Hello fellow NewlyCorporaters,

After enjoying several beers at Het Elfde Gebod I came up with a peachy new idea for NewlyCorporate. I’d like to think the idea came from myself but the La Trappe Quadrupel (or La Trappe On Tappe as I call it, 10% ABV!) might have something to do with it. Regardless, in my haze I decided something must be done with my lack of posting on NC. You see, posting on a blog takes a little bit of work. Poor grammar and sentence construction doesn’t come easy, ya know?

I blame my inaction on being tired after my hour and fifteen minute commute but blogging should really come naturally to me. You see, I’m a bit of a talker in person (I’m also kind of a jackass too, but I think I can convey that through the Greek alphabet quite well..). One of my favorite past times is giving unsolicited advice to people who are probably better off not taking it. As an experienced mooch in life, I decided that it’s time to give back, and you damn well better take it (whether you like it or not). Call it ‘wis-dumb’ if you will, but I think I can dispense it like Pez for all who line up at the trough.

So… got a question about anything even mildly corporate related? In need of poor relationship advice? Want some help choosing a good beer? Ask and ye shall receive.  I can’t vouch for the quality of the response but I promise I will work all of my [remaining] braincells to give you a pithy response that might or might not contain actual insight.

Hit me up my darling readers. I look forward to your jeers, insults and metric tons of digital spam. Who knows.. maybe I’ll even get a real question!

NCQuestions@googlemail.com

-G$

This is a guest post from Eli Gratz, a tireless innovator currently working in Hyderabad, India on a 6 month project.

Even in a tough economy, the opportunity to live and work abroad as part of a Multi-National Corporation (MNC) is still out there if you choose to pursue it.  Projects and roles vary by company and team, but often they involve limited term stays at other branch offices to train, roll-out, or work with a local team on a larger, global project.

The benefits of the opportunity go beyond the value added to the company: your personal marketability and intangible understanding of the culture you participated in are assets you can bring back with your other souvenirs. Here are 8 tips to make the opportunity a successful one.

1) Seek out the opportunity
With travel restrictions, positioning yourself to work abroad can take time and careful planning. Be aware of projects that require international travel, and teams that are diverse globally. By working on global projects, the odds of travel increase.

2) Do your homework
Make sure you choose a project/country/culture that will help you develop in a new way. While certain “cool” locations may seem attractive, ones that are less glamorous may give you a more marketable/relevant experience. Choose one where you can survive, but will learn.

3) Get Mobile
Mobile phone technology is a must around the world. Buy a local sim card and mobile phone. Impress people that you have a local number and memorize it. You can get in contact with people quickly, and don’t be afraid to ask for numbers/visiting (business) cards.

4) Take smart risks
Whether you are a thrill seeker or outwardly calm, you need to put yourself out there when traveling. Meeting new people is tough anywhere, let alone in a new country, but the larger your network, the more enjoyable the business and social experience will be.

5) Tap the Expat community
Odds are there are other travelers and expats in the city you stay. You have a lot in common with them as an outsider even with varied backgrounds. They will be up for “touristy” and “cultural” excursions, and serve as a small community to tap for advice on the city.

6) Eyes open, mouth shut
This will be one of the best chances to change your perspective. Listen as much as you can. Learn as much as you can and ask lots of questions. This simple tip will help you not miss out on a great chance to hear new ideas and inform your opinions.

7) There is life outside your office
Work has to end sometime. Often the hours are long on international assignments, but try the local things. Engage a few friends from the office and try the foods, the entertainment and see the sights. Your understanding of the people and place can add a lot of value and can translate to working smarter when you go back home.

8 ) Give as much as you take
While you want to absorb as much local flavor as possible, many people will be curious about you and your home culture. Open up and be candid with those you meet. Let them know about you. You can learn more by bringing topics to the table.

Travel safe, make friends and enjoy your new home. It is an experience you will never forget and one that will introduce you to a world of people you would never have met, or befriend, otherwise.

Personally, one of the reasons why I work is to afford fun vacations. It would be great to not work for a while, but then I’d probably get bored of sitting home and playing video games all of the time. In fact, I like to take so many vacations that I really need to economize to be able to afford them! The trick is to save money on getting there and sleeping accommodations so that you have more cash to spend on the fun stuff.. like beer drinking and touring! Over the last few years I’ve found a few sites that I routinely use to find the best travel deals. I’ve assembled the top few sites I use to book my trips and added a little bit of info about each below.

Kayak

A great travel search engine that should meet all of your airline, hotel and rental car needs. It particularly excels in air travel in my opinion.

Why I like it: It seems more no-nonsense than Orbitz, Priceline, Expedia, Travelocity, etc. It seems like the coders really care and it has a pretty cool Google-like feel to it. The FAQs and other documents on the site are written in a pretty happy go-lucky manner and the site seems like it’s always adding new features. For the insecure types it also let you view Kayak results next to other major search engines as well.

