In most countries, if you can get a job offer in certain occupations, you will automatically get a temporary work visa. Most of the times, this visa can later be extended to a permanent one.

So your challenge is to find these companies. I will list below some startups that are willing to sponsor your visa to help you get started.

When I was in my early twenties, I sent hundreds of e-mails to Australian companies, while living in Maranhão (Brazil), one of the least developed places in the world. I only needed one “yes”, so I kept trying until I finally got it.

After working in Australia for three years, I went back to Brazil. I had a sponsorship visa, so I lost it once I quit my Australian job to go back to Maranhão.

After several years, I decided It was time to move back to Australia. I started e-mailing companies and did it again, I got a job, and a visa sponsorship and the interviews were all online.

The best advice I can give is: Be unique, proactive and persistent.

For me, here are some things that worked:

• Sharp online presence (Linkedin and personal website).

• Being casual (No “Dear sir”, just regular emails like talking to a friend).

• Not just applying via job ads. Emailing companies directly.

• Side-Projects.

• Using Up-and-coming hiring platforms (as of 2019: Angel List, Stack Overflow, Slack groups, Facebook groups…)

The secret is to keep iterating and improving all the points above with every “NO” you receive. Be optimist! Again, you only need one “YES”.

Netherlands

Flexport is hiring software engineers in Amsterdam (we can get you a visa)

https://storyteq.com/

https://www.paazl.com/

https://dekoeko.com/

https://www.secfi.com/

https://storyofams.com/

United Kingdom

https://www.alphafx.co.uk/

https://www.gravitysketch.com/

https://globedx.com/

https://gudog.com/

https://beamery.com/

https://www.portify.co/

https://www.compucorp.co.uk/

http://www.optellum.com/

Canada

https://pleiadesrobotics.com/

https://www.veryfi.com/

http://www.streamlabs.com/

http://www.hostfully.com/

http://www.houseofdreammaker.com/

https://www.goloansnap.com/

http://www.perimetre.co/

https://zenreach.com/

https://deliverr.com/

https://circleci.com/

https://www.dialpad.com/

Australia

https://www.dialpad.com/

https://www.glamcorner.com.au/

https://www.squiz.net/

https://www.upwire.com/

https://www.veryfi.com/

https://www.airservice.com/

http://www.tyro.com/

United States

https://www.wallethub.com/

http://www.spotnana.com/

https://welkinhealth.com/

https://mercury.co/

https://tipalti.com/

http://imo.im/

I keep hearing more and more about Adelaide. I have friends who moved there, and my sister is considering leaving Brazil to make it happen too. Also, there is news everywhere about how open they currently are for more immigration.

Adelaide is the capital city of the state of South Australia. It's a beautiful and diverse place with a population of ~1.4 million. You look to the east you see the hills (with lots of famous wineries). To the west, over 50km of coastline. And a vibrant and modern city in between.

It continually ranks as one of the top ten most liveable cities in the world. As the Government of South Australia says:

Our relaxed yet prosperous and affordable lifestyle, ease of travel, low population density, safety, and abundance of cultural and leisure activities, makes South Australia one of the great boutique regions of the world.

If you like what you see, the timing is perfect. The state of South Australia is opening many doors for foreign professionals and students who are committed to living there.

Candidates who would like to live and work in South Australia are awarded extra points on top of the ones from federal immigration programs. There are also more occupations in the lists of demand, and the process should happen faster and with fewer complications.

But even if your occupation is not on the list or you don't have work experience, there's still a way to make it happen.

You can choose a new field to study if you wish to start over. You have options from one-year courses to full university programs. There are special conditions to allow students graduating and working in South Australia to get permanent residency.

To make things even more attractive, the state also offers a “Skilled Arrival Service” with:

• Discounted accommodation on arrival;

• Settlement support services (including meet-and-greet at the airport and New Arrivals Dinner);

• Free practical workshops, group coaching and spotlight sessions to help you succeed in the job market;

• Access to information, resources and referrals;

• Skills recognition pathways, including recognition of your overseas qualifications and trade skills for employment purposes.

It's a lifetime and exciting opportunity, no doubts about that. Here's a list of resources in case you are now picturing spending your weekend researching about migrating to South Australia:

1. Benefits of state nomination;

2. Requirements;

3. Lists of occupations;

4. International students and special conditions;

5. Why study and migrate to South Australia;

6. Living in South Australia;

7. Scholarships for international students;

p.s. if you're interested in joining our private mastermind group, you can request to join here.

p.s.2 if you would like to support me and the project, the best way is by sharing these posts.

Thank you so much!

@Beto

I can still remember when I first thought about moving to Australia. I was 14, living in Brazil, and I read a magazine from a study abroad agency talking about the attractive Australian lifestyle.

It only took me two minutes to decide what I wanted for my life. I read as many stories as I could from people who had moved there. I was fascinated by their quality of life and the country in general.

I tried everything from that point on to find my way to live and work there.

I grew up in one of the poorest states of Brazil but was very lucky to have a stable life with a fantastic family and parents who worked hard to provide for my sisters and me.

I could never understand the level of corruption, the ridiculous wealth inequality and the always rising number of violent deaths and robberies around us.

I was young and dreaming of one day, working and surfing in Australia.

