People & Culture
"You Actually Gave Me Courage To Change My Life"
Parisa's Story
Parisa lived in Canada for more than 24 years and has worked as a people and culture professional for more than 20. When she immigrated in 2002, she struggled to find a job in her field, so she became a remote consultant and freelancer. The work was hybrid at first, since clients needed her on site and she travelled to Iran for it. After COVID it became fully remote.
The Canadian labor market was the obstacle. She found it fairly closed off and unwilling to hire people working remotely from outside the country, so she aimed at Europe and the US instead. She also had little information on how to land a remote role. She wanted to move from Canada to Turkey to be closer to her family, but she wasn't confident enough to make that big a move.
That's why she joined the community. She was enthusiastic but didn't know what to expect, and she says even a people and culture professional with years of experience managing HR departments needed something different here. She'd been part of many professional communities, and this one stood out for its honesty and kindness. She felt it was run by people who care about members' situations and guide them for their circumstances, not treat the community purely as a business.
She learned how to use LinkedIn and picked up a lot of practical information about job sites. Watching how the community worked also led her to decide to become a fractional people and culture partner. The first thing she got was confidence, and the information she took in and analyzed let her move forward. Without the community, she says, she wouldn't have had the confidence to make the move.
She's now living in Turkey, in a city she calls beautiful, and her husband is planting flowers on their balcony as she talks. Her advice, given the economy, is to get some kind of job or project in your field first, then open other doors from there, one step at a time. She knows that whenever she needs information or help, she can ask the people in the community.