Jobs in the Irish public sector abroad?

Dots1982

Just running through this in my head..

How many jobs are there in the Irish public sector approximately abroad?
Jobs in embassies, trade associations, any others?
Are these jobs plentiful and reasonably open to apply to and be successful applying to?
Any other information welcome..

Dr. Kenneth Noisewater

I'm a Civil Servant (currently on a career break), decided to move to New Zealand for a while. Around the time I was moving over, I saw that the DFA was opening a new embassy in Wellington, where I was relocating to. Seems like a hard enough one to get. Seemingly you need to be in DFA in order to apply for the jobs in the first instance. I'd imagine they only throw it open to expressions of interest from Civil Servants in other departments where there is no interest from within.

Augme

You need to apply the be a third secretary in the dept. Of foreign affairs. There are other ways in but they are even less likely then in as a 3rd Sec. Basically it is very difficult.

Jim2007

Dots1982 wrote: »

Just running through this in my head..

How many jobs are there in the Irish public sector approximately abroad?
Jobs in embassies, trade associations, any others?
Are these jobs plentiful and reasonably open to apply to and be successful applying to?
Any other information welcome..

Well if you are talking about local jobs, then I'd guess there are many be 5 to 20 positions per embassy and they are not very attractive, such jobs at embassies tend to be low paying even by local standards and since they are not subject to local law you may not have much in the way of legal rights or even pension and unemployment benefits.

With the UN and other international organisations here in Switzerland, there are many such jobs and generally speaking they are things you do when you can't find anything else.

Mrs OBumble

Various agencies have high-level liaison positions in the EU etc. generally you'd need to be at management level within the agency to be considered for them.

HartsHat

Dr. Kenneth Noisewater wrote: »

I'm a Civil Servant (currently on a career break), decided to move to New Zealand for a while. Around the time I was moving over, I saw that the DFA was opening a new embassy in Wellington, where I was relocating to. Seems like a hard enough one to get. Seemingly you need to be in DFA in order to apply for the jobs in the first instance. I'd imagine they only throw it open to expressions of interest from Civil Servants in other departments where there is no interest from within.

You would need to either be a Third Secretary or First Secretary in DFA to serve in Embassy Wellington as a Diplomat.

Where there is no interest from diplomatic stream for a particular posting, it might then go to a general service officer serving within DFA.

Woshy

You need to work for DFA to get jobs working at embassies overseas. However all embassies employ local staff (this is what I do) - you need to have the right to live and work in the country already, they don't post you there or get you a visa or anything. Staff at embassies are in two categories, diplomats who are posted form their home country and staff employed locally. All the embassies in Dublin employ staff locally - so they are hiring you under Irish employment law as if for any other job. They are not immune because it is an embassy. So that's an option - the other applying for a job at an Irish embassy overseas as local staff if you see jobs posted. As I said though you need to be legally able to live/work in that country already. Generally it is for administrative staff with some policy work too.

Another way to work abroad is to work for the likes of Enterprise Ireland, Bord Bia or Tourism Ireland and get posted overseas. They all have staff in a variety of places that I would deal with

BellaCiao

I am currently applying for one of the ongoing competitions to join the civil service and would love if anyone here could give me some further information into how secondments abroad work in the civil service- particularly secondments to work as an SNE within the European Commission or to work in the Irish Perm Rep in Brussels.

I've come across a word document from 2017 outlining the process, but would be interested to hear from anyone that might have first hand experience of the process or has any ideas about how common it is to go on secondment abroad (has it become more of less common in recent years?) How competitive is it (ie are you battling for a position against members of civil service from 26 other member states?) Does it largely depend on which department you’re in? (I have noticed Dept of Finance seems to sponsor a lot of people).

Any insight into this would be really appreciated!

You've to be in your grade and job 2 years before they will even consider you.
It has to be the grade you're at and you need to be released by your department.

The irish representative hires from the Irish CS etc. I wouldn't go joining the Cs just for a foreign posting.

Jim2007

I would imagine fluency in at least one or two foreign languages would give you an edge as well.

PearseCork92

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

Various agencies have high-level liaison positions in the EU etc. generally you'd need to be at management level within the agency to be considered for them.

Not necessarily.

Embassies: From time to time Irish embassies will hire expertise locally. Ecomomic or political type (language will be a factor) roles in support of diplomats posted there. You'd need to have the right to work in that country if it's non-EU. It's not unknown (but rare enough it must be said) for embassies to hire Irish as attaches in-country at third sec equivalent when a third sec has been reassigned at short notice (non-permanent and time-limited obviously).

Agencies (Enterprise Ireland / IDA / Bord Bia / Tourism Ireland): All of these agencies have graduate schemes which would place you sometimes in an embassy environment. These can be dogsbody jobs and not as glamourous as you'd imagine. They also don't typically retain the people from these schemes after they're done unless you get lucky. For more senior roles they often recruit openly so keep an eye on their careers section on their websites. Fluency in a language (something unusual like Chinese, Japanese or Russian) and industry expertise will put you in the frame. These jobs can be fairly lucrative and they will look after you well with housing allowances etc.

My opnion on state agencies is mixed; there are good people in all of them, but they can be bloated organisations that do a good line in pumping themselves up and producing self-promoting marketing materials to impress ministers and the department they ultimately report to. Be prepared to deal with slow-moving public sector practices with the smoke and mirrors, bluster and hubris of the private sector. The most effective of the agencies with the clearest mission is probably the IDA, though even in there you'll find your bullsh*tters.

Jim2007

OP, if you really want to the experience, it is probably easier to just go do it.

You don't need a visa or work permit for the EU/EEA/CH, which means most of Western Europe...