same applies. Employers simply love to see a candidate who has experienced something different and doesn’t stick with the status quo. As well as the benefits mentioned above, if an employer in Ireland receives 100 CVs from graduates with the same degree, but just one of those CVs has international experience, then that candidate is going to stick out in the mind of the employer.
Of course, there are many other reasons why spending time abroad is a fantastic experience. I think the mere fun and adventure elements of it all stand out for me, but perhaps where the benefits are most recognised are in the field of employment. Employers recognise that work experience, especially when obtained in another country, teaches much more than a classroom or lecture theatre will. As an emigrant, you learn to re-assess where you come from and really learn to value things about it. You are also incentivised to keep up the ties and friendships with home, thereby improving your social circle.
In an increasingly multicultural and connected world, spending time in another country helps prepare you or a future of interconnecting cultures, thereby strongly increasing your employability. Perhaps more than anything, however, it is an extremely enjoyable and transitional experience that will change your life, but in a brilliant way.
For every sad emigration story, there are many positives, and given how easy it is to communicate with those back home, perhaps it’s time emigration (a reality in today’s Ireland) was portrayed in a positive light in the media.
Amy Bracken is originally from Co Meath and moved to London in 2012, where she works as a TV researcher and journalist.
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Are cancer patients surveyed as to help find the causes of the cancer epidemic, is there work been done on finding out if it’s the food we are eating, is it water we drink, radon areas, microwaves from phones, radio signals, air pollution etc.?
@Macus Mc Mahon: Bear in mind too that according to WHO, booze and fags are class 1 carcinogens.
@Bairéid Rísteard: plenty of non drinkers and non smokers getting cancer too, since that proposal of Bob Mugabee been the goodwill ambassador was suggested by The WHO you couldn’t take anything they say seriously.
@Macus Mc Mahon: Why of course not. Are you suggesting we invest research into cause and prevention of cancer! Ould diet have anything to do with it? Meat, Dairy? IFG-1 hormone increases? Oh don’t be silly. Its all in a persons gene’s nothing to do with diet. The right thing to do is spend time and money on finding new cures for cancer through excellent pharmaceutical intervention and treatment and spend money on raising awareness on cancer.
But then again I could wrong… ;-)
@Macus Mc Mahon: Yes the epidemiology of cancer is pretty well understood, even though there are people who will tell you that you can stop getting it by eating more organic carrots, quinoa or ginkgo biloba (whatever that is) or whatever they’re selling. The problem is a terribly unstable molecule called DNA and it’s first cousins that control cell division and replication and unfortunately there is a proportional error rate. Some of those errors trigger the cells to die, which is OK, others will cause the cells to multiply uncontrollably which is cancer. Evidence for preventing cancer, don’t smoke, exercise more, drink less alcohol. Environmental carcinogens are hodge podge of other tiny risk modifications which really only count as an epidemiological interventions (banning asbestos, limiting organophosphates) rather than increasing your stress by trying to live in a bubble.
@Joe Harbison: I’d argue that eating junk, not exercising drinking, and smoking, is being trapped in a bubble of ignorance.
@Joe Harbison: Oh, and as the man said, Sunscreen
@Macus Mc Mahon: I know and I trusted WHO up until then.
@Bairéid Rísteard: they also added Sunbeds to that category but we still allow them to be used
@Macus Mc Mahon: My mum was diagnosed with breast cancer earlier this year. It was during a routine check up when they noticed a change in the skin on her breast. She’s 66, non smoker or drinker, healthy living and regularly exercises. My husband was diagnosed with a form of skin cancer two years ago. He was 36 at the time. The cancer developed due to over exposure to sun coming in on his neck whilst driving a bus (his job). He’s also a non smoker or drinker. Exercises regularly and we eat relatively healthy food. He knows he got it from sun exposure as other colleagues developed it on the same side of their necks,arms and faces. Thankfully both have been given the all clear.
Leo’s 5 million euros spin team can’t bluff the fact Leo left health with 600,000 on waiting lists and GO reward hos failure & still do even though waiting lists is now past 700,000 & counting and parents and elderly have to beg their dignity away on liveline as they can’t afford buy private insurance to skip public yes public hospital waiting list eith private insurance for their vital operations.
@Jay Lane: FG reward his failure
@Jay Lane: it’s more than FG to blame here. This problem is ongoing for years. Coupled with the fact that we have people living longer, people have higher medical needs/demands than they do 20 years ago, standards of health care IS improving (detecting / monitoring/ operating various illnesses etc. The problem is hospitals and wards were closed, new hospitals weren’t built to meet demand, nurses and drs are graduating and emigrating. This all isn’t Leo’s fault. It’s going back to FF , it’s going back years. It isn’t a quick fix. It won’t be fixed by changing of ministers. It needs a radical change – the HSE needs a complete overhaul
Perhaps if our water wasn’t laced with Flouride ( carsonagenic) things would be better!
@Linda Keneally: Fluoride isn’t a known (or suspected) carcinogen.
If you live long enough you will die of something. The older you get the more likely that something will be Cancer. The rise in cancer deaths is a positive sign, because it means we are eliminating all the other causes of death.
@Clancy: Yes, of course we will, but it seems more and more that people expect to live indefinitely. Illness is the revenue stream for the pharma-medical industry, and old age is huge business. But it is clearly unsustainable, it doesn’t take a genius to work that out. Spend some time in an old-folks home, no-one in their right mind would want to end their days there.
I remember a scene from a book by either Camus or Sartre. A prisoner is facing the death sentence and has the opportunity to get off. But he decides that such a day has to come anyway, and will be exactly the same, whether now or later.
Long life is not necessarily a blessing . . .
@Clancy: I think your forgetting there is a cohort of young patients who are dying myself included who don’t see it that black and white and there are many older people who are in rude Health and would like to continue that way as long as possible except cancer interrupted their plans for a long and happy retirement
Figures, figures, figures. Statistics and more statistics. Is there nobody out there
Interested enough to find out once and for all what’s really causing these cancers and
the reasons for the increase in diagnoses?
@Frankly Mydear: I think the reason for the increase in diagnosis is down to a few things, 1) better public screening for breast and bowel cancer 2) better education, as in more information as regards the importance of self-screening, going for regular medical check-ups, what symptoms to look out for & seek medical help for without delay etc. Of course the BIG question is what are the markers for causing cancer in the first place, especially among younger people, how come 2 people of similar age, with similar lifestyles etc will see one of them getting cancer & the other not? This is a subject I have a huge interest in as my family seems to have had more of it’s share of cancer sufferers over the years, some have survived but sadly some haven’t. Whatever about older people who have lived through most of their lives & have experienced the major milestones that should be everybody’s right, it breaks my heart to see young people battling this disease & not always winning the battle either.
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