Building Your Professional Network Abroad: A Guide for Expats in Venezuela

Published on January 17, 2026 and written by Cyril Jarnias

Settling in Venezuela to work, start a business, or launch an international career means entering an environment that is both complex, unstable, and extraordinarily relational. In this country where personal connections sometimes carry more weight than contracts, building a strong network is not a “bonus” but a condition for professional survival.

Understanding the Landscape: Culture of Connection and Country Realities

Before thinking about strategy, you must grasp the spirit of the country you are settling in. Venezuela is a highly relationally intensive society. Family is the basic structure, trust is built slowly, and “enchufes” – those connections and intermediaries that open doors – play a key role in professional life.

At the same time, the country remains connected to major global dynamics. Major oil companies, international groups, binational institutions, NGOs, and expatriate networks rely heavily on LinkedIn, communities like InterNations, or dedicated platforms like VzlaVirtual to identify partners, recruit, and carry out their projects.

Adapting to Local Relational Codes

Arriving with North American or European habits and applying your networking style as is is the best way to hit an invisible wall. The local professional culture is both formal and warm, hierarchical, and deeply personal.

A “High-Context” Society Where Not Everything Is Said

Communication relies heavily on the unspoken, body language, and context. A negotiation is not just about exchanging numerical data: the tone of voice, eye contact, the way of greeting, respect for academic titles count as much as the content.

Hierarchy, Status, and the Importance of “Face”

Respect for rank and age structures many professional situations. Titles like Doctor, Ingeniero or Licenciado, combined with the paternal last name, are not just protocol details: they structure how you are perceived.

Switching too quickly to informal address or using first names can create discomfort. As long as the interlocutor has not suggested it, it is wise to remain formal, especially with seniors or executives.

Relational Time Is Not European Agenda Time

The famous “hora venezolana” sums up a reality: schedules are flexible, meetings often start late, while paradoxically remaining demanding about foreigners’ punctuality. An expatriate who consistently arrives early and gets upset about any delay risks marginalizing themselves.

First meetings are rarely decisive in substance. They mainly serve to “feel” each other out, to test trust. Decisions are made later, after several exchanges, over lunch, through WhatsApp discussions, or at professional events.

For an expatriate, this means accepting to “waste time” at the beginning, without trying to close deals too quickly. The network is built over time, much more so than in more transactional cultures.

Building Your Foundation: LinkedIn, the Backbone of Your International Network

In this very person-centric landscape, LinkedIn plays a bridging role between the local and global worlds. The platform brings together over a billion users in more than 200 countries and hosts over 55 million company pages and 1.2 million groups. It is the standard tool for introducing yourself, finding contacts, and forging alliances from a distance.

Crafting a Profile Readable for Local and International Interlocutors

A complete, precise, and regularly updated profile statistically has 30% more visibility. For an expatriate in Venezuela, this profile must be readable both for a recruiter at a multinational in Houston, an entrepreneur in Caracas, a Colombian consultant, or an NGO manager in Madrid.

The professional photo, in a good-resolution square format (around 400 x 400 pixels), with the face occupying most of the frame and an open smile, is not a cosmetic detail: it is your business card in a country that places great importance on first impressions.

The headline should summarize your current role, your expertise, and ideally your geographical anchor in a few words. For example: “Oil & Gas Engineer | Project Management | Based in Venezuela – Latin America experience”. The summary acts as your pitch: it should tell a story, highlight concrete achievements, and emphasize your intercultural adaptability.

Professional Profile Writing Advice

Meticulously completing your experiences, skills, education, and certifications helps fuel keyword searches, especially when recruiters filter by sector, language, or country.

