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Mordant,
I’m sending good vibes and luck your way. However, since I’m not really into the magical scene that probably won’t amount to much. Perhaps though, I can help you with some more concrete and mundane matters of your job search. I think your job searching methods need to be re-assessed, and you, yourself, need to re-evaluate your life/career goals and skill sets.
Let’s start with the facts:
Fact 1: You’re a Briton living in Spain
Fact 2: You’ve been out of work for about 2 years.
Fact 3: You need a job, any job, because you’re broke.
Fact 4: You have preferences for certain types of jobs, ex: writing, translation, teaching English as a second language…etc.
Fact 5: You’re having difficulty getting said jobs because of qualifications/accreditation issues.
Fact 6: You can’t get accreditation because you’re broke and don’t have the money to invest in courses that will lead to certification.
Fact 7: You have issues about money and the capitalist system, which doesn’t help your job search.
Alright, let’s start with #1 – as a Briton, are you even legally allowed to work in Spain? Do you need a visa that allows for you to work? Do you have a residence card? Is it possible that the natives think that you’re an illegal alien, and thus are not hiring you because of immigration/legal issues? If you are qualified to work in Spain, are your CVS well written, properly formatted, and bilingual (i.e. are they in both English and Spanish). If you are only passing out English CVS, is it possible that potential employers are not aware that you speak and read Spanish? If you are also passing out Spanish CVS, are they grammatically correct? Your CVS, regardless of what language they are written in, must be error free. Potential employers have the pick of the crop, and any CV that is not readable and error free is likely to be tossed. Moreover, errors equate to sloppiness and carelessness, which can be viewed as a reflection of the candidate. Obviously, this is not a good thing.
Ok, #2 – Not working for 2 years = 2 year unemployment gap, which is a bad thing to have on a resume. Whenever there are gaps in employment history, warning bells go off, and many potential employers simply stop there and move on to the next candidate. Are your CVS written in a way that offsets and/or at least mitigates this issue? Ex: start off with your education level, training, skill sets, and then your work experience? By the time the reader reaches the work history of your CV, it’s possible that s/he won’t even notice the 2 year gap; or s/he could be impressed enough with your abilities, that it won’t matter as much. Alas, that’s a dream scenario. Unemployment gaps are generally spotted in a CV. Do you have a cover letter that goes with your CV, explaining this gap in your employment history? If not, you should consider whipping one up, and perhaps hedging the truth. Ex: You’re recent graduate, you’ve been living and traveling across Spain for the last 2 years, seeing and exploring the country and the culture. However, you’ve now decided to settle down in (name of city in which you are in now) and begin building a life/career there. Alternately, you may just want to state that you’ve been taking courses for the past two years.
Moving on to #3 – You really need an income to offset the cash flow blues. It’s clear that you’re much more fluent in English than Spanish. As such, have you tried to turn this around into an asset instead of liability? Have you considered work in the hospitality industry? Not just pubs and restaurants, but hotels, casinos and airports too? Any place that has a high traffic of tourists will need English speaking employees. You can apply for a job as a waiter/busboy in the pubs and restaurants in the touristy areas of the city in which you live. For hotels, you can apply for a job as a porter, bellhop, and doorman. Do you have cooking/bartending experience? There’s almost always work for cooks and bartenders. If you don’t like dealing with the public, you can try your hand as a dishwasher. Note though that it’s hot dirty work, and can be pretty laborious. However, it is a job and the restaurateur may even give you a free meal, or a meal discounted to half price.
Do you have office administration skills? Do you know Word Perfect, Excel, PowerPoint…etc? If you do, have you tried your hand at applying for jobs in banks and any other institution that requires clerical work? If you don’t have these skills, do you know how to type (not hunt and peck style, but really type, knowing the alpha and numeric keys of the keyboard)? If you do, you can apply for a job as a data entry operator.
Have you gone to a recruitment agency? Spoken to a career counsellor? I highly recommend doing both. A career counsellor can go over your CV and point out any weak areas. Moreover, s/he can discuss with you in depth about your problems finding work. It could be that you’re over qualified for some of the jobs you’re applying for, and under qualified for the others. Ex: You’ve got a college degree, but are applying for a job as a factory worker. The factory foreman is not likely to hire you because: a) he thinks you’re over qualified for the job and will get bored and leave, or b) he thinks you’re lying; after all why would someone with advanced education apply for a menial type job? I recommend that you have different types of CVS ready, one for the “joe jobs” as I call them (they’re called “joe” because just about any Joe and Joanne can do them) and one for the more upscale career types of jobs. The joe job CVS should be dumbed down, with your advanced education and training removed. The other CV should list your degree(s) and should be used for the more upscale job applications.
