Job Hunting
It has got to be the most depressing of tasks to tackle.
I am in the unfortunate position of not having worked for about 8 years now, and never having worked in France. Okay, so I spent 8 wonderful years bringing up my kids, and I don't regret a minute of it, but why is it chalked up as a bad mark against me now that I'm looking for work again?
To be honest, I'm in a bit of a red-rage over the stickiness of the French. I applied for a position to which I am perfectly suited. The job is as a logistics controller, with a background in transport and for a person who is bilingual French-English. Well, I was logistics manager for an airline for 6 years, I am perfectly bilingual and believe the job is exactly suited to my skills. However on application I received, within two hours, a "refusal to accept my candidature". Stunned, I picked up the phone straight away to work out what was going on. Having been transferred from pillar to post for a while, and after making three phone calls, I finally get the unsatisfactory response that "I do not have the BAC + 2 BTS/Transport". This is the French qualification, but I have been educated in Ireland, and there is no possible way for me to have received French standard certificates. I have the Irish equivalent certs, not to mention six years experience, including three promotions, but the narrow-minded people here refuse to accept that. How is a person to work, might I ask?
Let me toddle off and growl to myself for a while...I need to calm down ....
2 Comments:
Well, for once I really can say I know how you feel!
I remember my layoff and the ensuing Mister Toad's wild ride in the world of French bureaucracy.
I felt like a worm, yet, they are supposedly there to help get us off the unemployment rolls and make themselves look good, aren't they?
I actually think they aren't.
Here's a strange thing, they constantly sent me to 'langue maternelle anglaise' jobs and then, I'd get there and get the same thing you got. They'd claim they weren't hiring me because I didn't have the French degree. Then, I thought, how is the native English speaker to have attained her super British qualifications and the French ones and yet, she's willing to work for such poor wages!
At least you're EU and technically they're supposed to respect this. We know in practice they don't however.
I'm going to say a few things here that will reveal the narrow mindedness of the French system and hope no one thinks I don't see the positive side of my adopted land. They just can't accept differences sometimes. They aren't good at it.
The other day I had an argument with a Frenchman about how age wasn't necessarily a disadvantage.
One thing is that as your kids are in school and they know that, you won't have to worry about maternity leave stuff. They can't admit that, but sometimes it's a concern for them.
Oh well, I wish you the best, I know you're brilliant.
By Bruyere, May 17 06 7:20 PM
Aww, what a morale-boost, thankee kindly. I'm over it now, sort of, and will just chalk it up to experience.
By Santana2002, May 17 06 8:22 PM