A synthetic overview of LinkedIn’s importance for the expatriate:

LinkedIn Indicator	Key Data	Impact for the Expatriate in Venezuela
Global Users	> 1 billion	Access to a truly global market of opportunities
Listed Companies	> 55 million	Quick identification of partners, employers, service providers
Existing Groups	> 1.2 million	Ability to target communities by sector and country
Active Profile Visibility	+30%	A maintained profile is seen much more often by recruiters
Role of Networking in Recruitment	85% of jobs filled via network	Confirms that networking trumps “cold” applications

Using Content to Exist in the Feed

LinkedIn is not just a giant directory. The algorithm highlights profiles that publish, comment, and interact. For an expatriate, this is a way to exist in the eyes of your target market without being physically present.

The data is clear: a post that includes an image gets about three times more interactions than plain text, and content that tells a personal story doubles the average engagement. An engineer who tells how they adapted a safety procedure to a difficult local context, or a project manager who describes the challenges of a digital rollout in Caracas, is more likely to be read than a simple article share without commentary.

Finding the Right People, in the Right Place

LinkedIn’s advanced search tools – which allow filtering by industry, job title, company, location – are valuable for targeting subsidiary directors, HR managers of international groups, NGO officials, or chamber of commerce actors linked to the country.

Global recruitment data is very favorable to this strategy: approximately 70 to 80% of jobs are never posted, and a similar proportion of positions are filled through recommendations, social networks, and personal contacts. Co-opted candidates have more than a 50% higher chance of being hired, and a 30% higher probability of getting an interview.

For the expatriate, it’s therefore less about sending out CVs en masse and more about:

– identifying who, in a given company, has decision-making power over recruitment or partnerships;

– understanding their profile, challenges, and published content;

– engaging first through intelligent and useful comments;

– only then sending a personalized connection request.

Hybrid campaigns – combining email and LinkedIn – in fact show impressive rates when the approach is targeted: a typical scenario (two introductory emails, a connection request, two follow-up messages) can generate over 55% acceptance and nearly 46% response rates.

Entering Local Circles: Chambers of Commerce, Expat Networks, Events

The digital strategy reaches its full value when it connects with structures well-anchored on the ground. In Venezuela, several institutions play the role of relational hubs.

VenAmCham, VACC, and Binational Networks

The Venezuelan-American Chamber of Commerce (VenAmCham), founded in 1950, has over 500 member companies, represented by 3,500 senior executives. It runs more than 30 sectoral committees and offers seminars, conferences, economic analysis, visa information, publications, and contact facilitation.

It acts as a crossroads between the local business world and US economic interests. For an expatriate working with US-Venezuela flows, or in sectors covered by these committees (oil, infrastructure, telecoms, consumer goods, logistics, etc.), it is an almost mandatory stop.

A summary of these key players:

Organization	Main Base	Role in Networking
VenAmCham	Caracas	Connecting US–Venezuela companies, organizing committees & seminars
VACC	United States	Structuring the Venezuelan entrepreneurial diaspora
Global Chamber Caracas	Global / Caracas	Network of CEOs and executives across 525 metropolitan areas

InterNations and Expatriate Communities

InterNations, present in 420 cities, has an active community in Venezuela. Membership requires validation, with a code of conduct oriented towards courtesy and cultural openness. On the ground, expatriates report finding both useful professional contacts and everyday services (like a babysitter in Caracas).

The organized events – dinners around local dishes, outings to iconic places, weekend excursions – are discreet but powerful opportunities to create connections. The advantage is that these contacts intuitively understand the challenges of an expatriate: administrative procedures, language adaptation, understanding security risks.

These communities extend online through forums for asking very practical questions (housing, health, schooling, security), but also for identifying employers open to international profiles, local consultants, career coaches.

Conferences, Forums, and Event Culture

Despite the difficulties, the country hosts many professional events: international conferences, sectoral forums, technical days, training sessions. Topics as varied as quality (Foro Calidad FONDONORMA), foreign currency financing, new technologies, or risk prevention and security are the subject of regular meetings.

These appointments have several uses for an expatriate:

– identifying the actors who “really count” in a given sector, beyond official names;

– gauging current priorities (taxation, foreign currency, digitalization, regulatory compliance);

– getting known through interventions, relevant questions, or simply during informal times (coffee breaks, lunches).

