You curse. You lie. You think nothing of posting risqué photos of yourself on social networking sites. These are just three of the reasons why employer’s won’t hire you. A 2009 CareerBuilder survey revealed that 47 percent of employers said that finding qualified applicant’s is their biggest hiring challenge. The survey also stated that employers are looking for multitaskers, candidates that take initiative, and those with a talent for creative problem solving. What they don’t want are cocky and disinterested candidates with no long-term potential. Their words – not ours! Other turn-offs for potential employers include:

• -Not knowing anything about the company
• -Being too personal
• -Bringing up salary before the employer
• -Can’t provide examples of accomplishments
• -Lack of experience

If you want to learn more about things not to do to impress a potential employer, read more about the survey here.

To work abroad, it takes certain training and skills as well as an independent and adventurous spirit. Working abroad offers an opportunity to break away from dreary unemployment statistics or a lackluster career, while exploring new and exciting environs. A New York Times article published back in 2009 even suggested that China was the new American dream for young people looking for challenging career opportunities. So, if you’re looking for the best overseas jobs for Americans, browse through the top ten list below to see where your education and skills fit in.

10. U.S. Government Jobs: According to the U.S. Department of Labor, the U.S. currently has some 88,700 overseas jobs. The positions that are most often available include administrative, technical and professional, accountants, auditors, foreign service officers, budget and program officers, management analysts, nurses, procurement officers, shorthand reporters, equipment specialists, engineers, social workers, housing officers, teachers, and alcohol and drug abuse specialists.

The average salary range for government jobs can range from $25,000 up to  $100,000+ depending on your skills, education level, experiences and job choice. For more information about working abroad for the U.S. government, visit Federaljobs.net.

9. Private Sector Jobs: Job boards like Monster.com International provide descriptions and opportunities that match up with specific multi-national companies. The job description usually includes all of the necessary information including pay, educational requirements and benefits.

Very much like the government availability, the range of salaries mirror the skill level you pursue. Ordinarily, when a major corporation is seeking to fill a position from outside the locale, they are looking for a higher skill level. But if you have those skills, put them into play. To help you get started, visit:  Overseasdigest.com or Workingoverseas.com.

8. English as a Second language (ESL): International business demands have steadily relied on overseas negotiations in English, so one of the mainstays for the overseas employment market is teaching English as a second language. English instructors are needed in Korea, Brazil, Norway, Thailand, and a multitude of other countries.

Although the compensation level can be low, many of the English teaching programs provide accommodations and stipends in excess of a basic amount of remuneration. So you will have the opportunity to save your entire salary during the term you choose. There are certain certifications that may also help market your teaching ability. For ESL job postings, visit Esljobs.com.

7. Computer Programming: With the advent of connectivity to the Internet, more developing countries seek those with computer skills to help develop websites, specialized programming skills, and basic understanding of computer technology. Language skills can often be a barrier, but not always. Not only can you establish yourself with international connectivity, you can teach the very basics to a thirsty world trying to market and distribute their goods.

The salary range usually reflects the locale’s economy. In Brazil, for example, a computer savvy person can earn $40,000-$80,000 per year. The real value lies in the fact that the dollar is nearly double the value in Brazil. So the $40K-$80K range really expands to $80,000 -$160,000 in real value. It is important to check out the local economy, its currency, and standard of living before taking the plunge. Check out the U.S. Department of Labor at www.bls.gov for more information.

6. Missionary Work: Missionary work is available to those who want to help others. Many of the evangelical organizations have international outreach programs that put the skills you have to work for others. Travel is an essential component of this vocation. Accommodations vary depending on location, but this type of work can be a rewarding and educational life experience.

The pay range has a sliding scale that balances on couples or families. A couple could earn up to $40,000 per year, while a family of four could bring in up to $76,000. Preparation for a career as a missionary includes religious studies with an emphasis on biblical, pastoral or pre-seminary. To obtain more information on missionary vocations visit www.cpmissions.net, www.namb.net, or www.gmi.org.

5. Accommodations Industry Jobs: Work abroad opportunities in the accommodations industry are a potpourri of extravagant hotels, boutique hotels,  and youth hostels. The tourism trade can always offer bartenders, waiters or housekeepers an opportunity in some of the larger overseas tourist markets. Hostels offer more of a barter trade situation and no doubt a more casual work environment.

No matter what area of the accommodations industry you may find yourself in, compensation is reliant on the acquisition of tips. The better you are at face-to-face public relations, the more you make. It is important to research the location where you will ultimately decide to live because there are certain areas where tips simply do not exist. The following link should be helpful with oyur search: www.vervemagazine.com.

4. Environment/Outdoors Jobs: Oftentimes, the great outdoors needs a keeper. Intensive labor gives an adventurous soul the opportunity to work at National Parks or National Trails that need to be maintained. With parks and wildlife preserves all over the globe, some knowledge of repairing boardwalks, interpretation services, and general maintenance skills, you can find work in Costa Rica, Western Australia or even Brazil. An Internet foray into finding the Parks and finding out what they need can balloon into a great opportunity.

Trained foresters can make upwards of $75,000 per year. Visit www.foresters.org to find out about specific qualifications and requirements.

3. Animal Trainer: If you love animals and have that whispering gene in you, there are opportunities for this versatile career. Shelters, private preserves, animal parks, zoos and aquariums all over the world look for people with that spirit and good training. Although animal training has major physical demands,  you won’t be bored working behind a desk!

