Finding an international job in Brussels: Your own business career in Brussels

One of the great advantages of living in Brussels is that most of Europe is no more than an hour away by plane. You can commute to your various international jobs and qualifications more easily from Brussels than perhaps anywhere else in Europe.

The UN career options, both jobs and internships, are all within easy reach from your Belgian home base. So is NATO, and just about every major corporation in Europe.

The fact is that Europe is a workplace in its own right. The emergence of the EU, and the de-provincialization of European perspectives, have permanently changed the entire European demographic. The nations remain, but Europe is now the business equivalent of a latter day Hanseatic League. It's all business, and where there's business, there are jobs. Europe's history, ironically, is full of wars, but its most productive eras are time of peace and prosperity. Belgium, as a nation, and even as a medieval proto-nation, 1000 years ago, has always been at the heart of European trade, promoting business.

Brussels and your own business career

Brussels is still the ideal place to use as a springboard for not only a career, but your own business career. Brussels is actively seeking international businesses to establish themselves in the city.

Brussels is a prestige location, for a very good reason. It's the most practical place to site a business in Europe. London, Paris, and Berlin are big national centres, but Brussels is the European centre. Everybody who is anybody, corporate or otherwise, has to have an operations centre in Brussels.

Entrepreneurial businesses, governments, importers, exporters, investment businesses, and pan European trading companies have come to Brussels for the same reason they originally came to the ancient County of Flanders: Brussels is where the business happens.

Even now, in the age of the internet, where uncounted trillions of dollars fly around every second, physical locations of any business have to be selected with care. All physical locations have some limitations. In many European cities, business, development and freight costs are ferocious.

Europe isn't exactly a symmetrical place to do business, either. Some places are good places to be, others definitely aren't, at least not yet. Europe's own 'rust belt' is the undeveloped areas, the construction zones of the next 20 years.

Now, ask yourself:

• If you wanted to set yourself up in a place where you knew you could have access to everything in Europe instantly, where would you go?
• If you needed to be able to get to just about anywhere in Europe easily, where would you set up shop?
• If you preferred to stay in the purely 'European' framework, and not get tangled up in the national politics and issues, where would be the obvious place to be doing business?

The only place in Europe where you can do all three of these things simultaneously is Brussels. Your international career is going to be based at least partly on the realities of a future Europe, and Brussels is that future.

The city may be satirical about its 'Euro Ghetto', but in fact it's Brussels that's changing Europe. The city is a first look at how international businesses will have to operate in the 21st century and beyond. The emergence of a global marketplace has created a demand for places where people can do business using modern, streamlined systems and communications. The new global economy is working on a totally different set of rules. Brussels is the prototype of a quite different business model. Efficiency and business adaptability and flexibility is the key to success.

New York, Paris, London, and Berlin are all redesigning themselves on what is basically the Brussels model. The world's major cities are now nerve centres, not muscle powered industrial centres. The social and economic paradigm has been completely changed.

A citizen of the world, in the 21st century definitely does not need the business models of the past. They're unworkable. An international career has to be based on the global scene, like international business.

Any other city on Earth is somewhere you might be. Brussels is where you need to be.