Career development and educator identity beyond academia – reflective professional journey in higher education

Professional Development, Professional Identity, and Being Recognised as an Educator Beyond Academia

6 May 20267 May 2026adminLeave a comment

“Don’t become a teacher,” said my parents, who were only ever teachers.

I listened to them at first, quite happy not to follow in the footsteps of parents who spent hours preparing lessons, marking assignments, and managing never‑ending administrative tasks. Yet I also chose to major in English Language and Literature, subjects that were unmistakably associated with teaching.

After experimenting with roles in content writing and arts management, which neither paid well nor offered strong career prospects, I ate a sizeable slice of humble pie and tried relief teaching at my former high school. I enjoyed engaging with students and even lesson preparation, but I was not prepared to commit to the bonded years required after teacher training in Singapore. So I did what felt like the next best thing at the time: I became CELTA‑certified and taught English overseas.

Fast forward to the present, in my current role as a Career Consultant at a university in New Zealand, and I had almost forgotten about those early roles and decisions. Partly due to embarrassment about short‑lived career experiments, and partly because they felt distant and irrelevant.

Yet, through reflection, they have become anything but.

In an earlier blog post, I explored how my 25‑year journey across roles, sectors, and countries only made sense in hindsight. At the time, those moves felt messy, uncertain, and at times like a series of compromises. Looking back now, I see a consistent career thread of learning facilitation, people development, and cross‑cultural brokering that underpinned what once felt like disconnected choices.

More recently, making a career pivot from government to higher education heightened my awareness of the need to gain formal recognition of my skills and professional practice in this new context. That realisation prompted me to apply for Associate Fellowship (AFHEA) with Advance HE.

The Advance HE Fellowship scheme offers globally recognised professional recognition for educational practice in higher education. Associate Fellowship recognises staff with focused or limited teaching responsibilities and validates expertise in supporting learning, evidenced through professional values, core knowledge, and effective practice.

Achieving Associate Fellowship has become a meaningful moment in my career journey, not only for the recognition it confers, but because it helped me make sense of what I have been doing across different contexts and periods of time.

Navigating Career Pivots and Professional Identity in Higher Education

In my work with international professionals navigating career change, I often hear fragmented career stories. “I used to be this, then I moved countries, then I pivoted.” Roles change, systems change, and over time it becomes harder to articulate a coherent professional identity.

I experienced a similar disconnection when my government role was made redundant after years of building expertise across projects and enjoying hard‑earned success. I had already pivoted from academia into the public sector. Did I really have to pivot again? When I eventually moved into higher education, I found myself asking: What career story am I telling now?

Associate Fellowship offered a way to answer that question – through a framework I could use to tell that story more clearly.

Professional Staff as Educators: Teaching Beyond Academic Roles

Much of the discourse around teaching and learning in universities still centres on academic roles. Yet many of students’ most formative learning experiences happen outside lecture theatres and formal curricula.

When I look back, my educator identity has been shaped across very different teaching contexts, each with distinct learner needs and purposes.

I began as a CELTA‑trained English teacher in China, teaching academic English to students preparing for entry into Australian and UK universities. That work was fundamentally about transition. It involved supporting students to develop not just language proficiency, but confidence, academic literacies, and cultural readiness for unfamiliar higher education systems. Teaching language was never just about grammar. It was about meaning‑making, belonging, and bridging worlds. I vividly recall organising English Corners and analysing English‑language films to unpack cultural idioms and assumptions.

I later returned to Singapore to work as a conflict management trainer, and subsequently as a polytechnic lecturer, teaching in a multi‑ethnic context with a strong emphasis on vocational application. My core subject area was business communication, including report writing, oral presentations, job applications, and cross‑cultural communication. I also taught corporate communications and events management, often partnering with businesses across the tourism and heritage sectors to deliver real industry projects. Learning was tightly linked to employability and practical outcomes, requiring constant translation of theory into action.

Today, I work at a university in Aotearoa New Zealand as a career consultant, where employability is a central outcome of my professional practice. I design and facilitate career preparation workshops, support reflective and peer‑based learning, and help students connect their learning, identities, and strengths to future work possibilities. I am particularly proud of developing workshops using the VIA character strengths framework, as self‑awareness is the starting point for authentic career decision‑making, job applications, and networking.

Across all these contexts, while the learners, content, and systems differed, common themes emerge in my work. I design learning for transition. I facilitate reflection. I support people to navigate uncertainty with greater clarity and agency.

This broader understanding of teaching aligns closely with Eleanor Hodgson’s Times Higher Education article, Professional services staff, you’re educators, too. By focusing on educational practice rather than job title, the Advance HE Professional Standards Framework creates space for professional staff roles like mine to be recognised clearly and legitimately as educational.

Personally, the framework has helped me connect the dots across my career. It gives me a shared language to articulate a teaching identity that has evolved across countries, sectors, and roles, without requiring me to be narrowly defined as a traditional academic. It also reconnects me to my PhD research on international students’ informal learning and peer brokering practices, where learning exists on a continuum from transactional to deeply relational.

Professional Development as Identity Work

Applying for Associate Fellowship was not simply an exercise in documenting activities. It required me to articulate a teaching philosophy, evidence learner impact, and engage in structured reflection on my practice. Peer observations and written narratives became mirrors, revealing how my pedagogical choices were shaped as much by learner needs as by my own beliefs about learning.

The application process was also a deliberate investment in professional development, a topic I explored in my blog post about my international career journey. For international professionals, professional development is rarely just about skill acquisition. It is about sense‑making, coherence, and continuity in systems where progression pathways are often opaque.

Across different national contexts, I have had to take responsibility for designing my own professional development. This involved identifying formal and informal learning opportunities, engaging in communities of practice, creating reflective spaces, and seeking credentials that validate professional standards and competence.

The Fellowship process brought this into sharp focus. It forced me to slow down, to examine not just what I do, but why I do it, and to demonstrate how learning actually happens in my workshops. In many ways, it brought me back to the fundamentals of teaching and career practice: reflective inquiry.

Portfolio Careers, Global Recognition, and Evolving Educator Identities

Viewing my career through a portfolio lens has reshaped how I understand professional identity. What once felt fragmented now looks cumulative. Teaching, research, public sector roles, training, and career development have been layered experiences that expanded my capacity to support learners navigating complexity and change.

Does Associate Fellowship mean I now rest firmly in a single educator identity?

Not quite.

It strengthens my ownership of being an educator, but I hold multiple identities. If migration, career setbacks, and career pivots have taught me anything, it is to value what I have built while holding those identities lightly. When my sense of self was anchored too tightly to a particular role or occupational label, restructuring and redundancy felt like devastating blows to my sense of worth. Over time, I have come to appreciate that changes in jobs and direction do not derail a career. Instead, they cultivate different capabilities within me.

What Associate Fellowship adds is not rigidity, but language. It provides a coherent framework to articulate educational practice across roles, institutions, and national contexts. For international professionals especially, this matters. Credentials need to travel. They need to be recognisable, legible, and meaningful across countries, systems, and sectors where professional experience is often reassessed or retranslated.

Advance HE Fellowship is underpinned by the Professional Standards Framework, a shared global reference point for excellence in teaching and learning in higher education. While rooted in education, the values and practices it articulates extend well beyond classrooms. They speak to how people learn, develop, reflect, and grow within complex systems.

For someone whose career has spanned Singapore and New Zealand, this global recognisability is not incidental. It offers continuity in a career shaped by mobility, change, and adaptation. It allows me to articulate my professional identity in a way that is coherent across borders, without being restricted to a single role or occupational pathway.

The feedback from the assessment panel affirmed this alignment in ways that felt deeply validating:

“Your application was very strong and clearly addressed both the Professional Standards Framework and the University values of Akoranga and Manaakitanga in the area of career consultancy, which would inspire professionals supporting learning in higher education. Your teaching philosophy was well articulated and strongly aligned with your practice, and the supporting letters provided clear recognition of your impact and contribution. Wishing you all the best in your continued professional journey!”

Receiving this feedback was more than a moment of affirmation. It reinforced that the educator identity I had been practising across different contexts was both visible and valued, even when it did not fall neatly within traditional academic boundaries.

For professional staff in higher education, particularly those who have crossed borders and sectors, frameworks like the Professional Standards Framework can provide a language to articulate impact on students’ learning and development. They can help bring coherence to diverse experiences or illuminate capabilities you may not have seen as educational before.

For international professionals, professional development carries an additional imperative: credentials must travel. Advance HE Fellowship offers globally recognised articulation of educational practice that is legible beyond individual institutions or national contexts. For someone whose career spans Singapore and New Zealand, this matters. It provides a portable way of naming professional identity in environments where experience is often re‑evaluated or misunderstood.