In a society where decisions are often made after “seeing the person”, presence at these events has a credibility-boosting effect that LinkedIn alone cannot produce.

Navigating the Crisis: Security, Constraints, and Professional Stance

Talking about networking in Venezuela without mentioning the security context would be irresponsible. The American, Canadian, British and other governments formally advise against all travel to the country, citing high insecurity, political instability, and fragile infrastructure.

For expatriates already in the country, this reality must structure the way they network.

Security First: A Permanent Parameter

The risks – homicides, kidnappings, violent theft, extortion – exist in major cities and on certain roads. Incidents are regularly reported around Maiquetía International Airport, on the road between the airport and Caracas, and on public transportation.

Under these conditions, several principles guide networking practice:

This does not kill networking, but forces it to become more professional, to move towards more controlled environments. Hence the increased importance of the virtual dimension.

The Rise of Virtual Networking

The country’s instability, the closure of some consular representations, electricity and Internet outages, and air travel restrictions have pushed companies, NGOs, and expatriate networks to rely more on digital tools.

For an expatriate, this means that: the challenges of adapting to a new culture, managing family distance, and integrating into a new professional environment are key elements to consider.

– many first contacts can be made by video call, limiting physical travel;

– professional communities operate in hybrid mode: remote meetings, then occasional physical meetings in safe locations;

– platforms dedicated to the Venezuelan diaspora serve as both information relays, job boards, mentoring spaces, and professional social networks.

Betting on the Diaspora and Dedicated Platforms: VzlaVirtual, Mentors, and Alumni

Beyond the major global networks, an expatriate benefits from connecting to the specific communities linked to the country, whether they are Venezuelan themselves or not.

VzlaVirtual: A Relational Marketplace for the Diaspora

VzlaVirtual, led by the Fundación Código Venezuela, illustrates well this new generation of platforms made “by and for” Venezuelans abroad. Available on Google Play and the App Store, this app already brings together over 39,000 members.

It offers both:

– access to job offers and study grants;

– training content (webinars, “migrant school”);

– practical information on visas, health, banking;

– thematic or geographical communities.

Mentoring as an Integration Accelerator

Studies on international careers converge: nearly 93% of mentees attribute part of their professional progression to mentoring, and career satisfaction increases by about 70% when benefiting from this type of support.

For an expatriate, the ideal mentor is not only a technical expert, but often:

Organizations like InterNations, some universities (alumni programs), or dedicated structures like MENTORA in the educational field, demonstrate that structured mentoring arrangements produce tangible results: increased opportunities, better understanding of local markets, facilitated access to closed circles.

A numerical overview of the effect of mentoring and alumni networks, useful to keep in mind:

Domain	Key Indicator
Role of Mentoring	93% of mentees attribute their progression to a mentor
Impact on Career Satisfaction	+70% declared satisfaction with mentoring
Role of Alumni Networks	30% of graduates’ first jobs via these networks
Weight of Alumni Events	50% of recent graduate hires via events (NACE)
Willingness to Mentor	> 70% of alumni ready to advise or recommend

For an expatriate in Venezuela, this translates into two concrete actions: seeking a mentor connected to the country (local or from the diaspora) and actively participating in alumni networks from their schools or former companies, using them as a springboard to actors on the ground.

Making Digital an Ally: LinkedIn, VzlaVirtual, but also Virtual Numbers and Hybrid Events

Networking remains a matter of people, but technology provides the connective tissue that allows these links to be maintained in a context as fragmented as Venezuela’s.

Creating a Coherent Professional Presence

It is useful to think of your digital ecosystem as a whole:

– an optimized LinkedIn profile, in French, English, and ideally Spanish, with relevant keywords for the regional market;

– a presence in LinkedIn groups that bring together professionals from the country and region (oil, education, NGOs, tech, logistics, etc.);

– registration in local InterNations communities and diaspora platforms like VzlaVirtual.