BiddingForTravel and BetterBidding (for Priceline)

These are two really cool sites that let you ‘hack’ the Priceline and Hotwire systems. Both of these sites are basically just message boards that contain information regarding hotels and bidding strategies for Priceline and Hotwire. They also help you determine what hotel you are actually booking when looking at the blind hotels on Hotwire and have listing of hotels by area in Priceline. People also post winning Priceline bid information that helps provide a little guidance when you try to book a hotel in a given city.

Why I like it: These sites are great money savers. I use them all of the time to snag some great hotel rates when traveling with friends. I’ve used the sites to find information on hotels all over the world. I’ve booked some great deals in Amsterdam, Berlin and Chicago. Once I was even able to book the Waldorf in New York, but an unfortunate delay at the airport meant I missed out on the reservation. The users on these sites are great as well! It’s like everyone is in on a big secret and love helping other people out saving ducats.

Skyscanner

This is a great site for searching discount airlines in Europe. It has a ton of flexible options including weekend searches and my personal favorite: departing airport searches. I used this tool extensively during the summer of 2006 to book over a dozen weekend trips. The departing airport searches will show you every destination country from your selected airport and the price to fly to there. I used this to set up a huge matrix of the different countries my friends and I wanted to visit and after crunching numbers we easily came up with the cheapest itinerary to cover about 15 countries that summer. It’s great for planning last minute trips as well!

Why I like it: This is a spiffy tool for planning trips when you know you want to go somewhere but have no idea where! Just let the tool decide for you as it displays a list of countries you can visit and the corresponding price. It also covers budget airlines in detail, something a lot of the major sites don’t do. Lastly, it checks the prices for you automatically to make sure they’re up to date. Once you’re ready to book it punches you out to the airline site and you’re good to go!

Hostelworld

Another site I found during European Blitz during summer of 2006. Pick the country and city, provide a date and *poof* you are presented with a list of hostels in the area. It lets you book directly on the site which is an added bonus. Also, you just have to pay a deposit of about 15% at the time of booking, very convenient. The list of hostels is very extensive and the photos and reviews of each are great tools when trying to decide where you want to stay. Hostelworld also provides cool little travel guides for a lot of the cities on their site, an added bonus! They’re pretty good too!

Why I like it: The reviews on the site are priceless. I often sort on the rating of the hostels in a given city versus the price. The hostels on the site often have dozens, even hundreds of reviews and tidbits of information from fellow broke-ass travelers. Oftentimes I’ll even use the site as a reference guide, then contact the hostel directly to secure even better rates!

With my travel secrets out, I expect to see more of you Newly Corporate types outside of the office and off vacationing in Europe. If you save a few bucks, be sure to stop by London to buy me a beer to thank me for the financial relief

What sites do you use to find the best deals?

With my move to London looming just over the horizon, I’ve started getting my finances in order in preparation. I’ve discovered a few tidbits that might help a new expat and thought I’d post ‘em for your viewing pleasure:

Since 16, I’ve been a model credit user. I’ve financed four cars (and sold each one before ever paying the loans), purchased a condo (now occupied by my ex-girlfriend, who just got married), and maxed out a few credit cards, all without ever making a late payment. Despite some lamentable financial decisions, I’ve never made a bad move credit wise.

Unfortunately, my 780 credit rating in America is about as useful as a chocolate teapot in the UK. NOTHING in my credit history transfers. As soon as my visa is stamped and I become an office resident of the UK, I’ll be persona non-grata, just another one of the plebes without credit. Luckily I still have access to my Yankee plastic!

I’ve done some research on the best way to leverage my US credit while I’m in the UK:

The first thing I did was cancel my useless accounts. First on the list is my Discover card since merchants in the UK don’t accept Discover. This was the easiest thing for my move yet! This is aces for anyone that wants to cancel a credit account, just tell them you’re moving out of the country. No questions, no transfer to a supervisor offering lower APR. “Thanks for your business Mr. Harmon” — end of story.

My next concern was international transaction fees. After some intense web-smithing I determined that Capital One doesn’t charge this fee! In fact, Capital One eats a small percentage of the transaction because they still have to pay Mastercard. One online application later and I’m all set up to suck the teat of another credit card company at my leisure. Spiffy!

Another concern of mine is preserving my pristine credit record. All I need is some jackhole to steal my identity while I’m in Europe longterm. It seems like every day another moron gets his/her unencrypted PC stolen at Starbucks with 50,000 social security numbers on it. One of the options I’m looking at is freezing my credit report. What this basically does is prevent any new credit queries to occur without lifting the freeze, effectively stopping people from opening up a GAP charge card with your name on it. New laws in all 50 states let you do this with the three major credit bureaus, TransUnion, Experian and Equifax for about $10 (it’s free if you’ve had you are a victim of ID theft). I’m planning on doing this before I leave for peace of mind. When/if I return, all it takes is a certified letter to these companies to re-open my reports.

There you have it. A few things you can do to cancel accounts, save some money and hopefully prevent potential identity theft. I’ll be back soon with more tips as soon as I find them out or learn them the hard way…