Reflective Practice: Coming Full Circle

What stands out most about the Fellowship experience is how much I enjoy reflective practice, especially when it is often sidelined in the everyday busyness of targets, outputs, and deadlines.

I was first introduced to reflective practice during my Master of TESOL, which I completed part‑time while teaching at a polytechnic. Reflection assignments tied directly to teaching practice led to tangible improvements in my work. As a researcher, reflexivity underpinned my inquiry, requiring critical examination of how my beliefs, positioning, and shared cultural background influenced the research process.

Now, as a career practitioner, reflective practice involves evaluating client experiences, interrogating the systems we work within, and advocating for more equitable support. While reflective practice exists within team settings to varying degrees, this experience reminded me that I need to be more intentional at an individual level.

The Fellowship experience offered a glimpse of what reflective practice can achieve in terms of becoming more learner‑centred and improving outcomes. It has renewed my commitment to intentionally designing programmes that strengthen students’ career identities and employability resilience.

Attaining Fellowship does not mark a new chapter so much as a return. A return to reflective practice as the core of my work, and to an educator identity that has been evolving across unexpected twists and turns. It now sits comfortably alongside other professional identities, past, present, and future, within an international career journey I am still very much living.

About Dr Sherrie Lee

I am a career coach and educator working at the intersection of career development, cross‑cultural capability, and identity. I support globally mobile professionals and career changers to navigate career and leadership transitions across cultures.

With over 10 years’ experience in teaching, facilitation, coaching, and career development across Singapore and New Zealand, I bring a research‑informed, strengths‑based approach grounded in lived experience. I hold a PhD in Education, am an Associate Fellow of Advance HE, a Certified Career Services Provider™, and a Professional Member of the Career Development Association of New Zealand.

I am based in New Zealand and work with clients and organisations internationally.
Learn more at https://thediasporicacademic.com, connect with me on LinkedIn, or subscribe to my newsletter International Career Journey on Substack.

International professional using character strengths to network across cultures at a professional event

Careers / Cross-cultural / Professional Identity

How Character Strengths Help You Network Better Across Cultures

16 April 202617 April 2026adminLeave a comment

When You Feel Like a Fish Out of Water

That is how I would describe myself in many networking moments — watching people fall into easy conversation and laughter while I find myself alone in a corner, wondering how they make it look so effortless. It happens when I am in a room full of strangers, when the topics seem out of my league, when the jargon jungle closes in around me.

But then I remember why I came: to meet new people, learn something useful, and give new connections a chance to form.

In my first few years in New Zealand, I was acutely self-conscious of the way I looked and how I sounded. My fair skin and black hair meant I was frequently assumed to be from China (I’m from Singapore), and well-meaning folk would greet me with ni hao — to which I would simply say hello in return. For context, this was Hamilton: a smallish university city with international students coming and going, and a particular brand of parochialism I found difficult to reconcile with my very urban, cosmopolitan outlook. It was humbling, and at times uncomfortable.

While I was completing my PhD, I focused on building an academic network, attending as many symposiums and conferences as I could manage. But when the academic career did not materialise, I found myself having to build a completely different network — business owners, public servants, entrepreneurs — people who did not especially care that I had a doctorate. Venturing from the safe harbour of academia, where people enjoyed discussing abstract ideas and methodological debates, into a world of money, practicality, and politics, was disorienting and, at times, disaster-prone.

Speech bubbles of different shapes and colours representing different small talk topics

What saved me, eventually, was small talk. Once I could talk to one person about the weather, the food, or what was interesting about the venue, the rest felt more possible. Rapport came first. Everything else followed.

I share this not as a cautionary tale but as context: feeling like a fish out of water in networking situations is not a personal failing. It is an experience shared by international professionals navigating unfamiliar cultural codes, by migrants rebuilding professional lives from scratch, and by introverts everywhere who find the whole enterprise exhausting before it has even begun. What helps — for all of these groups — is not a better script or a more polished elevator pitch. It is a clearer sense of who you already are, and how to bring that forward with intention.

This is where character strengths come in.

What Are Character Strengths and Why Do They Matter for Networking?

The VIA character strengths framework, developed through research in positive psychology by Christopher Peterson and Martin Seligman, identifies 24 strengths — qualities like Bravery, Curiosity, Kindness, and Zest — that represent the best of who we are. Everyone possesses all 24 strengths in varying degrees. Some sit near the top of your profile almost without your noticing, because they are so intuitive. Others require more conscious effort. All of them are genuinely good, and all of them have a positive impact on others when applied with awareness.

Taking the free VIA Survey at viacharacter.org gives you a ranked list of all 24 — your own unique character profile. And here is what I have found, both in my own networking journey and in working with international professionals and career coaching clients: when you understand your strengths, networking becomes less about performing a version of yourself you think the room wants to see, and more about bringing forward what is already there.

It is also worth thinking differently about what networking actually is. It is not a dreaded event with fancy drinks and a business card quota. It is a series of small moments — a question asked, a laugh shared, a follow-up email sent three days later. It is not the event that gets you a job. It is the small conversations that help people remember you. That shift in framing alone can take the pressure off considerably.

Below, I want to walk through four character strengths that I have found particularly useful in networking contexts — especially for those of us who feel culturally out of place, socially uncertain, or simply not built for working the room.

Bravery: How Do You Face the Fear of Walking In?

To be brave is to face your challenges rather than avoid them.

A Māori proverb or whakataukī captures this beautifully: Tūwhitia te hopo, mairangatia te angitū — feel the fear and do it anyway. But the literal translation offers something even more useful: tūwhitia te hopo means eliminate the negative; mairangatia te angitū means accentuate the positive. It is not just encouragement. It is a strategy.

Bravery in networking might look like tuning out the voice that says it will be a room full of strangers who have nothing to say to me, and replacing it with I might learn something useful from someone I have never met. That is a small but significant reframe — and it is exactly what Bravery, applied intentionally, makes possible.

Bravery also works well in combination with other strengths, particularly Creativity. If walking into a room alone feels too exposing, Creativity might suggest going with a friend and treating it as a social outing. Or setting yourself a small, manageable goal — two new connections added to your LinkedIn network by the end of the evening — rather than facing the whole room at once. Small targets, honestly pursued, are far more useful than ambitious ones abandoned at the door.

If Bravery is in your top five strengths: you likely already show up, even when it is hard. The work is in noticing that courage and giving yourself credit for it. If it is not: Bravery is a strength you can call on deliberately. Naming the fear, finding a manageable first step, and walking toward it anyway — that is Bravery in practice, regardless of where it sits in your profile.

Curiosity and Love of Learning: What Happens When You Get Curious Instead of Self-Conscious?

If Bravery gets you through the door, Curiosity and Love of Learning are what make the conversation worth having.

Curiosity is the motivating force that draws you toward new experiences and new people. Love of Learning is what happens next — the desire to hold onto and deepen what you discover. They are among the most closely related strengths in the VIA framework, and together they are, in my experience, the ideal combination for navigating an unfamiliar culture. They give you a reason to be in the room that has nothing to do with impressing anyone.

I remember hovering at the edge of a group already deep in conversation, smiling and nodding as people spoke. Mutual eye contact was my cue to offer a question. I made mental notes of what was interesting. I watched how others moved easily between groups — a friendly nice talking to you, hope to see you around and they were gone, joining another conversation entirely. In many Asian cultural contexts, leaving a conversation feels impolite. Here, it is simply how networking works. Curiosity helped me observe that without judgment, and Love of Learning helped me file it away.

Getting curious about the other person also has a liberating side effect: it takes the focus off yourself. The more I thought about networking as making friends rather than securing career opportunities, the less stressful it became. Nothing to lose. Everything to gain. And a much better opening line than Hi, I have a PhD, what do you do? — which I have, regrettably, actually said. A genuine question, a light observation about the event, or even a shared complaint about the weather will take you much further.

For international professionals specifically: your cultural unfamiliarity is not a liability here. It is material. Genuine questions about how things work in your new country — asked with real curiosity rather than performed interest — make people feel interesting and valued. That is a networking superpower many locals do not have.

Social Intelligence: How Do You Read the Room When the Rules Are Unfamiliar?

Social intelligence is the ability to be aware of and understand our own feelings and thoughts, as well as those of the people around us — and to respond in ways that are appropriate to the situation.

It is worth distinguishing it briefly from the related concept of emotional intelligence. While emotional intelligence focuses on identifying and managing your own emotions, social intelligence extends further: it includes understanding the dynamics of relationships and interactions, reading social situations accurately, and responding in ways that actually land. In a networking context, this is the difference between knowing you feel nervous and knowing what to do with that nervousness so it does not derail the conversation.

