INTERNATIONAL CAREERS : A World of Opportunity : How to Get a Job Abroad : With the right advice, the hunt for an overseas career can be successful

Greg Hunter’s resume reads like a passport.

But working with Rwandan refugees and training midwives in Gambia were simple compared to landing his first job abroad after serving in the Peace Corps. He sent out 300 resumes before a relief organization hired him to set up health clinics in war-torn Uganda in 1984.

“You’ve got to be able to take just about anything that comes across the pike,” says Hunter, 39, who is now taking a break in Michigan after finishing his latest stint doing relief work in Tanzania.

Hunter’s example is extreme. But international job-hunting gurus say his advice is on the mark for Americans seeking the novelty, intellectual challenge and financial rewards of working overseas.

People are often too picky when job hunting abroad, says Will Cantrell, editor and publisher of International Employment Hotline, a monthly newsletter based in Oakton, Va.

“Far too often people say, ‘I’d like a job in a suburb of Paris,’ ” Cantrell says.

Breaking into the international job market is the hardest part. But once in the loop, it gets easier, Cantrell says.

“The idea is to get overseas and start networking,” he says. “You have access to other professionals who have been working overseas, who know who is hiring.”

Learn everything you can about the international job market, the experts advise. Major public or university libraries are good places to start because they have newsletters, periodicals and other reference materials that can pinpoint good places to look. Several newsletters and other publications, including Cantrell’s, report on the foreign job market.

A sampling:

* International Employment Gazette of Greenville, S.C.

* International Career Employment Opportunities, based in Stanardsville, Va.

* Plymouth Publishing Inc., based in Washington, D.C. Publishes Current Jobs International, features opportunities for foreign language professionals).

* Transitions Abroad Publishing Inc., based in Amherst, Mass. Publishes a bimonthly magazine on work, study and travel abroad.

* InterAction, a coalition of relief, development and refugee assistance groups based in Washington. Sponsors biweekly “Monday Developments,” which lists opportunities with organizations that work in the developing world.

Those with specialized skills--especially in business--have an edge, says Jeff Wood, director of career development and the alumni office for the Monterey Institute of International Studies in Monterey. Otherwise, employers abroad can hire unskilled local residents for a fraction of the price.

“If you are a musician and you play bass, you probably have a good chance” in Japan, Wood quipped.

Those with skills in fields such as marketing, sales, finance and accounting are needed in emerging nations. Engineers and doctors are also in demand.

“The common problem most people encounter is that they say, ‘I can speak Spanish. I can work for an American company in Argentina,’ ” Wood says. But “language is just that: communication. There has to be some substantive activity you have experience in.”

Pay can vary wildly from country to country. An expatriate with five years of experience in marketing or accounting can make $35,000 a year in Russia or $80,000 or more in Saudi Arabia.

But job gurus such as Wood point out that the cost of living can be inordinately high in some of the top-dollar nations. At the same time, a low salary in parts of Africa, say, can provide a good living.

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Many Americans seeking the experience of living abroad fall back on teaching English when they lack some other prized skill, Wood said.

But even in the teaching field, those most likely to snag the lucrative posts are those with experience or advanced degrees in teaching English as a second language, Wood said.

“As a company becomes more sophisticated,” Wood said, “they demand a more sophisticated background.”

In Japan, an experienced English teacher can make about $35,000, and the pay might or might not include housing.

WorldTeach, a program affiliated with the Harvard Institute for International Development in Cambridge, Mass., places and trains would-be teachers for a fee. The book “Teaching English Abroad: Talk Your Way Around the World,” by Susan Griffith, distributed by Peterson’s of Princeton, N.J., is considered the Bible in the field.

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One way to make the leap if qualifications are in short supply is to take a volunteer posting. Some of these jobs, although they provide little or no salary, will pay expenses. Doing this can give a job-seeker experience that can lead to bigger and better opportunities.

Volunteer programs can be found with the American Friends Service Committee in Philadelphia, the Mennonite Central Committee in Akron, Pa., Volunteers in Technical Assistance of Arlington, Va., and hundreds of other organizations.

Employers “want to know that this [candidate] has done this job in an overseas setting,” Cantrell said. For some employers, membership in a trade or professional organization can help overcome a lack of experience. In some nations, merely being a member of a prestigious organization can provide credibility.

The American Bar Assn., for example, has a pro bono program for lawyers interested in working in newly independent states in Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union to provide legal assistance drafting constitutions and commercial codes.

The benefits of programs such as the Central and East European Law Initiative are reciprocal, says Mark Ellis, the program’s executive director.

Lawyers “come back with a tremendous sense of energy and pride and enthusiasm to just be involved in a historic transformation,” Ellis said.

“It allows them to step back a bit and think about what it means to be an attorney . . . to reflect [on] what the rule-of-law concept is and how important it is in this country.”

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Being patient helps too. If you are unemployed, have a mortgage and need to put food on the table, you shouldn’t be relying on an overseas opportunity, the experts say.

Some job seekers take a year or more to find the right opening, and they sometimes need that long to complete the application process for jobs or volunteer opportunities.

“It is not for desperate people,” Cantrell said.