Alrighty, moving on to #4, 5, and 6 – You want certain types of jobs, but can’t get them due to not being properly accredited, or you lack the experience. This is harder to offer advice on as that I don’t know enough about your educational background, skill sets, and past work experience. I’ve inferred from your posts that: a) you want to teach English as a second language, b) you want to do translation work, and c) you enjoy writing and want to be employed as a writer in some capacity. As you’ve stated in a previous post, for TESL, the students didn’t materialize. Can you tell me what happened? Why you think the students didn’t flock to you? As for translation work, are English and Spanish the only languages you are fluent in? Are you proficient in other languages? Have you spoken to a translator and asked for career advice? Try setting up an information interview with someone that is currently employed as a translator. Ask him/her for advice on getting work – a little networking can open many doors that were previously closed. Writing – again, have you tried speaking to a professional and getting advice on how to break into the business? What type of writing do you want to do? Do you want to be a newspaper columnist, a screenwriter, or just an all around freelancer? Have you submitted any of your written works to magazines, local indie papers, or to a literary agent?
Ok, finally, #7 – You have issues about money, and how to get money. This really translates into issues about work and jobs, when you think about it. In another post, you stated that you thought someone had put a hex on you and that this could potentially be the cause for your current state of unemployment. Have you ever considered that there is no hex, and that it is you, yourself, subconsciously sabotaging your attempts at finding work? Have you been putting your best foot forward in looking for work? It’s not just the quantity of CVS that you pass out, but the quality of them too. To give you an example: my dear friend, Sal, has a hard time finding work because his resume writing and interviewing skills are weak. He’s punted out loads of CVS, but still hasn’t found a job. In comparison, his sister has a six-figure salary and an executive position in a major corporation in America. She’s never out of work because she has the necessary experience, education, and resume writing abilities to sell herself as a good candidate to potential employers. On a related matter, when you are dropping off your CVS, are you well groomed, clean shaven, and properly attired for a potential on the spot interview? Are you inadvertently violating some social more of the Spanish culture, and thereby negating any chances of potential employment? I apologize if I sound harsh and accusatory, that’s not my intent at all. However, I do think that something must be amiss in your approach to finding work. Mordant, I really believe that you have to sit down and do a lot of reflection and re-evaluation on your life and career goals. Ask yourself the following:
a) What do you really want to do?
b) What can you do? Be realistic, what skills do you possess that will help you find work in the here and now?
c) If there is a large discrepancy between what you want to do and what you can do, then you may have to consider going back to school to get the necessary education and training. If you don’t have the money for school, you should consider taking out a student loan.
And now we hit the links. I’ve found some websites that will probably be of interest to you. Take a look at the following (I’m too tired and lazy to make the haus and href links, so copy and paste these urls into your internet browser):
http://britscentral.com/jobs/ a website for Britons looking for work in Spain
http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/Spanish_English_Translation_Jobs/ a yahoo group of job postings for Spanish/English translators
http://www.recruitspain.com/ a recruiting firm, helping people find work in Spain (there may be fees involved, investigate and find out if it’s for you)
http://www.transitionsabroad.com/publications/magazine/0407/work_permits_in_spain.shtml You absolutely MUST go to this site. There’s lots of good info on work permits for foreigners, and how to get work teaching English as a second language. The author, Victoria Fontana, is very helpful and even provides her email address. I suggest contacting her and setting up an information interview.
http://www.castrum.org/ an exchange program. Applicant lives with a Spanish family, gives 3-4 English lessons per day in exchange for free room and board. Applicant also gets a free Spanish course out of it.
http://www.vaughanvillage.com/ same as above, free room and board in a remote town, all you have to do is talk to the natives. They are also hiring English teachers for positions in the Madrid office. They also do not require TEFL certification, so this is a good opportunity and should be looked into.
http://www.portaventura.es/home.asp?pIdi=uk the Spanish division of the Universal Studios theme parks. You may have a good opportunity to find work here; this is where being fluent in English becomes a huge asset. Tourists usually want to be spoken to and served in English.
Well, Mordant, good luck in the job hunt. Give us an update in a bit, and tell us how things are going for you. |
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