Europeans: I have a question for you :)


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Aug 15, 2011
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Bristol, England
HI


I'm looking to move within Europe and wondering on some ideas on where to go.


So far in my wish list I have:


Lyon, France


Oslo, Norway


Stockholm, Sweden


Berlin, Germany


My background info is I'm from the UK but not that happy here. My girlfriend is Canadian. I'd like to move somewhere forward thinking and progressive. Alas my employment so far has been tech support (sigh) so wondering where there is good opportunity to get out of the rut I'm in!


Cheers my dears
 
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Hahaha nooo that was my favourite pick!

Wel-Gibson-Golden-Globe-Gif.gif
 
if your GF is canadian, get there with her. Have her sponsor your permanent residence and enjoy living in a place where you actually have a futur in your career.

If you realy dont want to move there, have a look at what language you know. To work in a country, you need to talk the local native language first.

Beside, I would back what LinuxSwat said : dont go in France if you hope to get a job, you'll be disapointed. Beside, I think there is no tech support place in Lyon (ptitSeb could confirm I guess)

EDIT: now to wonder why I did moved from canada to france this year is still a mistery. My wife is looking for a job for over 7 month now. She doesnt even get a phone call back. Only 1 (yeap a single one) interview. Job situation in France is very worriing.
 
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You can find a job in France, but it depends on your field of expertise. 

But if you don't speak French, it will be much more difficult.
 
You can find a job in France, but it depends on your field of expertise. 

But if you don't speak French, it will be much more difficult.
I do have a job in France. But hey, that's still hard. In some place of the world (like Canada/USA) I would be litterally harassed by jobs offers (got serious job offer nearly dayly while I was in Québec). I'm getting a "potential" offer every 2 months at best. And even there, it is mostly for job in Germany or Belgium in the end...
So I would only ask : what field of expertise do create job in France ? Serious question, I just dont see any.
 
One point for sebt3.

France is probably not the place to find easily a job. And finding a good job is probably more difficult too.

The job market is difficult and successive governments don't have made deep and structural modifications.

So the situation is not good.

I think Québec and Canada are a good choice.
 
I'm from the UK but not that happy here.
Guess you must be from the South ;) They say it's grim up North but don't believe a word of it ;)

Now a few serious questions :

What's making you unhappy about living in the UK?

Do you have any foreign language skills?

Are you looking for a permanent move, or just to see a different bit of the world for a year or two?
 
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Yep, unfortunetly, France will not be the best place. And most tech support job are also beeing reloclized in nearshore (Maroc mainly, but Poland & Tchec also) or offshore (central affrica, india)...
 
I you want to feel "whooa, why i ever wanted to move to europe. I should shoot myself firstly" Poland is ideal place to be..
 
Hahaha Commander-beef ;)

Yes unfortunately the research I've done on the net about France is unfortunately it's quite a protectionist market and high standards of French is expected (which sadly I do not hold).

My girlfriend does actually want to return to Toronto, Ontario where I've lived for just shy over a year and it was a great place. Wages were good, rents were reasonable so I enjoyed that aspect of Canadian life.

I'd ideally like to stay in Europe as I love the availability of travel but what with Europes economy in the toilet the places with any real opportunity seem to have disappeared  :mellow:

What's making you unhappy about living in the UK?

I love the UK but so much sucks here. So much of my money goes on rent & council tax it'd be nice to live somewhere where rent doesn't take 2/3s of your wages

Do you have any foreign language skills?

Beginner french. Funnily enough I was reasonably fluent when I was younger but as you grow older and stop using it it really has dropped to appalling levels!

Are you looking for a permanent move, or just to see a different bit of the world for a year or two?

Either or really. Ideally it'd be nice to be permanent but even a year just to get in a position where I'm not a wage slave (watching my wages go on rent, council tax and heating) and be able to save up just a small bit would be nice!

Finland also looked fantastic :)
 
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What are your language constraints? Do you want to learn a new language? What do you speak?

Brussels might be an option if you want to get a job where you can speak English - many companies have their EHQ there, and there's also the EU part of the city where English is basically the default language.

Scandinavian countries are probably nice too.
 
So I would only ask : what field of expertise do create job in France ? Serious question, I just dont see any.
 

I can only speak about my own experience but I'll say mobile software development.

When I got out school six years ago, I got 14 calls on the day I put my resume online, and many calls afterwards.

When I look at the job offers today, there are still many positions open.
 
Yes I'd quite like to learn a new language and I'm not bothered about language constraints as the best way is to dive right in and talk to as many natives as possible!

Yeah sadly I wish I could be a software dev. Programming doesn't take to me beyond a few scripts or text adventure games though
 
Before you select somewhere, try to find some locals there (forums? cold calling?) and see what its like for foreign employment.

I've always thought the world of Canada, but when some foreign relatives moved here, they found a lot of trouble with 'local experience' requirements; a lot of jobs just assumed that, since you were foreign, your education or experience didn't count and they'd take someone with local experience; ie: you were starting from zero. You might've been an engineer or doctor for 10 years, but you were getting passed over for peopel with 1 year local experience, since they were 'proven'.

Seems like BS. When I've hired people, I never even considered that.. experience is experience :/

You get surprised sometimes..

Still, I'd naturally say Canada; I'm a white mail 40-something always been here, but I think its a great and moderate country.

jeff
 
If you want a job, I wouldn't recommend Berlin either, you can end up under the bridge here faster than you can imagine.

I'm from Berlin and would love to move to a more or less remote place in Canada someday

- If you already got a girl there, just do it!
 
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And France is taxing people who earn any serious bit of money like crazy so unless you are poor and homeless that's definitely not the first place to go :)
Not only rich ppl is taxed, the middle class is now severely damaged by taxes.
 
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