That summer job in France

Didn’t write for a while and I don’t think working all summer in a restaurant would leave you the energy to do something other than hitting the bed. I was very excited to do my first summer job (full time job) in France and it was easy to find and no wonder you have so many openings to work in summer at the restaurants in France as the work is quite hard but still there are people complaint to me that they couldn’t find a summer job and they just go back home (my Indian friends did that ;)) to save money than staying here paying their rent without a job. Is the situation so scary as people think? Well yes and a no.  

My friends told me that it is impossible to find a full time job in France. I had lotta questions, fear, hesitations to take the first step of contacting the employer as the challenges of French language, skill set, etc.. How did I work this out?

Speak( Try) in French:

            This will be the thumb rule ever unless you live in Paris where most of them speak English. Sooner or later, you have to start talking in French.So just start. I am trying from 2015 and never a French person failed to appreciate me doing that.

1.     QAPA:

     QAPA saved my summer 2016 :) This is an useful website for students searching for     summer jobs in France. They even make it easy by verifying your carte de séjour and the essentials besides your resume to make things clearer for you and the person who recruits you. Go QAPA! 

2.     les papiers Français

The papers played , plays and will play a vital role in my French life till I leave this soil. They help in a way as I don’t have to talk a lot as the right papers talk for itself. At times its annoying as you have to keep them safe and carry wherever you move. C’est chiant. My employer wanted all the papers to calculate the number of hours I worked as a student. How can I get it verified? Calculate manually from your payslips as that is the only way to verify your number of hours worked. C’est chiant aussi ;)

3.     Research :

Before I took up the job, I visited the restaurant in Biscarrosse and the boss, not to know a lot about stuff but to just see how I feel about the whole thing. I asked about the public transport, accommodation , bla bla cars and surprisingly all were tough. So, I had to take a deep breath and take it one by one. But all started falling in place and that wasn’t easy and isn’t going to be in future too but France gives me what I want since May 2015 so I trust that

4.     The TALK:

Though I can’t negotiate in French, I certainly tried to ask as much as questions possible about the work contract with my broken French , the job hours, how I get paid when I do extra hours. I also remembered that the TALK would happen often with the boss , so I had to be for it . Trust me, only the start of these TALKs are difficult and then you get a hang of it.

5.     ACCOMODATION:

This is one of the reasons people cant just pick up a job during summer as all the tourist places where they need people to work have already tourist occupying the space and the seasonal employees have to pay a lot to stay (more than half they earn) so they end up not working in summer. Again, my trust with France always worked. My boss found a shared accommodation for me and am not gonna tell that’s gonna happen for you but what I could suggest is check the http://www.nomad-saisonniers.com/ website as these guys help you find an accommodation once you have a job contract and they do it for free. Fair enough right!

When you tried all these ONE by ONE, go back to step 1 and brush up your French language as that’s what would help your stay easier and enjoy the French culture more .

These steps helped me to land a summer job and convert it into a CDI. Well the CDI wasn’t an easy deal. I literally worked my way up with help from people in my life to grab my CDI. And that definitely needs another page :) 

Bon courage à tous!