Upon Graduating from Dalhousie in 2019 with a major in Finance, Ottawa native Kat Keough decided to take the opportunity to travel. For six months she backpacked around Europe until landing a job in London, England with an emerging Fintech company called OpenGamma.

She was only in the job one day before the lockdown hit, forcing her to work remotely. Now Kat has been working at OpenGamma for over a year, leading the Client Services team, and resides in Glasgow, Scotland. When asked if she had any advice for those who want to travel abroad to work, she had two pieces of advice:

1) If you decide to move to a foreign county for school, travel or finding a career, you must be willing to go beyond your comfort zone and welcome new experiences. While looking for a job, I kept an open mind to every opportunity that came my way, going for a case based interview in Prague, meeting people at a networking event in Warsaw done primarily in Polish, and being flexible with regards to location. These experiences and thinking helped get me to where I am currently.

2) Try to leverage your network as much as possible, using it as a source for career/job information and to establish personal connections with the companies you are interested in. Do not be afraid to contact a company directly, even if there are not any current job postings on their website. The company could still be needing new people or may consider you in the future for a position. I landed the job I am in today by emailing OpenGamma directly, and despite them not actively hiring at that time, this act stood out to them and got me my first interview.