Here is a real example. I once approached a group at a networking event and asked what had brought them along that evening. The answer was brief: our company are event sponsors and we got free tickets. The group was clearly comfortable among themselves and not especially interested in conversation with a stranger. I felt foolish for a moment. Embarrassed, even.

But Social Intelligence gave me a second reading: these were likely regulars who had attended too many of these events, were there out of obligation, and had probably exhausted their networking energy hours ago. It was not about me. So I smiled, nodded graciously, and walked to the food table — partly to regroup, partly because the food was genuinely good — and looked for someone else who seemed more available for conversation. Drink in hand, I felt considerably less exposed.

That small recalibration — moving from what did I do wrong to what was actually happening in that interaction — is Social Intelligence at work. It does not eliminate awkward moments. It helps you recover from them without losing your footing.

For those who find networking socially exhausting: Social Intelligence also means knowing your own limits. Arriving early when the room is quieter, giving yourself permission to step outside for a moment, setting a time limit for the event — these are not cheating. They are self-awareness in action.

Putting It All Together: How to Use Your Strengths Before Your Next Networking Event

Whether Bravery, Curiosity, Love of Learning, and Social Intelligence appear at the top of your VIA profile or further down, they are all available to you. The question is how consciously you are drawing on them.

If these strengths are among your top five: bring them to networking moments with more intention. Notice when you are using them well, and when anxiety is quietly suppressing them. If they sit lower in your profile: here is an opportunity to develop them — to bring them to mind deliberately, practise them in lower-stakes situations, and notice what shifts.

Whatever your profile looks like, the goal of networking is not to become someone you are not. It is to bring who you already are into the room — with enough cultural awareness to calibrate how you express it, and enough self-knowledge to know what you are working with.

Start with the free VIA Survey at viacharacter.org. Fifteen minutes. Twenty-four strengths. Your own unique profile, ready to be put to work.

For Career Practitioners: Supporting Clients Who Struggle with Networking

If you work with clients who find networking uncomfortable — whether because of cultural unfamiliarity, social anxiety, introversion, or simply never having been shown how — the character strengths framework offers a practical and genuinely useful coaching lens.

Rather than beginning with tactics, begin with strengths. Ask your client what they already bring into a room. Help them name the courage it takes to show up at all. Explore with them which strengths they are suppressing out of anxiety versus which they are calibrating with cultural awareness. These are different conversations, and they lead to different outcomes.

I facilitate the CDANZ Special Interest Group on Character Strengths — a warm, reflective community of career practitioners exploring how strengths-based approaches can deepen our work with clients. Our next meeting is on Thursday 23 April 2026, 7–8pm (NZ time), and the topic is directly relevant if you support clients who find networking challenging — whether that is international professionals navigating a new cultural context, or anyone dealing with social anxiety or uncertainty about where to begin.

The meeting is open to CDANZ members and non-members alike.

Register here: https://zoom.us/meeting/register/1FIbsNPYRGS9SydcbXqb6w

Dr Sherrie Lee is a career coach for cross-cultural and mid-career transitions, based in Wellington, New Zealand. She is a Certified Career Services Provider™, leads the CDANZ Special Interest Group on Character Strengths, and works with international professionals, migrants, and academics navigating career change across cultures. Learn more at thediasporicacademic.com or book a free 20-minute discovery call.

Arrival sign in Changi Airport, Singapore

Careers / Cross-cultural / Professional Identity / Story

Navigating the Third Space: What International Professionals Need to Know About Working Across Borders

27 January 202628 January 2026adminLeave a comment

Building a Career Between Worlds: Understanding Third Culture Identity and Cross-Border Professional Life

A few days ago, I shared on LinkedIn about my recent trip to Singapore. I reflected on becoming “more foreign than local” in my birthplace, and the uncomfortable reality of existing in what I call the “third space” of international professionals.

That post got me thinking more deeply about this experience. I wasn’t just downloading post-holiday emotions, but I was describing something that many international professionals experience but rarely articulate in everyday conversation.

This article is an exploration of that third space: what it means, why it matters, and why I believe these stories need to be shared more openly. And at the end, I’ll share how you can be part of creating that space for honest conversation.

What is the Third Space? Understanding Third Culture Identity for Global Professionals

The Third Space is a theory attributed to Homi K. Bhabha and defined in his book The Location of Culture (1994). A Third Space is an undefined middle ground where people actively negotiate cultural meanings, producing identities that are fluid and continually evolving.

Nodes and lines forming triangles superimposed on speech bubbles — Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

I’ve made several trips back home to Singapore since leaving the country to start life afresh in New Zealand more than 10 years ago. Each trip brought back different memories and emotions. This particular trip centred around spending time with family and attending to personal matters and family responsibilities. In short, it felt like a working holiday with strings attached. I don’t think I can truly behave or feel like a tourist in my home country, but at the same time, it was becoming less intuitive and comfortable than before.

One particular incident stood out as an example of negotiating cultural meanings in this third space.

A Real Example: Navigating Cultural Expectations as an International Professional

I was catching up with a friend near their workplace and they introduced me to their colleagues who were nearby. It started off as a friendly exchange of self-introductions and they were naturally curious about my life in New Zealand. In such conversations, I find myself pointing out what I enjoy about living and working in New Zealand, but also highlighting how I miss certain things in Singapore like the food, convenience and efficiency. Now that I talk about it, it feels like a natural script where you present a balanced view so as not to appear you’ve got the good life and they haven’t. Then came a response I didn’t expect, or perhaps should have expected: “But you’re coming back home to Singapore, right?”

I paused. Missed a beat. Then said:

“Well, for now New Zealand is home.” Followed by light laughter all around.

What I wanted to say, but didn’t think it good manners to elaborate with acquaintances, was this:

“Why is it so important for you that I return to Singapore? What does it matter to you if I did or didn’t? Would you like me less if I said ‘never in a million years’ or like me more if I said ‘for sure, can’t wait to return home for good’?”

And when I think back to what I said, it was a mix of truth and face-saving. It is true that at present, New Zealand is my home, where I live, work and have community. And it is true that I cannot say this will be the case in the future because it is unseen and more importantly, uncertain. But equally true is the fact that I needed a response to counter the proposition that I was surely going to return to my home country without the indignation of having the notion of loyalty and national pride rolled up in one fat presumption.

(Pardon my words—I’m a poet after all.)

In other words, I needed a credible response without making a big deal out of it and still entertain the notion that I could return, just not on their terms!

Funny how a couple of seconds of small talk exploded into a soul-searching exercise within me.

The Expectation to “Return Home”: A Common Challenge for Migrant Professionals

And when I think back to various conversations with close friends and relatives, there I found it again: an expectation that I will return and my response of possibility. To be clear, I often think about the possibility of returning ‘home’ and different scenarios leading to that. But it is the default position and expectation of my Singaporean friends and family that truly unnerves me.

Sunset backdrop with two silhouettes in foreground — Image by Arifur Rahman from Pixabay

In New Zealand, I rarely have conversations with others about ‘going back home’ because I’m not a visitor and have a very full and settled life in this country! But when I think back to the process of getting where I am today, and even in more recent memory, there were notable occasions where ‘going back home’ or being singled out as foreign was the response.

When I was doing my PhD and asking about career pathways: “Oh, you want to stay and work here?”

When I asked the secondhand shop owner where the violin was made: “Where you’re from.”

When asked by the motel owner where I was from and I said Wellington: “No, where are you really from?”

And on many of those occasions came my face-saving meek sounding laughter, somehow saying, ah ha, I know what you’re thinking and it’s not okay, but I don’t want to turn this into an awkward situation and cause myself any more discomfort.

Like the light laughter I dispensed when positioned as a patriotic daughter of my homeland.

A defense mechanism that perhaps perpetuates the presumption and attitudes, but also saves me from having to launch into a tirade that would be further misunderstood and mess up the social order of conversation (which by the way is a real thing according to Conversation Analysis, a theoretical framework I used to analyse chat messages between peers in my PhD).

Why the Third Space Matters for International Career Success

Because everyday conversation tends to be polite or follow convention.

Because it is risky to try to defend your own cultural status to a relative stranger.

Because matters of self-identity and the process of identity making are complex.

We need a space to work all of this out, and the Third Space holds room for discomfort and discovery.

The Third Space Comes Alive When:

You recognise that you are in a liminal zone of sociocultural realities
You participate in a tug of war of loyalties and self-disclosure
You translate between worlds about religious and cultural traditions
You struggle and try to make peace with incidents and emotions that linger on your consciousness
You want to work out who you really are and where you really belong behind the multiple identities, hybrid accent, and the undeniable color of your skin

It’s not a problem to solve. It’s a reality to understand and navigate.

