Conclusion of Expat Guide Part One: Move to New Jersey
In the first couple of months in New Jersey I learned a lot of things about renting houses, social security, cars, and more. The amount of time needed to do all these basic things was about 14 full days. My effectiveness in my new job has not been that high in the first two months, therefore.
Hopefully, this personal report will contribute to a better understanding of the aspects encountered by the expatriate and may help further improve the process. These first few months were hectic, but very pleasant ones, in which my wife and I met many new and helpful people. The learning experience was exciting for us. From the company perspective, however, my first months could have been much more effective if some of the above stated issues were mentioned to us earlier, or actions were taken before the transfer to New Jersey to speed up the processes.
This expat guide is supported entirely by me and provided free of charge. Multiple hundreds of hours have gone to get to this point, and many more hours will be required to complete it (if ever). If you have used this data to find your way into the U.S.A and found the information helpful, please let others know at the guestbook/message board page. Companies and other institutes interested in using all or part of this information need to check for approval at the mail address below. Note that this site has no advertisements. I plan to keep it that way.
An early version of this document has been used in the past years by several consulates and companies for expatriates. The continued interest for this kit has resulted in this document on the world wide web. The plan is to keep this document up to date. You are invited to contribute to these enhancements by sharing your comments and experiences with me at the mail address below. I will compile them into this document and will add special acknowledgements to your support on this site as well.
This document is only Part One of the expat story: Also the Return to the home country will be added. I am finalizing this document and expect to have it on the web late 2001.
If you have comments or questions you'd like to share with others, please enter them into my Message board. Your comments will be visible for all other visitors, and they have the option to either mail you a direct comment or enter their reactions in the message board as well.
There's a vast amount of knowledge that has not yet found its way into this document. Mail me at in case you have specific questions that are not answered in this document and please also forward me any suggestions that you might have.
Another survival kit is planned: the New Jersey Expatriate Partner’s Survival Kit. For the people that work, things will eventually go their way. They have their jobs, and contacts with their colleagues. For their partners it may be much more tough. From conversations with colleagues who are planning to move I know that their partners would love to have more information. However, the booklet cannot be written without the help of you, or your partner, so please send me your personal experiences.
Acknowledgments:
I hereby express my gratitude to those people
who helped with the conception of this document, and guided me through some
of the mazes in the New Jersey administrative world: Louis Baggerman, Larry
Chesal, George Harbt, and Tom Rogers.
© Gert Nieveld, Westfield, September
3, 1996
© Gert Nieveld, Amsterdam, July 4, 2001
minor updates May, 2002