Paris

tomlad123

Moving to Paris for the summer. Not great at French. Does anybody have any experience of living there and how to go about getting a job that requires mainly english?

Ponster

FUSAC is a bi-weekly magazine which usually has job offers for the English-speaking community.

What were you thinking of doing there ?

dartup

practice your French before you leave

Togepi

I'm planning on doing the same however I've seven years of studying French behind me so I'd like to think I'd manage with the language. Only thing is I've no work experience and don't know where to start looking for work. Bar/hotel/restaurant/shop work would be ideal, if anyone has any tips on where to start looking for any of those kind of jobs!

Ponster

Togepi wrote: »

I'm planning on doing the same however I've seven years of studying French behind me so I'd like to think I'd manage with the language. Only thing is I've no work experience and don't know where to start looking for work. Bar/hotel/restaurant/shop work would be ideal, if anyone has any tips on where to start looking for any of those kind of jobs!

The link I poster for shop work; I don't know of any central source for restaurant work but for bars you are best contacting them directly (look up names in Facebook, Google, etc...). There are over 50 Anglo-phonic bars and summer work is usually easy to get once you're prepared in April/May to start to look for it.

Togepi

Ponster wrote: »

The link I poster for shop work; I don't know of any central source for restaurant work but for bars you are best contacting them directly (look up names in Facebook, Google, etc...). There are over 50 Anglo-phonic bars and summer work is usually easy to get once you're prepared in April/May to start to look for it.

Would you advise going over around now to look for work later in the summer?

Ponster

Togepi wrote: »

Would you advise going over around now to look for work later in the summer?

Yes, certainly for the type of work where you'll be interacting with the general public. Bar managers will need to check that you seem like someone decent that their customers would take a drink from

Without the French though I think you may be just limited to pubs though FUSAC has listings for non-pub jobs.

Don't though expect to make a lot of cash. The average wage in Ireland is or at least be much higher than in France though minimum wage is about 1euro higher.

Fridge

Tomlad, what kind of experience / quals do you have, if any? Approach People hire a lot of bilingual staff but sometimes just English speakers abroad. FUSAC is probably the best place to find something.

I found the recruitment process in France to be quite slow in comparison to Ireland's. But if you're looking for bar type work it might be quicker.

I don't have much French and felt useless when I first arrived, but you can get by if you prepare yourself for each conversation you're likely to have, like going to the bank, etc. Small talk however is like impossible!

Accommodation is pretty hard to set up also, so you might need to stay in a hostel if you don't have something sorted out. A lot of places require you to show them a permanent work contract.

seachto7

I was initially thinking of heading to London in the next year, but speak French so am thinking "well, why not Paris?". It would offer much of the same London has, but maybe there would be better work opportunities in London...