About Career in Your Suitcase

Career consultant Colleen Reichrath-Smith joins serial expat and author Jo Parfitt in the fully revised and updated fourth edition of A Career in Your Suitcase.

The ultimate career resource, A Career in Your Suitcase aims to help the aspiring mobile entrepreneur to find a career that: a) is based on what they love to do more than anything; b) is created from their strongest skills and best assets; c) will let them work anywhere; d) can be sustained and developed even if they move again.

“Ever since the first edition was published back in 1998, it has been a collaborative book, packed with contributions from expatriates worldwide. This was vital for the book to have universal appeal. To co-author with Colleen was an easy decision. I needed an expert to bring the book up to date and no one could be more suitable than a career consultant,” says Jo Parfitt, author of the first three editions.

Packed with over 20 exercises that combine to create your unique ‘Career Passport’, the new edition covers everything from finding your passion and developing a brand, to networking (on the ground and online) and marketing.

About the Authors:
During her twenty-five years overseas in Dubai, Oman, Norway, the Netherlands and Brunei, British-born JO PARFITT has learned how to create, maintain and grow a portable career based on her passion for writing. In 1997 she formed Summertime Publishing and now specializes in helping other expats to get into print.

Trained career consultant COLLEEN REICHRATH-SMITH moved from Canada to the Netherlands after almost 10 years of self-employment. Within two years she found herself again delivering career development training – this time in Dutch. The career management principles she has been employing with great success now appear in A Career in Your Suitcase (4th edition) and in her Career in Your Suitcase workshops.

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About the Authors

Jo Parfitt

When Jo Parfitt joined her new husband in Dubai and received a stamp in her passport that read ‘Not Permitted to Take up Employment’ she was devastated.

Since then she has let nothing prevent her from maintaining a professional identity regardless of regular intercontinental moves and the responsibilities of her family. Jo went on to create and sustain a shifting portfolio of portable careers, ranging from making and selling date chutney in Oman through being a successful journalist in Dubai to running seminars and workshops worldwide from her current home in The Netherlands.

By the time she was in her third country and tenth year of expatriation Jo realised she had been there, done that and got the tee-shirt and that it was time she wrote a book that would inspire and empower others to develop their own career in a suitcase too.

The first and second editions sold out and this, the third, published a decade after the first, has been completely updated. It stands as testament to her work as she begins her third decade overseas and her umpteenth reincarnation.
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Colleen Reichrath-Smith

Trained career consultant COLLEEN REICHRATH-SMITH moved from Canada to the Netherlands after almost 10 years of self-employment in the career development field.
Colleen believes in teaching people the skills they will need to make the most of their career journey, to make personally meaningful choices for their career. Seeing her own international move as the ultimate chance to apply the career development principles she teaches others, within two years she had learned the language and was again delivering career development training. This time in Dutch.
After meeting Jo Parfitt at Connecting Women and the European Professional Women’s Network, Colleen decided to follow her intuition and discuss the idea of a book further with Jo. The career management principles she has been employing with great success now appear in A Career in Your Suitcase (4th edition) and in her Career in Your Suitcase workshops.
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