The Hidden Challenges of Building an International Career

And here’s what I know from a decade of working with international professionals—expatriates, international students, migrant professionals: we rarely talk about this experience honestly. When is ever the right time or place to discuss the messy, complicated reality of living between worlds? That stays private, unspoken, often unacknowledged even to ourselves.

Woman placing finger over closed lips — Photo by Kristina Flour on Unsplash

Common Experiences International Professionals Face (But Rarely Discuss):

The paralysis of imposter syndrome when your credentials aren’t immediately recognised
The exhaustion of code-switching between cultural communication styles
The grief of missing weddings, funerals, and the everyday moments of family life
The invisible labour of maintaining professional and personal networks across time zones
The courage it takes to keep rebuilding, again and again
The quiet moments of wondering: “Where is home? Who am I now?”

These are the experiences that live in the third space. The tensions that sit uncomfortably in your belly. The emotions you can’t quite explain to people who’ve only ever lived in one place. The complexity that doesn’t fit into simple narratives about “international careers.”

If you’re navigating a career and life across cultures, borders, and systems, you’re not imagining this complexity. Those emotions? They’re real. And they matter.

Why International Professionals Need to Share Their Stories

When I was planning my move from Singapore to New Zealand, I devoured every resource I could find about immigration processes, job search strategies, and credential recognition. What I couldn’t find were the stories I actually needed—the ones about navigating the third space:

The Questions That Really Matter for International Career Transitions:

How do you maintain your sense of professional identity when you’re starting over?
What does it feel like when you’re overqualified on paper but underemployed in practice?
How do you build a career when your network is 10,000 kilometers away?
When does it start feeling like home?
How do you reconcile the person you were “there” with the person you’re becoming “here”?

The practical information is important. But understanding the emotional and psychological journey—the reality of existing in the third space—that’s just as important, if not even more so, when we want to thrive, not merely survive as international professionals.

Yet these stories remain largely untold. We share them in quiet conversations with other international professionals, in late-night messages to friends who “get it.” But publicly? We stick to the polished narratives.

I believe we need to change that.

Not because everyone’s story needs to be public. But because those of us willing to share can create understanding, validation, and support for international professionals navigating this journey.

When we openly discuss the reality of the third space—the tensions, the growth, the complexity—we give others permission to acknowledge their own experiences. We create community where there was isolation. We transform individual struggles into collective wisdom.

That’s why I’m creating a space for these conversations: The International Career Journey Podcast, a podcast dedicated to the authentic experiences of professionals who’ve crossed borders to build their careers.

Introducing: The International Career Journey Podcast

A podcast for professionals navigating careers across borders—from anywhere, to anywhere.

I want to have honest, in-depth conversations with international professionals about their journeys. About the visa rejections, the cultural misunderstandings, the career setbacks, the identity questions, and yes, the eventual breakthroughs and growth. I hope to interview people in the next few months and launch the podcast in the second half of 2026.

Retro microphone on a table with festive bokeh lights. A vintage-style microphone placed on a wooden table with warm bokeh lights. — AI generated image from Pixabay

What Makes This International Career Podcast Different

This isn’t about celebrating “success stories” or promoting the myth that international careers are all adventure and opportunity. It’s about the full, honest journey:

Real challenges faced and how they were overcome (or not)
Cultural adaptation in workplace contexts
Career progression strategies across borders
The emotional and identity aspects of international work
Practical insights other professionals can actually use
The question we’re all navigating: what does “home” mean when you’ve lived in multiple places?

The Format: Intimate, Honest Conversations About Global Careers

Each episode is approximately 30 minutes—long enough for depth, short enough for your commute. The structure is conversational, not scripted. I’ll ask the questions I wish I had the answers to before I made my international career move:

What surprised you most about working in [country]?
Tell me about a moment when you felt completely out of your depth
How has your sense of identity evolved?
What do you wish you’d known before you moved?
When did it start feeling less foreign?

Looking for Season 1 Podcast Guests (Recording March-May 2026)

Here’s where I need your help.

If you’re a professional with an international career story, I want to hear from you. Your story doesn’t need to be dramatic or “successful” by conventional measures. It just needs to be real.

Who I’m Looking For: 7 Types of International Professional Stories

1) The New Arrival

You relocated to a new country for work and have been there 2+ years. You’ve navigated the visa process, job search, and cultural adaptation. You have fresh insights about building a career in a new country.

2) The Migrant Professional

You grew up or studied in one country and moved to another for work. You’re more or less settled in your new country and have 5+ years work experience. You’ve navigated the transition from familiar to foreign and can speak to the opportunities and challenges of ‘starting all over’.

3) The Serial Mover

You’ve worked in 3+ countries across different regions. You’ve built a truly global career spanning continents. You understand the art of professional reinvention across borders and have strategies for maintaining career momentum while moving.

4) The Returner

You left your home country to work overseas and have since returned. You can share insights on reverse culture shock, reintegration, and what it’s like to go “home” after years away.

5) The Cross-Border Remote Worker

You work remotely for international companies or clients. You’ve navigated the tax, legal, and practical challenges of working across borders while potentially living in multiple locations.

6) The Aspiring International Professional

You’re actively preparing to work in another country. You’re in the research, application, or planning phase. You can share your preparation journey and what you’re learning.

7) The Support Professional

You work in organisational or consultant roles supporting international career transitions. Examples: global mobility specialists, HR professionals managing relocations, immigration advisors. You have behind-the-scenes insights to share.

Why Share Your International Career Story?

The interview process is surprisingly valuable for reflection on your journey and growth. And your story could be exactly what someone needs to hear to make their next brave move—or to simply feel less alone in their current challenges. By sharing your personal insights, you’re contributing something valuable to a global community.

Or Do You Know Someone With a Great International Career Story?

Share this article with them. Tag someone who should be a guest. Help me find the voices that need to be heard.

What’s Involved: Podcast Details

30-minute Zoom conversation (conversational, not formal)
No special equipment needed
Recording: March – May 2026
Season 1 Launch: Second half of 2026

How to Apply to Be a Podcast Guest

If you’re interested in being a guest, please complete this application form: https://forms.gle/jPX4srS6itf3BRn26

I’ll review all applications and respond within 5-7 business days.

Application Deadline: 28 February 2026

Stay Connected: Subscribe for Updates on International Career Insights

Want to stay updated?
Subscribe to my newsletter International Career Journey on LinkedIn or Substack. Subscribe for podcast updates, guest features, and reflections on international career journeys.

Or follow me on:

Website: https://thediasporicacademic.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leesherrie/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/diasporacademic/
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YouTube: https://YouTube.com/@drsherrielee

Have questions?
Leave or comment or send me a direct message. I’d love to hear from you.

Frequently Asked Questions About Being a Podcast Guest

Q: I’m not “successful enough” or “expert enough.” Can I still apply?

A: Yes! I’m looking for real, authentic stories—not just success stories. If you’re navigating an international career journey and have insights to share, you’re qualified. Some of the most valuable episodes will be from people still figuring things out.

Q: I have a strong accent or English isn’t my first language. Is that okay?

A: Absolutely. Your perspective is valuable regardless of accent. This podcast celebrates diversity. As long as you can communicate your experiences clearly, your voice deserves to be heard.

Q: What if I’m nervous about being recorded?

A: Totally normal! The conversation is relaxed and conversational—I’ll guide you through it. You can practice beforehand, and you’ll get to preview the episode before it’s published. Just think of the interview like a conversation with a friend.

Q: Can I talk about my business or services?

A: This podcast focuses on professional career journeys, not business promotion. You’re welcome to mention your current role and company in your introduction, but the conversation centers on your international career experiences and insights—not marketing services. Your LinkedIn profile and brief bio will be shared on the episode page.

Q: I have a unique situation that doesn’t fit the profiles exactly. Can I still apply?

A: Yes! The profiles are guidelines. If you have an international professional career story worth sharing, I want to hear it.

Q: What if my schedule changes and I need to reschedule?

A: Life happens! Just let me know as soon as possible and we’ll find another time that works.

Q: Will this be video or just audio?

A: Both. We’ll record a video via Zoom and the podcast will be shared on YouTube and audio-only podcast channels like Spotify.

About the Host: Dr Sherrie Lee

I am a career coach for international professionals. I’m born in Singapore, based in New Zealand, living in the Third Space. With over a decade of experience working with international professionals—expatriates, international students, and migrant professionals—I understand the unique challenges of building careers across borders because I’ve lived it myself. Through my career coaching work and this newsletter, International Career Journey, I help professionals navigate the third space and transform cross-cultural complexity into career strength.

