Jumbledog

I know the spanish economy is far from good, but a friend of mine who is a Spanish guy living in Barcelona is getting a lot of interviews for Computer programming/analysis jobs in Barcelona. Does anyone else know if this is an area where there are good employment prospects in Barcelona or elsewhere in Spain?

mikelincs

How good is your Spanish? He is obviously fluent and that would be the biggest hurdle for you to climb. You would be very lucky to get a job in that field without fluent Spanish as most of the customers are likely to be Spanish.

Horlics

There are quite a few available in Madrid and Barcelona. Those that don't require fluent Spanish and instead need native/fluent English speakers are advertised on the UK job sites. Today there are a couple of pages of jobs all posted in the past couple of weeks.

Jumbledog

Thanks! are there any job sites in particular worth looking at, UK ones that is?

Horlics

I was really hoping you wouldn't ask :-) ...... jobserve.co.uk And Twitter is massively used by IT agencies. They're out there, an IT man will be able to find them. Try Coritel too.

amideislas

It would be very unusual for a Spanish IT firm to be looking specifically for British expat IT specialists sin español, on a UK job board.

Even if you found a few, I'd proceed with caution. That rarity should raise a flag similar to strangers offering candy to children. It's when they ask for the "membership fee" or some other payment to ensure your "guaranteed job placement" that you'll know it's time to move on.

Horlics

I've been in the IT industry for 20+ years. I've worked in Italy sin Italian, Norway sin Norwegian, France sin French, Arabia sin Arabic, and even Spain when my Spanish was crap.

Today, on a UK job board, there is an opening for an IT job in Madrid. The set of skills required is one for which salary negotiations would start at 100k if it was in the UK, although it'll pay far less in Madrid.

That's one example.

No membership fee or other gotchas, just quite simply a company looking to fill a position for which the skills are in demand in the current market.

The company in question employs over 200,000 people around the world.

Believe me, in sectors like this one, there are jobs, and when they're after rare skills, they'll take English speakers. Note also, these are multi-national companies where people spend half their days on the phone to other parts of the world.

amideislas

Fair enough, I can't argue that (presuming it's true).

But I'd expect there would be hundreds of eager, qualified applicants already living in Madrid for almost any position offered. Why import them?

Horlics

Because there aren't hundreds of eager, qualified applicants already living in Madrid. Wether you expect there to be or not, there aren't.

But why you would say 'presuming it's true' I don't understand. I can assure that I wouldn't spend time making things up to post here. Of course it's true.

Jumbledog

Hi Horlics thanks for the info. I was asking because I'm really a novice jobhunter, just finishing a top up degree in Computer Science and haven't begun my jobsearch in earnest yet, so please bear with my lack of knowledge, my university have been spectacularly unhelpful in directing me to such information and googling can turn up a whole host of irrelevant info. I certainly don't think you're making anything up, like you say, why would you bother! Best wishes

Horlics

I know of a huge employer of IT people in Spain, I used to work for its parent company. During that time I worked in Madrid and Malaga. Happy to PM with you for more specific info and advice should you feel you need it.

If you are studying in the UK I feel you'd be better off finishing your education and then working in the UK for 2-3 years before looking elsewhere. You can then look to Spain if there are reasons you want to be there, although you will earn more in the UK (which is one reason for the lack of the queue for jobs in Madrid... Spaniards with sought after IT skills are in London, my ex employer has a couple of hundred of them there).

Jumbledog

I'd be grateful if you can pm me the details. thanks

Rosemary

Hi and a warm welcome to the Spanish forum on BE. Myself and Fred James are the moderators for the Spanish forums whilst BEVS moderates Europe. Moderators are there to ensure that the site runs smoothly within the rules of BE. This is so that members gain the information that they are looking for and find their experiences on the forums to be friendly and worthwhile.

Problems and complaints should always be addressed to a moderator who will look into the matter and deal with it efficiently and fairly. Our members who post in the Spain Forums are usually friendly and helpful with a wealth of knowledge about the issues of living in Spain. I hope that you enjoy your time participating in the forums.

Please let me know if you need any further help.

Rosemary

amideislas

That wasn't directed at you. It was more a disclaimer that I humbly accede to your response - presuming that it's true, which I didn't bother to check.

Horlics

You quoted me then wrote something with a question mark so I answered. Understandable that it appeared aimed at me.

But still having to presume rather than just take my word for it.

Sorry that reality doesn't align with your uninformed view.

Forgetting the opportunity for non-Spanish people, there are dozens of vacancies for Spanish native speakers right now. That probably doesn't fit with your view either. You imagine hundreds of qualified people waiting when then aren't.