A new startup from Estonia wants 9-5 workers stuck with jobs and companies they hate to relax a little bit and move to a tropical island of their choice to work.
While most workers dream of doing such, a lot seem to hold back due to the risks that moving to a whole new continent involves. Many are hesitant about moving to an entirely new environment in a strange land, thinking about the worst-case scenarios they could wind up into, fearful of leaving their not-so-comfortable comfort zones because the risk that they might end up stuck in something even far worse than they where they are already stuck in.
But Jobbatical has already read their minds, so it took one step ahead and came up with a win-win solution for these hesitant workers.
Jobbatical is a jobs site that came up with the perfect solution to even out the rewards and risks of working overseas.
The site currently targets skilled professionals working in the IT field, and is offering jobs that won’t give workers the scare of having to leave everything behind and move permanently overseas. The tenure of jobs available on the site range from as short as three months to as long as one year; and most of the jobs posted are in Asian countries like Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia, South Korea, the Philippines, India, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam— but the country with the most job postings is Singapore.
“When you are sitting somewhere in Northern Europe or Canada, then working in a startup on a tropical island is like a dream!” said Jobbatical founder Karoli Hindriks.
According to the makers of Jobbatical, the concept of their jobs site is comparable to that of dating before marriage.
Couples don’t usually just jump into marriage without going through the dating phase first, and Jobbatical believes that the idea of moving overseas to work should be the same.
“For a job seeker, it is hard to make a decision to relocate to a new place forever at once. An agreed timeframe smooths that,” says Hindriks.
“For us the main thing is to keep building the community with both a certain skill set and mindset — globetrotting tech talent. Asia being the source of both exciting markets that European companies want to reach, but do not have the necessary know-how in their teams, and therefore talent, who could help them.”
Jobbatical is currently in its sixth month on its beta period, and already the company is gaining traction.
“In many ways we are defining ourselves as the ‘Elance-Odesk’ with the on-board experience. Simple tasks can be done remotely, but if a person joins in to help build your product, then you want that person to be in your team, understanding where you are heading,” said the Jobbatical founder.
