How I relocated to Seattle

-English followed by Chinese-

It’s been only 2 weeks after I moved to Seattle, for the first time of my entire life. And I literally started to work the other day after I arrived. I’m writing this down when it’s still fresh memory. Hope it inspires someone who also wants to explore different chapters in their career.

My background:

Academically I have a bachelor degree in Economics in China, a master degree in International Business in Canada, and was an exchange student in Sweden. I moved to Taiwan after graduation and worked in the tech industry as an HR profession for consecutive 8 years. I transferred internally with my current company from the APAC team to US & Canada team this May, same role, but different territories.

Why relocation (Why Seattle):

Family reunion is the initiation, but career progression is definitely the main consideration. I was country People Partner for Taiwan and Hong Kong when in the APAC team. After 2 years in the role, I started thinking where my next step will be. A more well-known giant MNC tech? I’m already in a well-known, giant, multinational, fast growing tech company. I enjoy the work environment here; I’m familiar with the organization and its business; compensation and benefits are not bad; — can’t complain. A start-up with broader scope? That can be an option but it doesn’t show up in the market all the time. And external and internal job search actually went in parallel (oops hope my manager doesn’t see it).

How I prepared:

Nothing much as I applied for the same role in another region — that couldn’t be further from the truth. I’ll reveal more details behind the scene in a separate blog but here are the main tips I summarize:

• Increase your visibility: extremely important for internal transfer. Volunteer and participate in stretched projects, especially in the global ones — your hard work will pay off one day.
• Build internal network: again, a huge differentiation between internal and external candidates. You never know who your next hiring manager will be, and with this personal connection, they know you better than they can do in every interview.
• Comprehend the learnings from daily work: sometimes we can be so focused on daily operations that we ignore summarizing learnings from them from time to time. Speaking from my company’s interview process, case interview is always an unavoidable round, which requires lots of reflections and comprehension from day-to-day experience.

How long it took to relocate:

I brought the intension of relocation to my manager back then in mid 2024, after which I started looking for internal opportunities, reaching out to my previous managers / colleagues, and preparing for my case interview. It took me 6 rounds of interviews in 2 months to confirm my current offer, which, I will say, was a pretty smooth process already. Immigration visa application / relocation is a whole other lengthy story that last for 3 months. So:

• Initiation and preparation: Mid 2024
• Interview: Nov 2024 — Jan 2025
• Offer(!!!): end of Jan 2025
• Visa: Feb 2025 — Apr 2025
• Landed in Seattle: end of Apr 2025

Let’s call it a first blog to kick off this account. I will come back with more content. Feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn!

兩個禮拜前，也是我人生中第一次，我落地西雅圖，然後隔天馬上開始上班（？）趁著記憶猶新，我想把這段經歷記錄下來，希望能激勵那些也想在職涯中開啟不同篇章的人。

我的背景： 我大學在中國大陸唸經濟學，畢業之後去加拿大唸管理學的研究所，期間也曾到瑞典交換學生一學期。研究所畢業後，我搬到台灣，在科技產業擔任人資，至今八年的時間。今年五月，我透過目前任職的公司內部轉調，從亞太區團隊轉到北美團隊，職位相同，但負責的區域不同。

為什麼想轉調（為什麼是西雅圖）： 家庭團聚是契機，但職涯發展絕對是主要考量。在亞太區時，我負責台灣與香港的人資業務。在這個角色兩年後，我開始思考下一步該往哪裡走。一家更知名的大型跨國科技公司嗎？其實我現在就在一家知名、快速成長的跨國科技企業工作。我很喜歡這裡的工作氛圍，也熟悉公司的組織與業務，薪酬與福利也不錯 — — 沒什麼好抱怨的。加入新創公司因此我可以負責更廣的業務？也是一個選項，但市場上這樣的機會並不常見。而且其實當時我是同時在進行外部與內部求職的（希望我主管沒看到這段）。

我是如何準備的： 完全不需要準備 — 才怪。我會在另一篇文章中揭露更多幕後細節，但這裡先總結幾個關鍵建議：

• 提升能見度： 對內部轉調來說極為重要。主動參與跨部門或全球性的專案，你的努力總有一天會被看見。
• 建立內部人脈網絡： 這是內部應徵者相較於外部應徵者的重大優勢。你永遠不知道下一位主管會是誰，而透過人脈建立的信任遠比面試中的短暫接觸來得深入。
• 從日常工作中汲取經驗與反思： 有時我們太專注於日常執行，反而忽略了從中歸納與學習。以我目前公司的面試流程來說，個案面試是無法避免的一關，而這非常需要你從平常的工作經驗中提煉洞察。

內部轉調花了多長時間： 我在 2024 年中向當時的主管表達了希望內轉到美國的意願，之後開始尋找內部職缺、聯繫北美的主管與同事，並準備個案面試。花了我兩個月、六輪面試，順利拿到目前的 offer — — 這已經算是很順利的過程了。至於移民簽證與搬家，又是另一段冗長的歷程，總共歷時三個月。時間軸如下：

• 起心動念與準備： 2024 年中
• 面試： 2024 年 11 月至 2025 年 1 月
• 拿到 offer（耶！）： 2025 年 1 月底
• 簽證申請： 2025 年 2 月至 4 月
• 抵達西雅圖： 2025 年 4 月底

這篇就當作這個帳號的第一篇文章吧。未來會繼續分享更多內容，也可以加我的LinkedIn保持聯繫喔！