tyr

Hi,
I'm on the verge of graduating with a degree in human-computer interaction from a uni in Sweden, I've already got a Information Systems degree from the UK (albeit a 2.2, so thats pretty much useless).

I'm looking for work now, work anywhere really, I'd move to the moon if the job was right. I've lived abroad 2 1/2 years already (Holland and Sweden) and I like it so much better than being stuck in the UK. Given that the UK is going to hell thanks to its current government it seems personal preference and logic coincide.

My ideal sort of thing is usability focussed stuff or new media. My coding skills are unfortunately pretty low grade at the moment- I'm trying to teach myself better flash at the moment but that doesn't happen over night- they're certainly there for supporting a job but I couldn't apply for one of the zillion and one jobs out there for developers. A job in QA would be something I'd go for less ideally and more attainably.

So...yeah...does anyone have any advice as to how to go about trying to find a graduate/junior level job somewhere in Europe?
Its proving to be a rather annoying search, job search sites restrict you to one country at a time which is a right pain.

George Holmer Kenya

How are you on languages, which ones do you speak?

tyr

I'm afraid I'm an "a little of a lot" sort of guy.
My Swedish is generally decent (though I've been in the UK for a month or two so its declining...I should really get some Swedish novels in to keep my skills up!) but otherwise I've just got base level French, Dutch and Japanese. They could be revived back to their peak level and built on should I need to but I couldn't hang a job application on knowing them.


So yeah, I'm really not the ideal candidate for any job at all but then I hear of many folks getting jobs just based on English, even when they're non-native speakers.

George Holmer Kenya

It depends at lot on what you do and where you do it. In France or Italy say, forget it. In Sweden, sure, and certainly in IT. Germany maybe, but possibly in IT, in Eastern Europe, no problems (or rather problems but they will hire you anyway if you are good at what you do and they need the skills). The Netherlands is like Sweden.

One idea is to go into support. Boring at first but in the right company, can lead further. My brother-in-law started with inhouse MS Office support in Nokia becuase of his languages and ended up travelling the world installing mobile phone networks in the Seychelles, Tanzania, Dubai, Namibia and he has trained technicians all over the place from China to Texas.

tyr

I'm not so sure on Sweden being OK about English. The impression I got there was it was really rather strict for jobs about people knowing Swedish. Holland seemed alright though.

I'm not too picky about where I move, just so long as its not a village in the middle of nowhere. I survived the Swedish winters I can survive anything!
I'd be willing to try support certainly, certainly beats sitting around at home as I'm doing now. Really feels like my life is wasting away. Will look into that, what are such jobs normally called? Just 'IT support'?

Any advice though on how to go about looking for jobs abroad?
As I say sites like monster are really annoying, they force you to search each country individually. It seems to be very much a UK focussed site too, next to nothing of any sort of job (not just IT, searching for anything) for some countries.

George Holmer Kenya

It is true that Sweden is quite Swedish-focused but it depeneds on the level of entry or company. I am Swedish by the way.

As for sites, sites like Monster and Stepstone exists in various countries so have a look for monster.de, monster.be, monster.nl etc. Stepstone is another one. Trouble with many European countries is that it is all word-by-mouth. I had no end of trouble getting a job in Belgium.

There are also a few agencies specialised in Euro-jobs such as Eurolondon.

Another idea is to focus on some international companies and mail them your CV.

For suppport jobs, search things like call center, it support. They are mostly based in the Netherlands and Ireland although things may have changed now.

jonnyx

Hi,
You can always get a call center job here in southern Spain, there are several of them.
One you can try if you speak Swedish or Norwegian is: Megafon Telemarketing

strobl_j

Hi, use firefox and you can have twenty tabs open with twenty different countries and searches, and the whole thing saved as one bookmark that you just click to open. I do it with about 8 at a time. Monster does have some specific sites for each country also, but in the native language.