throwaway account, but long time lurker.
am a consultant in a fairly niche sub-specialty who is coming up to their third year in a substantive post. uk grad, but foreign-born with a comfortable life and set up here, and traveling to see immediate family (who live abroad) is just part of my normal routine. no dependents. compared to many of my peers, can easily just pick up and leave. increasingly itchy feet for numerous reasons and taking active steps to research places I can take myself and my cct on a semi-permanent/permanent basis, and have spoken to recruiters from New Zealand, Australia, Singapore and Canada.
for those of you who have successfully made the jump overseas:
- did you get cold feet at any point during the process, for example when offered an interview, a job, or having to make a decision on what to do with your uk home? how did you deal with it?
- what ultimately sealed the deal for you and made you go, "yep, I'm definitely committing to this"?
- how do you get over the, for lack of a better term, loyalty you might have felt towards your uk department? I know there's been a recent headhunting thread about this here, but more specifically towards those who've left the uk? I know that a job is just a job at the end of the day, but I don't want to burn bridges.
- what did you do with your NHS pension? did you sell your uk home or have you kept it?
- did you fly over and do any site visits before definitively taking up a job offer?
- was there anything contractual that you successfully negotiated which went beyond the original job offer?
I'm sure I'll have a million more questions as I continue along the process, and equally if anyone has any insights, lessons learned or warnings, I'll happily hear them. thanks.