After a year reading everything I could about immigration, I had a plan. But don't get me wrong, I knew it would take years and years, I was just a kid, but a pretty determined one.

Fast-forward to when I was 21, and I was catching my first waves in Australian waters…

That's me in Margaret River - Western Australia (2008).

Well, as I said, I had a long-term plan but ended up getting lucky on the process.

You see, the plan was:

1. Be serious about learning English;

2. Get a Bachelor's Degree in IT;

3. Get 3–5 years of work experience in Brazil;

4. Take an IELTS course to get the score required at the time;

5. Apply for the points-based immigration system;

6. Move to Australia.

When I was just getting started with step 3, something crazy happened. It was a regular Tuesday morning in the office, and I got a call from a very strange number “00000000…”.

The call went like this:

Hello, is this Beto?

me: sim… Sorry, Yes!

(20 seconds of heavy Australian accent)

me: Would you mind saying that again a bit slower?

Sure, mate! We got your email. It was pretty bold and we would love to run a test project with you. If things go well, we are happy to sponsor your visa and pay all your relocation costs to come to Perth.

I was a bit in shock. After hanging-up I wasn't sure if that was all true or just a scam.

The thing is, during my university years, I got the habit of contacting companies in Australia, way before I was ready. I even tried to apply for several positions.

Most companies never replied. When they did, it was most likely to be negative. But still, these few replies were super helpful in getting me ready to apply for the right companies.

I knew I could receive a thousand “NOs”. I only needed one “YES”.

So that was it, one of my hundreds of emails worked and I will share more details about my strategy in another post.

I accepted the test project and worked on it nights and weekends. They paid me for those hours and welcomed me to the company and Australia, so my dream came real a few years early.

Announcement:

We have launched our Private Facebook Group, and it's currently open for the first 500 members. The idea is to have it as a private space where we can all discuss options for migrating around the world and help each other out. See you there.

If you know you want out but are just not sure where to, here's a suggestion:

You can approach it by elimination.

The first step is to write down a list of your 15 preferred countries. No pressure here, it could be because of the beaches, the snow, the food, the tech industry, the beautiful people, the language, the sports, etc.

Then, you should remove the ones where you have no desire in learning the native language. Also, get rid of the worst performers on the Human Freedom Index, it's 2019, come on!

This is getting excited now. You should hopefully be able to close some of those Wikipedia tabs you opened and be left with 7 to 9 countries.

With this shortlist ready to go, it's time to do some serious research to make sure you will be able to pay the bills, wherever you go. As a next step, you should discover the most popular job website from each country and run the following job hunting experiment:

1. Update your CV (Ideally, a personal website instead).

2. Have a 5 starts Linkedin profile. You can also experiment with updating your current city to the major one in the destination country being tested.

3. Apply for job ads, but also pitch yourself directly to companies there.

The idea with the exercise above is to measure how the companies will respond to your professional profile and experience. It should be a great indicator of how each market is doing and where you might feel more comfortable to start networking.

To make things clearer, you should also research your chances of gettings a visa to work in each country. I've been building a tool to help with that.

So how about cutting out the losers here? Ideally, you will be down to your top 4 countries.

By now, you should be frenetically reading about your final candidates (hint: Quora is great for this). You should be ready to proceed through each option below until you're left with the winner:

• I'm eligible for a visa.

• The health and educational systems are excellent!

• This is the safest place I've heard about!

• That's my kind of weather.

• The food is delicious and the natives are friendly (you can swap adjectives if you're single.)

• (Insert your hobby here) is so popular.

This was very entertaining, but it's clearly just a start. You obviously know what you really care about in life and that's your north star.

I hope you land somewhere awesome!

Announcement:

We have launched our Private Facebook Group and it's currently open for the first 500 members. The idea is to have it as a private space where we can all discuss options for migrating around the world and help each other out. See you there.

I'm sure a lot of you haven't considered Chile yet as a potential destination country.

When thinking about migrating to another country in pursuit of a better life, it's rare to have South America coming to mind.

But Chile is a pleasant surprise!

Chile is a developed country. It is also the only country in Latin America that is generally recognized as a developed country. In 2010, the country made the historic step of joining the OECD. Chile's economic and quality of life metrics, such as its per capita gross domestic product (GDP), infant mortality rate, life expectancy, and human development index (HDI) are sufficient for most economists to classify the country as developed.

The outlook for Chile is exceedingly bright; this is based on the remarkable improvements the country has made in its economy and quality of life in a short period of time.

Sources: Investopedia and Pexels

Cool. But what's the plan?

I was lucky to live in Santiago, Chile, for almost a year. I highly recommend it as a great place to live and work.

The Government of Chile runs a program called Start-up Chile, where they support people from all over the world to move there to start a project.

They will actually pay you up to USD 80,000 if they like your idea. In return, you need to move to Chile for at least the duration of the program (~6 months) where you also get business mentorship and help with everything you need to settle in the country.

If you enjoy the experience, you have everything lined-up to extend your stay and can then consider permanent residency.

The application process is online; you can check the types of programs they offer here.

I was part of the 2013 cohort and I would be more than happy to review your application if you're interested in submitting one. I'm also open to answer any questions you might have.

Announcement:

We're starting a private Facebook Group for our super members to discuss all things immigration around the world. Please hit reply and say "I'm Interested" if you would like to join.