Successes in your career in Belgium

Hi Priscilla how are you?

Let me contribute with my experiences point by point under your topics.

Priscilla wrote:

How have your skills and experiences evolved since moving to Belgium?

I was working on the high end electronics industry. I had previous experience, but I gained a few years extra experience and seniority, so to speak.

Priscilla wrote:

What does being successful in your career mean to you?

Well, I'm far from ambitious, just having a stable job, in which I can grow and learn,and of course contribute is for me more than enough.

Priscilla wrote:

Can you share some tips about what to do and what to avoid in order to advance in your professional career in Belgium?

Difficult to say, in Belgium, and in neighbouring countries, to keep on advancing in your professional career you just have not to be good enough, what you need is first: your boss-es has-ve to like you. Period. Doesn't matter whether you're a pro on your subject, if your boss doesn't like you, you'll be out sooner than later. Second, you gotta be a show off, if you make a mistake, hide it, or put on somebody else's top, simple. Third: always bulshit about the topic, even though you don't know, or you ain't sure, for instance, you're technical guy, there's a problem, there's discussion to tackle it, in a smart environment, your team will gather as much as information to have it as foundations to develop new possible solutions. That's a no no in Belgium. You have to say anything that sounds good, sell smoke, anything that doesn't make sense but it will as you sound convinced, if somebody comes up with an idea, NEVER support it, confront it, put it down, as much as you can, doesn't matter you are clueless, remember, what matters is not what (you say) but how (you say). That's the way to advance in Belgium, and I can make it extensive (from experience) to all countries around the region.

Priscilla wrote:

Can you share an inspirational career story with us?

No, I cannot. I can say that I was working in a top place, I was a freelancer, and my net salary, after social security, insurance, tax, fees, etc, was around one third of the gross one. I told my company to make me payroll, they would pay less, and I would earn more, they didn't, and on top, when they renewed my contract, they didn't on time and they said, oh, work this month with no contract, we are late on the paperwork, please wait until we have it ready. I sent them to hell, I was the only one to deal with their best customer and they lost thousands and thousands of euro. Of course they blamed on me but I was fast enough to prove the customer the situation. They even threatened me. My advice: are you from south europe? Never believe this people are less corrupted than your country. :-)

Priscilla wrote:

Did you have to change careers or adapt your career to fit the job demands in Belgium?

Not actually.

Priscilla wrote:

How do you balance a successful career with your personal and social life?

Terrible. And let me introduce my experience with Belgium about personal life in there, something of course you might not care about but trust me, is one of the pillars of someone's life, not everything is career in order to be happy in life, you know. Let me give you an exaple of how nice are people in Belgium. I'm from Spain, and at the moment we're struggling with separatists from Catalonia, they aren't majority, but make a lot of noise. Their ideology is a copy paste of the NSDAP, surely you guys know what is that, well, the expresident made a coup d'etat and then run away to Belgium, a country that gave him shelter (as it did with Spanish criminals and terrorists from ETA and Irish from IRA during 80's and 90's). I had to put up with comments from Belgian nazis (that represent majority of population) all the time after that. I had conflicts when I gave them arguments against their supremacist mindset, including how come Belgium was responsible of the genocide in Congo in XX century, or how they can ever critizise my country when they had a HUMAN ZOO until the 60's. I say it out and loud now: YOU BELGIANS ARE NOT SUPERIOR TO SOUTH EUROPEAN PEOPLE.

Priscilla wrote:

What are the benefits of having work experience in different countries?

First, gaining multicultural awareness is priceless, the problem is that you have to move on, for instance, having had a lot of years of experience in Germany, Holland, Belgium, UK, etc, gives you that, but you, at some point, realize they ARE NOT better than you, and if you come from south Europe, they'll always prejudge you, their inherent bigotry will never be wipped out, there are many great people, but they're minority.

I wonder if you want to keep my experience, or may be it doesn't look nice enough... Up to you.

Thanks a lot!