Podcast (launching second half of 2026): The International Career Journey Podcast

Paper boat on top of a globe symbolising international career journey

Careers / Cross-cultural / Professional Identity / Story

My International Career Journey: Everything Everywhere All At Once

6 December 20257 December 2025admin1 Comment

A Year of Professional Development, Character Strengths, and Portfolio Strategy

At the start of 2025, I’d set out to go deep and hone my craft as an international career coach. I committed to professional development, reaching a wider audience with my character strengths workshop. Along that journey, I also experienced planned happenstance – being presented with opportunities when I least expected it, and taking a leap of faith and saying yes.

When I look back at what I’ve done, I find myself taking a pause, a deep breath, and savouring the moment. Imagining I was looking at an art work on the wall, I see Jackson Pollock’s Convergence where “the process of dripping, pouring, and splattering provided him with a combination of chance and control.”

Jackson Pollock's Convergence painting - vibrant abstract expressionist artwork demonstrating the balance of chance and control in creative process, metaphor for international career development journey — Jackson Pollock’s “Convergence” (1952)

Chance and control. Having a direction of travel but not knowing exactly if it will and how it will work out. Making plans and adjusting them as other things pop up. Keeping my focus on what I want: To make a bigger and deeper impact on international professionals in their career journey.

Professional Development is Non-negotiable

I’ve learnt time and time again that there’s always more to learn, even if you feel you’re at the peak of your career or on top of your game. In fact, if we accept that people and society are dynamic and ever-changing, then it follows that we will need to keep learning, refining, and sharpening our toolkit and skill set.

This year was marked by extensive professional development in career practice. When I get serious about something, I don’t just read a book about it. I could be biased since I have learning as a top strength. And truth be told, sometimes I overuse this strength to my detriment – signing up for way more webinars than I can practically attend or reasonably focus my attention on. But I’m learning the lesson of ‘less is more’ and ‘fewer but deeper’.

A rang of tools and parts symbolising the career toolkit international professionals need to continuously replenish and refine. — Image by Евгений from Pixabay

For international professionals and migrants navigating career transitions, this commitment to continuous learning becomes even more critical.

New Zealand vs Singapore: Two Approaches to Professional Development

It’s also interesting to note the contrasting attitudes toward professional development between New Zealand (where I live) and Singapore (where I’m from). In New Zealand, professional development is individual-driven, incentivised (or disincentivised) by the organisation’s commitment to it in terms of time and money, as well as the value they perceive it has on the day-to-day operations and organisational needs. In Singapore, at least in the government and education sectors, professional development goes hand in hand with performance evaluation and career advancement. In fact, the Singapore government has a nation-wide blueprint of workforce development for different sectors and career stages, often heavily subsidised, clearly encouraging businesses and organisations to keep their employees up to date and future-ready.

In various New Zealand workplaces, I often find myself the most enthusiastic about professional development among my peers, and also the most disappointed when there is no formal career progression pathway, or when I realise the pathway is part of the ‘hidden curriculum’. Over time, I’ve learnt to be the boss of my own professional development, and in fact, that is often the message I get from managers and HR folk – you decide what you need and ask for it. If the stars (and budget align), you get it!

I believe there is a lot more New Zealand organisations can do to make staff professional development more structured, strategic and a win-win incentive for productivity and innovation. However, I’ve also learnt to embrace an entrepreneurial mindset to designing my professional development and ultimately my career portfolio. And this year was a bumper crop of professional development, more than I actually initially planned for.

Being the Boss of My Own Development

I committed to raising my practice to the highest industry standards. While anyone can call themselves a coach or career advisor, I wanted to provide quality assurance of my work. This year, I completed the 130-hour Facilitating Career Development course, a prerequisite for earning the globally recognised Certified Career Services Provider credential from the National Career Development Association. The programme bridged theory and practice and addressed cultural and ethical dimensions of career practice. Certification required passing an exam and ongoing professional development. To deepen my coaching skills, I’m also close to finishing an ICF-accredited Positive Psychology Coaching programme which has been a truly transformative experience.

Coffee mug next to laptop with screen showing webinar participants. — Photo by Chris Montgomery on Unsplash

Another professional development highlight was an on-demand webinar series called Practice, Practice, Practice co-organised by the Career Development Association of New Zealand (CDANZ) and the Career Development Association of Australia. The series reminded me of the importance of career theory in practice and how ongoing professional development involves the humility of peer supervision and learning from others’ practice. For me, this balance of knowledge acquisition and learning through and from community is the gold standard of professional development. Thinking about the differences between Singapore and New Zealand, Singapore tends to favour knowledge acquisition more than peer learning while New Zealand more readily adopts a community of practice approach. Over and above these two approaches, critical reflection is key to pulling the different threads of professional development into a meaningful learning experience that can have a positive influence on practice. Less is more. Fewer but deeper.

Character Strengths in Career Development

The VIA character strengths framework has become my go-to tool for career coaching and self-awareness development. These 24 character strengths make up the best aspects about our personality.

Developed by researchers in positive psychology, the VIA character strengths framework proposes that everyone possesses all 24 character strengths in varying degrees, so each individual has a unique personal profile. Each character strength falls under one of these six broad virtue categories, which are universal across cultures and nations. The framework uses simple but thoughtful language to describe each strength, applicable across a variety of contexts, and the survey is free to access.

Why VIA Character Strengths?

Because the VIA framework is underpinned by robust research, easy to understand, has wide application and is freely accessible, the VIA survey of character strengths has become my top choice for developing self-awareness – one of the foundations of developing your own career. I’ve written on the topic of character strengths in career development and have spoken about it on two podcasts. One of the podcasts came about in the most serendipitous fashion – I was scrolling through my LinkedIn feed and came across a call for guests on a podcast program to talk about assessments in coaching. The VIA survey immediately came to mind and after a couple of emails and a thoroughly enjoyable recording session, I’m really proud to have shared my heart about character strengths and how doing the survey and pouring over my personal profile has personally transformed my career perspective at a time of job redundancy. For international professionals facing career uncertainty or workplace transitions, understanding your character strengths can provide an anchor of self-knowledge in times of change.

You can’t hide a light under a bowl. Apart from running monthly workshops on character strengths at the university where I work as a career consultant, I’ve run a few webinars on the topic, including a session for the 2025 Higher Education Summit that came about in yet another serendipitous manner. Once again it was my LinkedIn feed that led me to a post on the summit. After reading about the background, the call for contributions and one of the themes of emotions, well-being and inner development, it became clear to me: this was an opportunity to share my character strengths workshop to a global audience! Strength in action: Spirituality.

24 icons representing the 24 VIA character strengths designed by Dr Sherrie Lee — 24 Character Strengths Chart © 2025 Dr Sherrie Lee

Taking Character Strengths Global

I took a leap of faith and put together a proposal for the webinar, not knowing much else about the summit or the people who would attend. The proposal was accepted, I prepped for the webinar and up till the last few minutes before the start time, I had no idea how many would turn up. We ended up with a cosy group of eight people from different European countries and backgrounds, and had a precious time of open sharing and discussion of how we can apply character strengths in scary times. Connecting with higher education students and professionals from another continent also helped me to fulfil my dream of expanding my impact on international professionals. Strength in action: Zest.

Building Community: The CDANZ Special Interest Group

However, what I am most proud of is establishing the CDANZ Special Interest Group on Character Strengths. Sharing best practices and learning together with a professional community requires not only time commitment but also active participation. I started with a simple belief that good things cannot be kept hidden and ran a character strengths webinar for CDANZ members with a call for interest in a special interest group (SIG). We had enough numbers to confidently launch the SIG and the three meetings we’ve had to date have helped to create a warm and inclusive group who are generous with sharing and deeply reflective. The smooth running of these online meetings would not have been possible without the assistance of a colleague who helped with refining meeting activities and reflection exercises, as well as providing technical support during meetings. There were times when I wondered if all these hours of prep and admin was going to result in any significant gain. But when I think back to the various aha moments and learning reflections at the SIG meetings, I realise the intrinsic value of talking about strengths in a safe and supportive environment. It is ultimately a service to my professional community in the belief that learning comes through reflection, and transformation through application. Strength in action: Gratitude.

International Career Portfolio Rebalance

An important part of my own international career development this year was reviewing my portfolio career strategy and how I could make a bigger impact. Strategy for me is not a one-day meeting to work out what’s important and what to discard, but more like a meandering experiment until I find my answer. I don’t recommend this approach for everyone but with Spritiuality as my top character strength, followed closely by Creativity and Zest, I knew I couldn’t help but connect with people, try out new ideas, and with a full tank of energy.

Sure I overused these strengths on many occasions, but I also learned to recover in equal measure through silence and rest. There are ways to bring these strengths into optimal use but I honestly much rather overuse them and find ways to compensate at later times. And over time I’m sure I’ll recalibrate the balancing act. But for now, I’m very much driven by the motto: Carpe diem, seize the day, make your lives extraordinary.

