Finding A Job Abroad

Hi I´m Lee, I left England to move to Barcelona almost 2 years ago after graduating from University and have experienced A LOT of the ups and downs of job searching abroad. I recently found my new position at Europe Language Jobs so I thought I would post a guide with some advice I wish I´d had when I arrived to hopefully help you find a job abroad!

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So, you´ve taken the first brave step of deciding to move abroad, we all want to travel and have new experiences, now it´s time to think about two things: Where am I going to live? How am I going to afford living abroad? For those of us without millionaire parents this means getting a job! And unless you enjoy the possibility of an hour long commute on a busy train twice a day, it’s probably smarter to know where you will be working before finding accommodation!

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TYPE OF JOBS FOR YOU

As most of us here are studying we’re only able to have a part-time job or an internship. The majority of advice online for finding a job abroad says that you can easily get a job in a bar or teaching English as a second language, which can be really fun and rewarding and these jobs are in abundance with thousands of English speaking jobs abroad! But if you are studying… Let’s say Tourism, Business or Engineering degrees, wouldn´t it be better to spend the six months or a year working in a sector that will help you add to your skills and get a great job abroad (or at home) when you graduate? OF COURSE IT WOULD!

So, how do we do it?

WHERE TO START?!?

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The NUMBER ONE BEST RECOMMENDATION I can give you is that before you move to Barcelona, Berlin, Bucharest or whether you´re searching for English speaking jobs in Stockholm, wherever your next adventure takes you, LOOK AT JOBS ONLINE! You can do this at any time but looking ahead of your move abroad could really help you as it takes away some of the stress of moving abroad (How long until I find a job, will I run out of money etc).

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AM I LIKELY TO FIND A JOB ABROAD?

Get an idea of the job market relevant to you (are there English speaking jobs in Barcelona? ), the types of skills employers are looking for and where the jobs are, for example here in Barcelona, German speakers and IT professionals are really sought after and one of the most popular jobs in 2018 so choosing Barcelona could be a great choice for someone with these skills. Contrastingly the city has only one company involved in the Renewable Energy sector so those of us hoping to break into this industry are more likely to find a relevant job somewhere else such as in the Netherlands where the industry is much bigger and therefore demand for relevant talent is higher.

Ok that makes sense but, it sounds complicated.. How do we start searching an ENTIRE COUNTRY?

Of course a starting point for so many people is to find work abroad is to search directly on popular company websites, but everyone wants to work at Google, Adidas and Microsoft but these companies have to sort through thousands of applications every day so what are the chances of even getting an interview at Google?

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An alternative could be, for example to do a Google search for English speaking jobs in Spain or work abroad for Polish speakers, which is great because there are so many results right? Well, yes and no, because one of the most annoying things about job hunting is narrowing down the results to see only relevant job offers, the other big problem was that every time I found a good job.. I would then have to spend at least 30 minutes entering my qualifications, experiences, a cover sheet, reasons I want the job then repeat, repeat, repeat and it really is SO draining.

´Am I wasting my time here? ` And the truth is yes, you probably are. So what should we do?!?!

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Wouldn´t it be useful if all the available jobs were gathered in one place and save us hours and hours of searching and filling in form after form?

THERE IS SUCH A PLACE!

THE JOB BOARD

A wonderful resource that gathers different types of jobs that I really wish I´d known about is Europe Language Jobs. It´s a job board that allows us to search for jobs by Location, Sector and Language, enabling us to narrow down searches to make it specific to our needs and weed out anything irrelevant (my pet hate when I was looking for jobs! ). For example, as I speak English and Spanish and want to work in Marketing I can search for jobs in Marketing requiring English and Spanish, the search will exclude other languages so I won´t have my page filled with offers for things such as Sales positions in Portugal or Paris!

TIME SAVER

Only having to enter my details once was a real time saver and meant that when I found a job I was interested in I could simply click and send the application off meaning I was no longer spending hours each day job hunting, but instead 10-15 minutes a day to check the new vacancies in Barcelona and then the day was my own meaning I could go out and have amazing experiences in Spain!

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IN CONCLUSION..

The best advice I can give you is to plan ahead, moving abroad next semester? Get yourself a job for when you arrive! How do you do this? Find a good job board, my favourite is Europe Language Jobs, utilize this resource and working abroad in 2018 will be easier than ever! Just finding jobs isn´t good enough, high quality companies offering good jobs is key and that´s why next time I´m looking to find work abroad in the future I´ll be sticking to this way of searching.

If you have any comments, questions, think I´ve missed something or are interested in getting to know about the experience, the advantages and disadvantages of living abroad, let me know and I´ll get back to you!

SO WHAT SHOULD I DO NOW?

Sign up to Europe Language Jobs and go find yourself your amazing new job abroad like I did!

Cheers and good luck finding a job you love for the life you deserve!

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