Supporting skilled migrants’ international career success across the micro, meso, and macro levels

Skilled migrants embody cross-cultural competencies which make them ideal candidates to take on boundary-spanning roles within international businesses. However, to better enable these cross-cultural competencies which could help improve organizational performance, skilled migrants need to be integrated and supported in their host country at the individual (micro), organizational (meso), and country (macro) levels. This chapter develops research-informed recommendations across the micro, meso, and macro levels, which, when combined and acted upon agentically by skilled migrants, result in better opportunities for their career success in the international domain. Focusing on skilled migrants’ lived experiences of migration, this chapter shares research on the institutional and structural influences that impact(ed) the work experiences and careers of a diverse sample of 63 skilled migrants in western host countries (Ireland, USA, and Australia). Drawing on existing literature highlighting positive initiatives, we apply and extend micro-level intelligent career theory (knowing why, knowing how and knowing whom) to the meso (organizational/professional) and macro (national) levels to develop a multi-level relational framework which may be used as a tool to support skilled migrants’ career success. We suggest policy recommendations to reduce the career obstacles faced by them and to avoid the costly skills wastage and social drawbacks associated with the blocked careers of skilled migrants.