Finding My Themes Through Writing

Through the process of more regular blogging and starting a monthly newsletter International Career Journey (on LinkedIn and Substack), I’ve clarified what my portfolio career stands for. I’ve gravitated towards these core themes for international professionals:

Navigating cross-cultural workplaces and transitions
Future proofing your career by building portfolio careers
Self-awareness through character strengths and critical reflection

These themes aren’t just what I write about. They’re the foundation of how I’m building my own portfolio career.

Adding Portfolio Skills through my Instagram Experiment

Part of rebalancing my career portfolio meant adding new skills and experimenting with different mediums. I’ve been experimenting with creating content for my Instagram account. I wanted to learn more about media content creation and how easy – or difficult – it would be to learn and to implement on a regular basis. The learning curve was steep! They say reels are the primary tool to drive engagement, and I’m still learning about what makes a good 3-second hook.

Apart from self-taught lessons on trending audio, reel length and hooks, I also learned about the fleeting nature of attention, how the medium is the message, and admittedly, a personal sense of helplessness in never being able to keep up with the latest trends and algorithms in instagram worthy engagement. But this is part of portfolio career building: trying new things, discovering what fits, and letting go of what doesn’t. I’ve learnt to stop competing and comparing and focus on creating moments of insight with a bit of fun and flair.

From Experiment to Clarity: Portfolio as Process

And where has this meandering experiment taken me?

From working to ‘impossible’ deadlines (and meeting them anyway) to a place of pause and reflection.

From scattered activities to intentional choices.

This year taught me that portfolio career strategy isn’t about having everything figured out. It’s about staying true to your core purpose while remaining open to unexpected opportunities. The professional development courses, character strengths workshops, newsletter writing, Instagram experiments – each was both planned and spontaneous, controlled and chance-driven.

I don’t need to have absolute certainty of what my portfolio looks like. What matters is the clarity of purpose that guides every decision: To expand my influence and impact on helping international professionals thrive on their career journey, whichever stage and place they may be.

The portfolio isn’t fixed. It’s a living, evolving composition, constantly being rebalanced as new opportunities emerge and priorities shift.

As I bring up the image of Jackson Pollock’s Convergence once again, I stand in awe of the masterpiece that is a result of chance and control.

An image of Jackson Pollock's Convergence (1952)

For anyone on their own international career journey, I hope these reflections on professional development, character strengths, and portfolio career building offer both inspiration and practical pathways forward

Carpe diem, seize the day, make your lives extraordinary.

Frequently Asked Questions About International Career Development

Q: What are VIA character strengths and how do they help with career development?

The VIA (Values in Action) character strengths are 24 universal qualities that represent the best aspects of our personality, developed by researchers in positive psychology. They help with career development by providing a foundation of self-awareness. This helps you understand what energises you, how you naturally approach challenges, and where you might be overusing or underusing certain strengths. For international professionals, understanding your character strengths becomes especially valuable during career transitions, as they remain constant even when your environment, role, or workplace culture changes.

Q: How is professional development different between New Zealand and Singapore?

The key difference lies in structure and responsibility. In Singapore, particularly in government and education sectors, professional development is systematically integrated with performance evaluation and career advancement, with nationwide workforce development blueprints and significant subsidies. In New Zealand, professional development tends to be more individual-driven. You’re expected to identify your own needs and advocate for them, with organisational support varying widely. This means international professionals in New Zealand need to adopt an entrepreneurial mindset toward their own development, actively designing their learning pathway rather than following a prescribed route.

Q: What is a portfolio career and is it right for international professionals?

A portfolio career involves combining multiple roles, projects, or income streams rather than relying on a single traditional job. It might include consulting work, part-time employment, freelance projects, and passion ventures all at once. For international professionals, a portfolio career offers flexibility to leverage diverse skills across different contexts, build resilience against job market uncertainty, and create opportunities that traditional employment might not offer. This is especially valuable when navigating visa restrictions, credential recognition challenges, or wanting to maintain connections across multiple countries.

Q: How can character strengths help during workplace transitions?

Character strengths provide an anchor of self-knowledge during times of change. When you’re navigating a new workplace culture, adjusting to different management styles, or facing job uncertainty, your character strengths remain constant. They help you identify what you naturally bring to any situation, recognize when you’re in flow versus when you’re struggling, and make strategic decisions about roles and opportunities that align with your authentic self. This is particularly powerful for international professionals who may be adapting to unfamiliar workplace norms or rebuilding their professional identity in a new country.

Q: What does ‘planned happenstance’ mean in career development?

Planned happenstance is the idea that careers develop through a combination of intentional action and being open to unexpected opportunities. Rather than rigidly following a predetermined career plan, you create possibilities by staying curious, persistent, flexible, optimistic, and willing to take risks. In my own journey this year, planned happenstance showed up when I responded to opportunities I found scrolling through LinkedIn, such as the podcast invitation and the Higher Education Summit, without knowing exactly where they would lead, but trusting they aligned with my broader goal of reaching international professionals. Here’s another article I wrote about planned happenstance: Planned Happenstance – How to Make your Own Career Luck

Q: How do I start building self-awareness for career development?

Start with free, research-backed tools like the VIA character strengths survey (viacharacter.org). Take time to reflect on your results, not just your top strengths, but also your lower-ranked ones and what that pattern tells you about yourself. Combine this with regular critical reflection on your work experiences: What energises you? What drains you? When do you feel most authentic? Consider working with a career coach who can help you explore these patterns and translate self-awareness into actionable career strategies.

Q: What skills are most important for international professionals to develop?

Beyond technical skills in your field, focus on cross-cultural communication and adaptability, the ability to translate your experience across different contexts, resilience and flexibility in the face of uncertainty, networking across cultures and platforms, and continuous learning mindset. These meta-skills help you navigate different workplace cultures, explain your value to employers unfamiliar with your background, and stay agile as workplace expectations evolve.

Q: How can I expand my impact as an international professional?

Consider creating content that shares your unique perspective whether through blogging, newsletters, social media, or speaking opportunities. Join or establish special interest groups in your professional community. Facilitate workshops or webinars on topics you’re passionate about. Look for ways to connect with international audiences through platforms like LinkedIn. The key is finding your authentic voice and the themes that matter most to you, then consistently showing up to share your insights and learn from others’ experiences.

Work With Me

Throughout this post, I’ve shared my journey with professional development, character strengths, and building a portfolio career as an international professional. Now I want to support you in your international career journey.

I’m Dr Sherrie Lee, an international career coach with certifications as a Certified Career Services Provider (CCSP) and ICF-accredited Positive Psychology Coaching. I specialise in helping international professionals, migrants, and academics navigate cross-cultural workplaces, career transitions, and building careers that truly fit.

Based in Wellington, New Zealand, I work with clients globally through one-on-one coaching, workshops, and speaking engagements.

Ready to take the next step in your international career journey?

Whether you’re navigating a career transition, exploring a portfolio career strategy, or seeking clarity on your professional direction, let’s have a conversation.

Book a free 20-minute discovery call to discuss where you are, where you want to go, and how I can help you get there.

Carpe diem, seize the day, make your life extraordinary. And remember, you don’t have to do it alone.

Portfolio careers are increasingly important in a disruptive labour market.

Careers / Cross-cultural / Phd / Professional Identity / Story

The Portfolio Career I Didn’t Know I Was Building

4 November 20254 November 2025admin1 Comment

The world feels more uncertain than it was before. Yet I’ve never felt more sure about the kind of career I want.

That’s not to say I know exactly what role I’ll land in five years or which skills I’ll need to master next. Job titles and roles matter—they help you understand required capabilities and map stepping stones forward. I’ve used this approach many times, and it’s served me well.

But I’m entering a new phase of career thinking. Rather than chase the next job with its narrow definitions and built-in limitations, I want to cultivate my own unique suite of skills and expertise that leads to interesting, challenging opportunities.

Enter the portfolio career.

The Era of Portfolio Careers Has Arrived

We’ve long thought of careers as ladders to climb—promotions, better pay, prestigious titles. That paradigm is all but outdated.

The OECD confirms what many already know: 21st-century career paths have become increasingly fluid. Workers change jobs, employers, and entire careers more frequently than past generations. Average job tenure has declined across OECD countries. U.S. data shows baby boomers held nearly 13 jobs over their working lives, with surveys suggesting half of all workers undergo a complete career change during their lifetime.

“The successful career of the future is not a ladder to climb. It’s a portfolio to curate.” — April Rinne, futurist

Rapid technological change and labour market disruption mean we must adapt continuously, develop new skills, and sometimes change careers entirely. Unlike a job that can be lost, your portfolio career—the collection of skills, experiences, and capabilities you’ve built—is yours forever.

