cjevans

Hi,

I'm a Telco/IT professional with over 10 years experience in UK telecoms. I've worked as an Incident Manager and as a BA and now currently working as a Service Transition Analyst for a Application Support Provider.

I've done ITIL Foundation (v3) and I'm looking at either the Practitioner Course in Service Transition or perhaps a keyskills course in Managing Releases and Deployments.

In addition to managing changes and releases I co-ordinate and conduct Operational Acceptance Testing to ensure operational readiness for Projects. I also co-ordinate Datafixes and PTFs for a number of customers.

This is the first company I've ever worked at which has had an ITIL Service Transition Team and I'm keen to understand whether there are jobs in this area in Spain?

Rosemary

As Concierge for the Spanish section of BE I would like to say hello and welcome.

BE is a very large expat website, so if you have problems finding your way around we have concierges who will try to direct you. The moderators for the Spanish forums are Mitzyboy and Fred James, moderators are there to ensure that the site runs smoothly within the rules of BE. Problems and complaints should always be addressed to a moderador who will look into the matter and deal with it efficiently and fairly. Our members who post in the Spain Forums are friendly and helpful with a wealth of knowledge of the issues of living in Spain. At the top of the page you will find a quirkily named thread called Free Beer which is full of important and useful information. Hope you enjoy your time participating in the forums.

Wow, you really are looking to move just about anywhere in the world. Good luck with your research. Surely you have some preferences about the type of place that you would both like to live. First and foremost, regarding working in Spain you would need to be fluent in Spanish, secondly I hate to burst your bubble but unemployment here is extremely high for the Spanish so the chances of finding work is very slim.

Please let me know if you need any further help.

Rosemary

Fred James

You have asked the same question on a number of BE forums.

I suggest you put Spain at the bottom of your list as the unemployment rate is the worst in the EU and unless you have fluent Spanish your chances of a job are almost Zero.

cjevans

Hi Rosemary/Fred,

Many thanks for your replies.

I am aware of the overall with Spanish unemployment which is why I'm trying to understand how heavy the ITIL footprint is there. I aim to get to practitioner level in my accreditation which should open more doors for me to specialise within ITIL and in turn make me more "in demand".

I hold a DipHE in French and Spanish and so if I look to move to either country would commence "brushing up" on these before going.

We're still in the very early stages in researching countries so the feedback is useful. I'll use the tips and hopefully over time I'll begin to formulate a plan of where and when I'd like to go.

Regards
Chris

Domino

you might look at places like Madrid and Barcelona for such positions, where there are a larger number of IT and call centre operations.
Oracle have several sites in Spain and some time ago were complaining that they were having difficulty employing people with a good level of English - but they may have got over that now.
Sellbytel were looking for people in Barcelona at the beginning of the month

May i suggest you turn the question on its head............
define which companies have operations where your training and experience would be of use
decide which companies you would like to work for and target them, if necessary making contact with their HR depts to discuss further, although they will be more willing to take locals as they won't have to pay relocation expenses.

Only then will you be able to define which country you are moving to, where in that country and what help you may need from British Expats.
At the moment you appear to have a handful of darts and have thrown them with your eyes closed at a map

hth

steviedeluxe

Hi. As Dom states there are vacancies cropping up all the time in the IT industry in Spain. The problem you will face is knowing how many other applicants you will be competing with to get an interview, and indeed whether your spanish is up to the industry requirements.
In this case I very much doubt startup companies will be interested in ITIL practitioners, although you can try Betabeers and JobFluent, who carry job adverts from the companies directly.
The big jobs search engine for the traditional IT sector is http://www.infojobs.net/ I just did a search for "ITIL" and it brought back 268 entries. Judging by the first page of results most of those vacancies are for ITIL consultants based in Madrid, although other cities like Barcelona, Seville and Bilbao appear too.
You may also try looking on Twitter too. I just did a search for "ITIL Madrid" and the first record brought back this vacancy (although there were several other training courses for ITIL also brought back). It links to a vacancy on trabajo.com

jackytoo

There was an IT specialist from Spain on a TV documentary last week. He has moved to Germany and is delivering bread to supermarkets.

Domino

sounds like the start of a joke or rhyme

"There was an IT Specialist from Spain........"

If there are jobs in Spain but the Spanish won't take them, preferring to move to Germany for the big bucks is it small wonder that people are coming into the country to fill the vacuum

`

jackytoo

He left Spain because he had been unemployed for a year

Rosemary

I thought that they were only moving to other countries because they could not gain work here in Spain rather than chasing higher rates of pay. The Spanish people that I know will take any work that is available in order to put food on the table. I find that generally they are not snobbish about the type of work they do as the important thing is to be working.

Rosemary

Domino

I know an architect who pumps petrol at weekends, keeps taking more and more study sessions improving his knowledge but hasnt worked for 5 years.
Told me he just wanted to get out of Spain, doesnt care where, just out of Spain.

steviedeluxe

Judging by the number of Itil jobs advertised perhaps he should be training in that? Of course it's nonsense, unless you are already in that line of work and with experience, the training and studying doesn't help. I know IT guys in the UK who have gone years since their last contract or job, some of them very competent in their field. The recruiters generally only consider those currently working in the sector. They're worried that recruits will stumble over version 12.1,2 when they last worked on version 11.9.8
At least the many startups that are hiring, look at your current work, and if you are gifted in UX, jquery and the rest of the web new stuff, you can demo your capabilities via your own sites (only costs a few euros to get a domain) or through open source projects.

agoreira

Not surprised, just reading new figures out, last year business fell at the fastest rate since the crisis began.
http://www.cincodias.com/articulo/ec...29cdscdseco_3/

Domino

yeah I know a number of people with outdated skills, some of them last upgraded years ago!
but there are also many out there with only legacy experience, I know some who have only one product and that was originally written in 1970-80's and still uses a green screen
but they are still employed - at the moment.

I remember the last recession (NO it wasnt that long ago) when the CBI complained that the universities were not processing people that had current skills. Problem is that even without on-job-training it takes upwards of 5 years for someone to reach the end of the tunnel. So, who actually starts this off, the industry or the universities ??

then there is the cry to provide more uni places in more diverse subjects, so uni's have resorted to degrees in things like Tourism, Cookery and Hairdressing. But by most employer's experience they don't seem to have any knowledge or hands on experience.

`

cjevans

Great feedback guys. You've backed up a few points that I've already come across for Spain but given me some new nuggets.