11.4K
Downloads
40
Episodes
A podcast that explores the question: What could be so hard about returning home after years living overseas? In each episode, Margot Andersen sits down with a former Aussie expat to discuss how they survived repatriation and reverse culture shock. How they navigated the logistics of career, friends and family to successfully find their new place at home... and all without losing their global spirit!
Episodes
Tuesday Aug 01, 2023
S5 Ep3: Jacinta Reddan
Tuesday Aug 01, 2023
Tuesday Aug 01, 2023
If you are a future repat thinking life back in Australia might be too slow, then you might fall off your chair during this podcast when you hear that Jacinta Reddan, the former CEO of AusCham in Hong Kong thinks her professional life is just as fast-paced in Cairns!
Which is good for Jacinta, who admits her biggest fear of moving to tropical north Queensland and a city she had never lived in before, would be that she would be bored.
Jacinta first left Melbourne in her early 20s for an 18-month stint in Hong Kong that turned out to be a decade long stay. Even when she returned to Melbourne to live, Hong Kong wasn’t quite out of her system and six years later after returning to Australia, she and her two young daughters headed back.
Maintaining professional contacts and friends has been the thread that runs through the amazing career opportunities Jacinta has had both in Australia and in Hong Kong. In fact, it was a friend and colleague from her early days as a freshly minted journalist at the Warrnambool Standard that led her to her role at Advance Cairns and an exciting new life in Tropical North Queensland after over 20 years in Hong Kong.
We talk in the podcast about how she has approached maintaining her connections with Australia, what learnings she gained from coming home the first time, how her two third-culture kids are coping with a home country that feels foreign and about her approach to life in Cairns. Her next ‘expat assignment’.
Sneak preview: she is far from bored.
Monday Jul 17, 2023
S5 Ep2: Brett Cooper
Monday Jul 17, 2023
Monday Jul 17, 2023
After 21 years with the one employer and a life across multiple countries in Europe and Asia, it is somewhat ironic that Brett Cooper has now ended up in one country with multiple employers.
Such is the adventure of an expat-repat!
Brett’s career with Phillip Morris started in Sydney and took him to Switzerland, the UK, the Philippines, and Hong Kong. He hadn’t been on a plane until he was 18 but certainly made up for it after seeing his colleagues take the leap and making the international move himself.
Taking career chances and moving countries allowed Brett to build skills across corporate affairs, human resources, and general management.
Despite having a breadth of skills, Brett was still concerned about coming home and started planning well in advance. Turns out, this wasn’t enough time.
In this podcast, we talk about how Brett navigated the recruiter scene back in Australia and why he decided in the end to pursue a portfolio career. We discuss how this style of career has been the best one to not only leverage his skills but to give him the lifestyle flexibility that he needs to manage his kid’s transition back to Australia – and to ensure they lose their American accents!
Monday Jul 03, 2023
S5 Ep1: Andrew Tiernan
Monday Jul 03, 2023
Monday Jul 03, 2023
It took three attempts and a career 180 for Andrew Tiernan to move home to Australia after 18 years overseas but despite the bumpy role to get to Melbourne he says he is now ‘in the right place’.
He has gone from a career working in financial services across Asia and Canada to the CEO of his own tech platform start-up signing its first clients. His partner has found his career sweet spot and together they are carving out a great life in Melbourne, despite neither living there before.
They believe ‘the adventure doesn’t have to stop’, proving you can take expats out of the adventure, but you can’t never take the sense of adventure out of the expat.
Andrew speaks about a couple of key factors behind his eventual success; a shifting mindset about his career, making sure his partner was equally invested in the move and asking for help from his friends and network.
We talk a lot about the role his network, past and new, has played in not only helping Andrew with career decisions but on supporting his business.
This episode is a great reminder of the power of networks and the opportunity that can unfold if you just ask for help.
Sunday Dec 04, 2022
S4 Ep8: Survey Insights: Do I Stay or Do I Go?
Sunday Dec 04, 2022
Sunday Dec 04, 2022
In this special podcast episode Margot and Simone chat about the findings of their recent Australian Expat Career Survey and the release of the report ‘Should I stay or should or I go?’ that explored the role work and job plays in an Expat’s decision to come home.
With 450 Australians answering the call to take part, they share their 5 key take-aways along with some insights on who took part, how long they’ve been away, what expat's experiences with recruiters and hiring managers has really been like and just how long the average Aussie spends planning their move home.
They also talk about how expats can use these findings to support the planning of their return and how mobility professionals who work for organisations managing global workforces can support the repatriation process.
Thursday Aug 11, 2022
S4 Ep7: Liz Ritchie
Thursday Aug 11, 2022
Thursday Aug 11, 2022
‘Forget Sydney and Melbourne and you’ll be happier’, is the message from podcast guest Liz Ritchie, CEO of the Regional Australia Institute, for expats living overseas and thinking about moving home. The Institute is an independent thinktank and Australia’s pre-eminent source of research, information and policy advice on regional Australia. And according to their research, people living in Australia’s regions are happier than our city-dwellers.
Right now, there are more than 70,000 job vacancies advertised in the regions, and factoring unadvertised positions, this number is likely to be double. The most in demand jobs are skilled professionals and mid-to-high skilled trades like engineers, doctors, nurses, allied health professionals, teachers and accountants.
In this podcast, Liz talks about the professional opportunities for skilled Australian expats looking to be part of the positive trend of people moving to Australia’s regions as part of the Great Regionalisation!
Wednesday Aug 03, 2022
S4 Ep6: LJ Ferrara
Wednesday Aug 03, 2022
Wednesday Aug 03, 2022
If you were an Aussie living overseas who managed to navigate your way home during COVID, chances are you are very familiar with the Aussie Expats Coming Home Facebook page and its founder LJ Ferrara.
What started as a group to help LJ navigate her own journey home in 2018 after 20 years overseas, became a vital source of information and support for thousands of Australians trying to get home during COVID.
At many points during the pandemic, LJ and her community were providing answers to expats and their questions faster than what they could source from public and government channels. The power of this community saw it swell in numbers almost overnight.
In this episode, we explore how LJ and her expat community helped Aussies during this time and how the community today is supporting expats navigating the logistics of coming home. With planning to come home often intrinsically linked to securing a job back in Australia, we talk about how long LJ thinks expats should be allowing for the transition.
And here’s a hint for expat dog owners, 6 months is not enough!