Portfolio careers are especially relevant for international professionals who have crossed borders, rebuilt careers in new countries, learnt whole new cultures, and navigated challenges of visas, identity, and belonging.

This isn’t a trendy concept. It describes what we’ve been doing all along—whether for advancement or survival—even when we didn’t have language to name it.

So how can we better appreciate our own portfolio careers?

Taking inspiration from Agile methodology, I suggest doing a career retrospective: a structured reflection on your journey to date, examining all your roles (paid and unpaid, including volunteering), and discovering themes and threads.

My Career Retrospective: 25 Roles in 25 Years

When I list everything I’ve done from my first gig out of high school to now, I count 25+ roles spanning 25+ years.

My laundry list includes: piano teacher, lifestyle writer, dance company manager, English teacher, conflict management trainer, business communications lecturer, researcher, student association president, business development manager, principal advisor to a deputy secretary, social media manager, board member, worship leader, and university career consultant.

One could call it chaotic. To a recruiter, it might seem like a bewildering collection of disparate roles, leaving them wondering what kind of career chameleon they’re dealing with.

But how about poetic? From a young age, I’ve been driven by curiosity and purpose, following personal interests rather than conventional pathways. Each role represents a desire to pursue passion, help people, or contribute to something bigger than myself.

The Early Years: Passion vs. Pragmatism

The coolest role I had at university was arts and film reviewer for an e-zine set up by enterprising students starting their web hosting business. The gig didn’t pay, but spending evenings watching theatre, dance productions, and countless films for free was payment enough. Critiquing performances and narratives was the highest form of self-actualisation for an arts student majoring in English.

After graduation, I worked in the dot-com sector as it was about to bubble-burst, moved to arts management, then teaching. I constantly felt tension between passion and pragmatism in my home country of Singapore. My peers were well ahead in their established careers while I worried about my CV, which screamed “job-hopper” from day one.

The Settling Down Phase: Getting “Real”

When I was ready to settle down and start a family, I was determined to hang up my footloose approach and get serious about a “real job.” I interviewed for a conflict management trainer role that felt very much in my element. I was video recorded doing a mock training session which felt natural, thanks to past teaching gigs and high school drama productions.

Then came the chat with the big boss. She was concerned about my CV: “Can you actually stay in this job?” I played my adulting card—all truth, no fluff. She later told me: “If it wasn’t for your video, we wouldn’t have given your CV a second look.”

Life stage and family responsibilities changed everything. I was looking for stability and professional growth, which I found in training and education roles. I spent 10 years sharpening my trainer’s toolkit, honing my teaching craft, delving into pedagogies, and completing my Master of Arts in Teaching. There was great satisfaction doing meaningful work through my skills and talents, yet a restlessness tugged at my sensibilities.

The Big Leap: PhD and Migration

That restlessness led to another life-changing transition. Inspired by theories and research I’d spent long hours writing about for my Master’s, I wanted to go further. I decided I wanted to do a PhD in Education with dreams of becoming an academic. I also wanted my family to experience something new, for my children to enjoy their childhood, and to take this calculated risk before we got too comfortable.

We moved to New Zealand where I started a new role as a PhD candidate and threw myself wholeheartedly into academia and research.

Making Sense of the Pattern

How could I make sense of all these roles?

Analysing them using Holland Codes (RIASEC personality types) revealed this: I have a Social-Enterprising-Artistic (SEA) profile. Social is clearly dominant, Enterprising a strong secondary, and Artistic significant. Conventional and Investigative are moderate, while Realistic is non-existent.

Whilst people usually take the profile test to explore related jobs, this reverse analysis helped me appreciate something profound: The SEA profile isn’t just about job preferences or job fit. It reveals my desire to combine social, enterprising, and artistic elements in my work. Or put another way: to be someone who influences and develops people, spearheads projects, and offers creative and original insights.

The portfolio I built was invisible to me for years because I measured it against conventional markers of progress and prestige, even whilst trying to explore alternative directions.

Seven Years of Change, Challenge, and Completion

This realisation emerged recently whilst reflecting on my original migration plans and PhD dreams. Serendipitously, it’s been seven years since completing my PhD.

Seven years. That’s how long it took from completing my PhD in Education at the University of Waikato to finding my way back to a university setting, but in a role I never imagined when I submitted my thesis.

Seven years often represents a period of completion, transformation, and cycles. When I walked across that graduation stage, I carried dreams of an academic career: publications, teaching positions, research grants. That was the primary motivator for moving countries and uprooting my family. The academic career seemed like a natural progression from teaching in higher education, and a worthy, family-proud career I would add.

The pathway I envisioned was clear and conventional. What I got instead was seven years of non-academic roles where I swapped my academic identity for a professional one that felt strange at first but grew in skills, knowledge, and networks over time. It was difficult to admit I’d “failed” to become an academic. I used to joke that I was a “recovering academic” when I first started my professional role.

But looking at those seven years through an emotional lens, I also recall the roller coaster: rejection and reinvention, success and shattered plans. The search for academic jobs felt hopeful but grew hopeless through successive rejections. Then came a career consultant role for new migrants that was supposed to be temporary but led to pragmatic considerations of stable income. A pivot into government work took me further from my academic identity, yet the professional environment was exciting and rewarding. Just when I thought I’d made impressive strides, involuntary redundancy forced me to consider returning to Singapore, questioning whether migration itself had been a mistake.

The roller coaster graph of those seven years ends on a high with my current role as university career consultant. Climbing from rock bottom to this high point was no magic wand, quick career hack, or pure dumb luck. I was forced to consider all options, dig deep, and get uncomfortable with worst-case scenarios. The Social-Enterprising-Artistic aspects of my career personality jostled for attention. I felt drawn to roles that gave me the most energy and hope.

At any point during those seven years, if you’d asked about my career, I would have simply answered with facts, stating the job I had or that I was looking for one.

But here’s what hindsight reveals: I was building a portfolio career all along. I just couldn’t see it because it’s very hard to avoid measuring yourself against conventional markers of progress and prestige, even when you’re consciously trying to explore alternative directions.

When Your PhD Feels Like a Cruel Joke

PhD students often indulge in cruel optimism – the doctoral aspiration for academic life despite depressing realities of limited opportunities and precarious pathways. I was truly an optimist, feeling ultra-motivated to publish, attend conferences, and do everything possible to increase my academic capital and beat the odds.

My PhD research focused on peer brokering practices amongst international learners, specifically how students navigate culturally relevant connections and networks to succeed in unfamiliar academic environments. I understood, intellectually and personally, what it meant to be an outsider trying to find my way. I’d lived it as a Singaporean Chinese in New Zealand: trying to explain who I was culturally and ethnically to a largely disinterested audience, working hard and speaking out to prove naysayers wrong, always seeking connections and networks that understood my work and identity.

Cruel optimism ran its course. Urgent pragmatism loomed large in the rearview mirror.

The cruel part wasn’t just the reality of the academic job market and short-term contracts, but that being migrant, Asian, Chinese, unconventional, and assertive was a mixed bag of traits that didn’t quite fit the people, place, and perspective where I was situated.

With my PhD degree done and dusted, it was a full-time paid job that would keep my migrant dreams alive, not a half-baked notion of someday getting an academic position. Because that’s what migration demands. You can’t afford idealism when you need to prove economic value whilst still establishing your foothold in a new country.

The Invisible Portfolio I Was Actually Building

They say hindsight is 20/20. Commenting on the past seems easy when you know the outcome. But that clarity is only useful if it’s meaningful and teaches lessons for the future.

What do my aha moments tell me about myself, my career, and my future?

Phase 1: Getting a Foot in the Door (The Accidental Job)

When I took the career consultant role working with new migrants, it felt like survival mode. Ditching the academic dream for a job. A foot in the door to the public sector. Something to pay bills whilst figuring out what came next.

What it looked like then: A compromise. Moving away from academia and research. Leaving behind the identity I’d worked so hard to build.

What I can see now: This role built new knowledge structures of the public sector and provided the very foundation of my career practice today. I was developing:

Deep empathy through shared experience: I wasn’t just helping migrants; I was one. I understood the disorientation, the pressure to prove yourself, the exhaustion of constant cultural translation.
The art of brokering in practice: My research had been about peer brokering. Now I was doing it professionally by connecting people to resources, translating between cultural contexts, helping others navigate unfamiliar systems.
Client-centred coaching skills: Every conversation required listening beneath the surface, understanding what people weren’t saying, recognising cultural dimensions of career aspirations.
Knowledge of settlement systems: I was learning the landscape of migration support, policy, and barriers—knowledge that grew my systems thinking and analysis skills.

