Recently I received a message about an overseas job from a friend and colleague and this just keeps popping into my head, so I’d like to pass along some friendly advice. This is by no means saying he did something wrong, he was passing along a possible job to me, it was greatly appreciated that he was just looking out for a buddy. I mentioned a few of these things to him and he deleted the message he received, and told me that’s all he needed to hear.

However, I get a lot of questions about working overseas because of my previous experience, and I would like to help others avoid some of the mistakes I saw, or made myself. Feel free to take this advice or not, I’m not saying you should go, or even not go, these are just my thoughts.

The message was about an overseas security job, in Syria to be exact. The pay was $120,000 (per year) plus per diem. The reply to was a Yahoo email address.

Let me break down the message first before I go further. $120K in Syria is at least HALF of what it should be, jobs in Iraq and Afghanistan were paying twice that in the early days, although they aren’t paying close to that now. Syria is such a mess right now that the kidnappers are kidnapping other kidnappers, and you might be considering taking half the pay you should be getting to go there?

You need to ask yourself, is it worth getting killed or maimed for that much money? What does your wife and kids think about that, parents or girlfriend? If you were crippled for $120K is that enough to take care of you, or have your family take care of you the rest of your life? Let that sink in a bit, I have a friend that still has 3 AK-47 rounds in his arm, one friend was killed my second month in country. Sure, with $120K (before taxes) you can probably pay off your house.

So they are paying you Per Diem, the message didn’t say how much either. OK, at first that sounds great because you are getting extra money. What that tells me is that you will have to buy your food on the local economy. That’s great, IF it’s enough to do that and you can get good food without getting killed. The company I worked for paid a whopping $19 a day per diem at one location, not nearly enough to eat 3 meals a day where we were getting charged the special “stick it to the rich Americans” prices…of course when our management office moved to that location the per diem was changed to $86 a day. If you have access to a military chow hall you’ll be fine most of the time, otherwise invest in some Cipro and Imodium.

Now for the second part of the message. Let me point out that sending your resume with your personal information to an unknown Yahoo email address for a job in Syria is probably not the best thing to do. If a company is doing business in Syria, shouldn’t they have enough resources to have a web site, with a real email address? Would you go to Syria and work for a company that probably doesn’t have the proper resources to have a real web site let alone the proper resources to give you the best chance of survival? If they can’t afford a web site/email will they make you buy your own gear and weapons? Yes, that happens. Remember, you can’t spend it if you’re dead.

Something else to think about, do you even know who your resume is going to? While I was working in Iraq the bad guys made a point of looking for any information they could find on us, including on social media. Yes, terrorists have Facebook accounts, Twitter accounts, and others just so they can find out who you are, where you are, what you are doing, and when you are doing it. They plan just like we do, and they plan to kill you. They have all the time in the world too. There was a point where the bad guys were contacting family members back home, and there was even an instance where some strange people showed up at someone’s house. All your friends back home love the “cool guy” pictures, so do the terrorists, keep that in mind.

Still think sending your resume to an unknown Yahoo email is a good idea? I won’t even do it for a job in the US. My advice, stop and think a few minutes before sending out your personal information to someone you don’t know, don’t get stars in your eyes because the job pays a lot of money. Do your homework, is the company legitimate, what are the risks involved, is the pay appropriate, and more importantly worth it?