Humanizing Digital Exchanges

In a country where communication is very expressive, messages that are too cold or formatted can seem distant. Research on LinkedIn shows that a personalized note significantly increases invitation acceptance rates. It is therefore preferable to:

– explicitly mention what connects you to the person (same industry, same event, an article you read);

– adopt a tone that is courteous but relaxed, avoiding formulas that are too rigid;

– propose a short and precise exchange (a 20-minute call, a virtual coffee).

Managing Language Barriers

Even if English is widely spoken in certain circles, Spanish remains the dominant language. Differences in register and vocabulary can create misunderstandings.

Best practices to limit these barriers:

– use simple Spanish, avoid idiomatic expressions from your country of origin;

– rephrase important points both orally and in writing;

– confirm understanding by asking the interlocutor to summarize the next steps, without making them feel at fault.

Automated translation tools can help with simple exchanges, but do not replace the effort of learning the basics of the language and cultural nuances. This is also a powerful signal of respect, highly appreciated locally.

Maintaining Your Network: From First Connection to Sustainable Partnership

Building a contact base is a first step. Transforming it into a living, useful, and reliable network requires continuous attention. Studies suggest it is more effective to spend about 80% of your networking time nurturing existing relationships and 20% creating new ones.

From Connection to Value Exchange

The most effective frameworks describe the development of a professional relationship in several phases:

In a context like Venezuela, where risks are high and uncertainty is permanent, people rely heavily on behavior observed over time. Responding quickly, keeping commitments, showing loyalty when an interlocutor faces difficulty, all this weighs heavily in the balance.

Network Maintenance Rituals

A few simple gestures, implemented systematically, help keep a network “warm”:

Social CRM tools or online interaction trackers (some social selling or relationship management software) can automate part of this work, but the essence remains the quality of the intention.

Protecting Yourself from Pitfalls: What to Avoid

In a country where insecurity, distrust, and communication saturation are high, certain mistakes can cost you dearly in reputation, and even safety.

Not Confusing Persistence with Harassment

Platforms like LinkedIn or email make mass messaging technically easy. But the effects are negative when solicitations are:

– generic, without personalization;

– too frequent;

– too oriented towards “sales” or unilateral requests.

Avoiding Sensitive Discussions

Local political topics, judgments about the country’s internal situation, comments on relations with the United States or other powers should be handled with extreme caution, especially at the start of a relationship. Cultural recommendations emphasize avoiding these themes unless your interlocutor brings them up spontaneously, and even then with great restraint.

Prefer unifying topics – gastronomy, sports, culture, innovations, family – helps establish a climate of trust without unnecessary risks.

Managing Invitations and Connections with Discernment

On LinkedIn, you can theoretically accept up to 30,000 first-degree connections. But the platform’s official advice remains to connect mainly with people you know or have credible reasons to know. In a sensitive environment, this makes perfect sense:

Accepting an invitation can be preceded by a quick check of the profile, mutual contacts, and published content. And nothing prevents sending a welcome message to clarify the reason for the connection.

In Summary: A Dual-Anchored Strategy

Developing your professional network as an expatriate in Venezuela means accepting to play on several fronts simultaneously.

On one hand, you must immerse yourself in a culture where people shake hands warmly, where meals last a long time, where verbal commitments carry weight, and where family takes center stage. On the other hand, you must equip yourself with an impeccable LinkedIn profile, join the right groups, leverage diaspora platforms, participate in virtual conferences, schedule videoconference coffees with interlocutors spread between Caracas, Miami, Madrid, and Bogotá.

The good news is that the tools exist: VenAmCham, VACC, InterNations, VzlaVirtual, alumni communities, LinkedIn, and videoconferencing solutions offer a dense mesh, provided you are willing to invest time, curiosity, and generosity.

The guiding principle remains the same: start by giving – attention, useful information, introductions – before asking. In a difficult environment, expatriates who patiently build bonds of trust often end up transforming a country perceived as very high-risk into a field of rare, but real, opportunities for those who know how to integrate with lucidity, humility, and consistency.