This wasn’t just a job. It was an apprenticeship in policy implementation and cross-cultural career development that no academic position could have provided.

Phase 2: Embracing a New Professional Mindset (Switching Track)

The pathway into government jobs took me even further from what I thought I wanted. Policy. Stakeholder management. Bureaucratic processes. This wasn’t education. This wasn’t research. This was a completely different professional culture.

What it looked like then: I was losing my academic identity. Becoming someone else. Forced in a different direction.

What I can see now: I was gaining dual citizenship in academic and professional cultures—an attribute I didn’t think much of before but has provided unique credibility to different audiences. I developed:

Policy thinking: Understanding how systems work, how decisions get made, how to navigate institutional structures
Stakeholder management across differences: Working with diverse groups, building consensus, translating between organisational languages
Public sector networks: Connections across government agencies, exposure to how settlement and education policy machinery actually operates
Institutional navigation skills: The patience to work within complex systems, the strategic thinking to influence them

I was learning my identity didn’t have to be either/or. I could hold both academic researcher and government professional. I could maintain my “north star” of international education whilst being pragmatic about where I worked. In fact, that north star helped me land a job at Education New Zealand as business development manager.

However, holding two identities also taught me that working in government was less about asserting personal authoritative expertise and more about implementing policies of the government of the day, regardless of opinion or perspective.

Phase 3: Contributing to Causes and Networks (Keeping My Passion Alive)

Throughout my government years, I never stopped watching for opportunities related to my research interests: international students, migration, cross-cultural engagement, supporting ethnic communities.

I initiated Lunar New Year celebrations at my workplace. I was an active member of the Pan-Asian Public Sector Network. I applied successfully to be a board member of English Language Partners (New Zealand’s largest provider of English language training to migrants and former refugees). I maintained connections with academic friends and professional associations, and wrote about my passion topics on my blog.

What it looked like then: Scattered focus. Trying to be someone I couldn’t really be anymore. Not knowing where passion projects were leading—maybe a dead end.

What I can see now: This was planned happenstance in action, the career theory by John Krumboltz about creating and transforming unplanned events into opportunities. I was engaging in:

Strategic networking: Building bridges between sectors, creating weak ties that Mark Granovetter’s research showed would be more valuable than strong ties
Domain expertise maintenance: Supporting and advocating for cross-cultural engagement and inclusion even whilst working in completely different areas, ensuring I could speak both languages when opportunities arose
Persistence without rigidity: Having direction without being so attached to specific outcomes that I missed other possibilities

I also wonder if keeping passion alive with these extracurricular activities was the extra fuel that kept me motivated in my day job, especially when work demands zapped all optimistic energy from my tank.

Career transitions aren’t just about skills and opportunities. They’re about identity, belonging, and the courage to rebuild yourself when your plans fall apart.

Phase 4: Losing My Job and Feeling Like a Loser (Hitting Rock Bottom)

When the notice of redundancy came, I felt I was free-falling. No government job. Few alternatives. A good track record and previous connections seemed to count for little when everyone else had those things too.

It felt like reliving the cruel optimism of pursuing a PhD but worse. I had overcome, I had succeeded, and now I’d fallen off what looked like the highest rung, with no substitute in sight. Was someone punishing me for thinking I could make it this far?

Urgent pragmatism reared its fat, ugly head. Should I stay or should I go? Should I return to Singapore? Had my PhD and all these years establishing my New Zealand career been for nothing?

What it looked like then: Failure. Career stagnation. The end of my New Zealand story.

What I can see now: This forced pause helped me pull together my portfolio career elements. Now both content and process are key components of my training and coaching practice. I gained:

Clarity about values: When considering leaving a country, you discover what actually matters. I had to articulate why I wanted to stay, what New Zealand meant to me, what kind of work would be meaningful.
Resilience through radical uncertainty: I learnt to sit with not knowing. To hold multiple possibilities without immediately needing resolution. To be reminded that man proposes, but God disposes, and that God ultimately directs my steps and determines my outcomes.
Introspection as a practice: The ability to examine my assumptions, challenge my own narratives, and ask hard questions became a skill I could offer others.
Normalising ‘return’ without shame: Many international professionals face this crossroads. I learnt that considering all options, including returning home, isn’t failure. Despite the social stigma of a failed migration story (common in many Asian cultures), I consider it a blessing to be able to have the option of returning home when others may not have such a choice. It’s a choice worthy of consideration that holds potential benefit.

This period taught me something important about career transition:

It’s not just about transferrable skills and opportunities. It’s about identity, belonging, and the courage to rebuild when plans fall apart.

During this time, I took steps to explore what I’d been interested in for ages, what was part and parcel of an academic’s job, what I’d done professionally as corporate trainer and lecturer, and engaged in when mentoring junior staff and organising onboarding programmes: training and coaching.

I started looking into professional development programmes, getting credentialled for past experience and skills, volunteering my training and coaching services to not-for-profits. The more I did it, the more alive I felt. I was once again in my element!

Attaining professional membership with the Career Development Association of New Zealand was a milestone of gigantic proportions. It validated this: that my PhD in Education and previous teaching, coaching, and career development experience had not been in vain. In fact, all of it was highly valuable for the work of a careers practitioner.

Phase 5: University Career Consultant (Full Circle Integration)

After more than 20 job applications and rejections, whilst exploring and experimenting with training and coaching, a job ad caught my attention: Career Consultant, Victoria University of Wellington. This was a role I’d been practising for months, work I’d done before, in an environment I was highly attracted to. I interviewed successfully for the role, and when I started, it felt absolutely right from day one.

It wasn’t the academic role I’d once clamoured for, but I was working in an educational and intellectual environment promoting student success and supporting equity groups like international and refugee-background students. Not only was I doing meaningful work with direct impact, I genuinely felt welcomed, included, and valued for my knowledge and contributions. Turns out my PhD and all those publications and conferences had built a reputation I didn’t know existed!

What it looked like then: Finally arriving. Coming home.

What I can see now: This role was only possible because of everything that came before. I didn’t return to the university. I arrived as someone completely different.

I brought:

Lived experience of migration that allows me to truly understand international students
Government systems knowledge that helps me navigate institutional contexts
Cross-cultural coaching expertise developed through working in multicultural Singapore and with new migrants in New Zealand
Research credentials that give me credibility in an academic environment
Brokering skills I can now teach explicitly, drawing on both my PhD research and professional practice

The portfolio I built wasn’t the one I planned. It was more meaningful, more multifaceted, and more transferable than I could have imagined.

Hindsight is 20/20, but only if you’re willing to look back and name what you’ve built. Only if you’re willing to let go of the portfolio you planned and embrace the one you actually have.

The Portfolio Career You Have Is Often Not the One You Planned

When I look back at those seven years between PhD and university career consultant, I don’t see wasted time anymore. I see a portfolio that emerged through lived experience, adaptive responses, and willingness to learn from unexpected places.

The portfolio I built was invisible to me for years because I only saw what was important for my current job and immediate future. I thought success meant getting the job you trained for, getting promoted, getting more money.

But the career retrospective helped me see that where I am today isn’t just a result of accumulated skills, knowledge, and experience. My career personality profile of Social-Enterprising-Artistic was seeded during university, evolved over different life stages, and very much fuelled the career choices and life decisions I’ve made.

Image by Vilius Kukanauskas from Pixabay

Here’s the paradox I’ve come to understand: even as I consciously tried to chart a different course, I found myself unconsciously measuring progress against traditional markers like job titles, seniority levels, institutional prestige. It’s incredibly difficult to fully let go of these ingrained metrics, even when intellectually you know they don’t capture the full picture of career growth. The tension between exploring new directions and seeking validation through conventional markers was constant. Only in retrospect can I see that the real progress was happening in the very moments I thought I was “falling behind.”

Hindsight is 20/20, but only if you’re willing to look back and name what you’ve built. Only if you’re willing to let go of the portfolio you planned and embrace the one you actually have.

An Invitation to Be Intentional

What hidden portfolio have you been building?

Look back at your career path, especially the parts that felt like failures or detours.

What were you actually learning?
What skills were you developing that you’ve never named?
What connections were you making that seemed peripheral but turned out essential?

The career you have is often different from the one you planned. But different doesn’t mean lesser. It may be richer than you thought, more resilient than you realise, and truly unique and yours to own.

Dr Sherrie Lee is a career coach for cross-cultural and mid-career transitions. She helps international professionals build networks and thrive in new work cultures. Her lived experience as a migrant, research on knowledge brokering, and active professional networks give her a unique perspective on staying resilient and future-ready amid career uncertainty and disruption. Connect with her at thediasporicacademic.com