According to Salary.com, the average salary for animal trainers is $27,000-$47,700 per year. A degree in zoology, animal management or zoo management buttresses your chances of finding one of these positions. For more information on animal training visit or www.animalschool.net or  www.apdt.com.

2. Civilian Service on Military Bases: Some 11,200 jobs on U.S. Military Bases offer another route to exercise your travel and overseas job search. From Korea to Germany to not so calm Iraq, opportunities for those that want to lend a hand are plentiful. More information can be obtained at www.federaljobs.net.

1. Peace Corp: Although the Peace Corp is a voluntary organization, its value has changed the lives of hundreds of thousands over the years. With a mission of helping people of interested countries in meeting the need for trained men and women, helping promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of the peoples they serve, and helping promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans, Peace Corps jobs offer fantastic returns. In order to dig into this opportunity visit www.peacecorps.gov.

There’s no doubt about it – even with solid job growth in dozens of career fields for the 2008-2018 projections decade, the competition for high-paying positions is still intense. Employers are always on the look out for the cream of the crop, so today’s young job seeker must accumulate admirable list of accomplishments in order to have a leg up on everyone else.

Besides having an impressive list of accomplishments at the academic level, employers such as Ernst & Young are also interested in applicants who have worked overseas in an internship or other job, or served with an organization such as the Peace Corps. Ernst & Young’s director of campus recruiting for the Americas, Dan Black, says that as far as he is concerned, young applicants with this background have a leg up on everyone else.

“We definitely see overseas experience as an advantage,” he says. He directs campus hiring for the London-based accounting and consulting giant, which has 140,000 employees worldwide. “Our clients are demanding more of us these days,” he explains. “They want diversity of thought and diversity of values, and many of our clients are multinationals.”

Employers feel the advantages do not stop here.

Dawn Chandler, a management professor at California Polytechnic State University, notes that spending time abroad can teach workers to deal with very different leadership styles. In Scandinavian countries, for instance, leadership is more egalitarian and participatory and less authoritarian. In Asia, on the other hand, the gulf in power between junior employees and leaders is much deeper. The U.S. falls somewhere in between.

Another advantage, notes Chandler: Time overseas familiarizes you with international legislation and standards. “If your firm wants to open a plant in China, it helps if you know how to get through the bureaucracy there,” she says.

Finding yourself a member of a minority group in a foreign country can be character building, both professionally and personally, notes Gary Baker, the U.S. global mobility leader for the consulting and accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers, which has offices in 154 countries. “It gives you a greater respect for other cultures, and you learn to be better at managing teams that are diverse.”

According to Mary Ann Walsh, a New York career and executive coach specializing in global talent management, climbing the ladder overseas is much faster than climbing the career ladder in the U.S.

Walsh has a number of American clients who moved overseas shortly after college and graduate school. They advanced much more quickly than if they had tried to climb the career ladder in the U.S. One young woman who works in financial services is already doing deals with senior Chinese executives even though she doesn’t speak Mandarin.

Another client of Walsh’s headed to London for a financial services job straight from college. Then he went to Hong Kong. He lost that job, but he was quickly snatched up by a boutique firm. Now 30 years old, he was recently hired by Goldman Sachs ( GS – news – people ) in Asia. “Over there, the recession was just a blip on the radar screen,” Walsh notes.

Working overseas is not just for fresh graduates. Mid-career professionals tend to move up faster with their current company after returning from a stint overseas as well. If you are interested in working overseas, opportunities for Americans are abundant in China, Brazil, and Russia.

To learn more about getting a job overseas, pick up a copy of International Jobs: Where They Are and How to Get Them by Nina Segal. Segal is an international career development consultant in New York.

This just might mean something for millions of unemployed manufacturing workers across America.

Dana Morey, executive vice-president of Morey Corp., remember well Chinese New Year two years ago, when they were calling all over Shenzhen, China, trying unsuccessfully to find someone who could pick up a load of finished parts from a factory during the two-week holiday and ship them to Chicago. Then it was holes not drilled deeply enough in a shipment of circuit boards from a Chinese supplier. Similar problems have occurred in metal and plastic castings.

Morey is part of the wave of “near-shoring” or “re-shoring” of production that gained momentum during the recession. Manufacturers are bringing work back to the U.S. because of the rising cost of shipping, labor and raw materials—coupled with quality problems and shortened lead times from customers unable to predict their own orders in a still-choppy economy.

“People are starting to see they went too far in outsourcing,” says Harry Moser, former chairman of Lincolnshire-based machine-tool maker AgieCharmilles LLC and a proponent of bringing manufacturing work back to the U.S.

The near-shoring trend is hard to quantify, however. A January study by Chicago-based accounting firm Grant Thornton LLP found that 20% of the 312 companies it surveyed had shifted from Asian suppliers last year to partners closer to home, mostly in the U.S. And 12% planned to do so this year.

While it’s not enough to reverse the 40-year shift in manufacturing from the U.S. to Asia, Mexico and Latin America, winning back some work that had gone overseas is helping manufacturers recover from the deep downturn that started three years ago.

Let’s see how many manufacturing companies follow suit in the coming year. So far, Caterpillar, Ford Motor, General Electric, and NCR have already moved operations and thousands of jobs back to the U.S.