WPP or emigrate?

Shelga

I made a post about my situation in a FAS WPP thread but then thought I'd probably be better off looking for advice here. So the story is... I posted on boards a month or two ago about the ridiculous rule of needing to be unemployed for 3 months to be eligible for a WPP placement. Now I have been unemployed for 2 months and am really torn about whether to try get a WPP job or take my chances in Australia. What would others do in my situation? I have savings of €3-4k from my six months working since graduation.

For every good story of a WPP experience there is a horrible one. What scares me is not having a good chance of securing a permanent job at the end of the 9 months. Plus, the nature of my degree means there is a very strong chance I would have to relocate from Dublin to a rural area, and this would mean spending a large chunk of my savings on moving costs and probably buying a car. At the end of my 9 months I may not have money to emigrate anymore. All to work for €188 a week.

On the other hand, I am fully aware of the difficulties in securing sponsorship in Australia and the fact that my lack of experience doesn't make me very appealing to a foreign employer. Also, I am in a LTR and don't want to be forced to break up because of emigration. I really don't know what to do. Has anyone else been in this situation who could advise? Getting pretty miserable being unemployed but just don't know if I want to stay in this country long-term. Maybe with 9 months experience under my belt I'd be more attractive to foreign employers?

Some people seem to think that graduates should think the WPP scheme is brilliant but it's not that simple...

Kevin Duffy

Does it have to be a straight choice between those two options? If you leave the country, does it have to be Australia?

funkey_monkey

Is it an option to get a job up here in the North?

Shelga

Well as time goes on it increasingly seems a WPP is my only feasible option for employment in Ireland. Have applied to lots of positions in the UK and here, and even further afield, but nothing doing. No it doesn't HAVE to be Australia, but the economy is in better shape than the UK, the weather's good, and I have a friend who says I can stay with her for a bit...

magneticimpulse

Even before the recession myself and my friends back in 2002 found it impossible to find jobs. I went to UK and then France. You dont have to limit yourself to UK either. The whole of Europe is your oyster and you can pick up a language skill. The benefit is you can still get a cheap Ryanair flight and pop back home to Ireland.Most young people speak English...so you can pretty much go to any EU country.

I loved Australia, it was nice place for holiday, however it is really really far away to actually live there. Maybe just go for a holiday?

If I was you, I would try to find a specific website which advertises the job your looking for. Then apply around the World/outside of Ireland. One year goes by really fast. It will add to your CV. I spent a summer working in California in a job related to my field and it definitely pops out of CV and catches peoples eyes.

When you say your already in a LTR? What country is your OH in? Can you not move to their country? I was in a LTR for one year, sure it was expensive getting flights, but we saw each other at least once a month, if not twice.

funkey_monkey

magneticimpulse wrote: »

When you say your already in a LTR? What country is your OH in? Can you not move to their country? I was in a LTR for one year, sure it was expensive getting flights, but we saw each other at least once a month, if not twice.

Does OP not mean 'Long Term Relationship' (LTR) as opposed to 'Long Distance Relationship' (LDR)?

Shelga

Yeah sorry I mean long-term relationship. Although he does live in a different county!

Dostoevsky

After posting this I had a WPP1 interview and accepted the job. The state organisation in which I did the WPP was absolutely superb and very accommodating, making it clear to me that if I needed time off to attend interviews or anything else related to getting paid employment, that the time would be given to me. Additionally, expenses I had connected to the WPP were given and a parking space was provided. Lastly, I did make some good contacts there and I was offered paid employment, albeit part-time, from them (the WPP working week is 30 hours).

I was there for less than a month when I was offered a paying job, which I'm in now for the past six weeks. I felt slightly embarrassed leaving; as I was there for such a short while I was more a hindrance than a help - they had to spend time interviewing me, introducing me to the company, training me and so forth, and I left very soon afterwards. Overall, however, I don't regret doing it. I was able to work in it while applying for other jobs, keeping my curriculum vitae full and my work skills sharper than they would have otherwise been. I was also able to be available for work in Ireland when it came up. That mattered to me as I didn't want to leave, even though I have more than enough points to go to Oz or Canada. Like you I'm in a long-term relationship here. I think, though, if I had to emigrate I'd go to continental Europe before I'd go to one of the anglophone countries. In countries like Switzerland and France, there's relatively more stability and avoidance of the boom-bust economic cycle that marks the US/Britain/Ireland and, eventually, Australia.


As regards Australia, I haven't heard a bad word about it from Irish people I know there. Have you read this and seen your occupation on the current Skilled Occupation List (SOL) Australia 2011? Also, you can do this points test to see how many points you have. A friend of mine did it a few hours ago, they said he was eligible under three of the four possible headings (he didn't want to be sponsored by relatives in Australia) and they said they will telephone him directly in the forthcoming 48 hours. Best of luck.