Finding a home for your career away from home: Experiences of Iranian highly skilled edu-immigrants in the United States

The journey from deciding to move abroad as a student to gaining the right to stay permanently has been described as a long tunnel. One of the most challenging turning points along this journey is when edu-immigrants (EduIms) attempt to secure permanent employment upon graduation from host country universities. In this qualitative study, we explore the career stories of 29 highly skilled EduIms who have undertaken the transition from student to permanent employee. Informed by the intelligent careers framework, we identify the career competencies our participants developed as they navigated this transition. Our findings suggest that one competency can be leveraged to develop other competencies, which build on each other over time. Also, we show how enacting intelligent careers required our participants to address the host country's macro-context constraints and facilitators that played significant roles in securing their permanent employment. Our findings inform practitioners interested in improving the career prospects of EduIms and in benefiting from a pool of highly qualified candidates.