Anyone worked in Europe?

Martynt74 · 2 Apr 2013 at 12:15

My wife and i are currently talking about the possibility of moving to Italy for a few years when i'm qualified and the kids have moved out (5 years ish)

I'm hoping to become a qualified Accountant around June 2014 as long as i progress as i am currently.

Has anyone here worked abroad other than the usual bar work/holiday resort type work? My dad currently works in the Oil Industry and travels around the work to various countries but with the Oil industry being as it is, i imagine its more suited to people speaking English due it working on a national scale.

For other profession such as Accountants or Lawyers, has anyone worked abroad where English is not the main language? If so how did you find it and were you able to find a job?

I imagine closer to the time i would begin Italian lessons to help me learn the language, i'm just wondering how likely it would be for me to get a job in Accountancy at a decent enough wage.

My other option would be to try and aim to get a job in a Multi-National firm in the UK and then try to get a transfer over to Italy.

Apologies, for the above being horrifically laid out and worded, i was struggling to get my thoughts into words!

panthro · 2 Apr 2013 at 12:22

I worked for an engineering company in Switzerland several years ago. Surprisingly, the working language of the office was English, but native German speakers were allowed to produce their reports in German and then have them auto translated, reviewed and issued in English. Had nothing bad to say about working there, great place to live and work; and it was a very different experience to working in the UK.

randomshenans · 2 Apr 2013 at 12:45

I work in Switzerland. Working language is English. I do get some stuff through from time to time in Swiss-German, but I just auto file it or send back stating I can't understand it.

Martynt74 · 2 Apr 2013 at 13:29

Cheers guys, the companies you work for, how large are they? Do they have mainly international interests?

Just trying to guage if its a standard thing even for smaller companies.

twist3d0n3 · 2 Apr 2013 at 14:11

I work in Rotterdam, most people here speak English but generally the Dutch will speak Dutch with each other, unless someone English. is present. My company is fairly big, offices here and in kuala lumpar.

randomshenans · 2 Apr 2013 at 14:16

Novartis Institute for Biomedical Research, so fairly big, yea. I've been looking around at other opportunities though in the area, and most fairly large companies use English as the business language, as long as you're not in a specific section that deals with local stuff.

Get on some job sites and have a scout at what people are looking for. I get a complete mixed back of things in my inbox.

-westy- · 2 Apr 2013 at 14:20

My other half is an accountant; we're looking to move over to Canada for a few years - luckily all the laws with regards to her job are international, so there's no worries there. Can I ask what level you'd be qualified at?

Martynt74 · 2 Apr 2013 at 14:24

I'm doing the ACCA and through them i'm working toward a degree in Applied Accounting from Oxford Brookes University (Not much additional work on top of ACCA exams makes it worthwhile i reckon)

We had thought about the usual places, Canada and Australia, but we decided it was too far away from friends/family and we recently went to Rome on holiday and absolutely loved it.

Pudney · 2 Apr 2013 at 14:25

-westy- said:
My other half is an accountant; we're looking to move over to Canada for a few years - luckily all the laws with regards to her job are international, so there's no worries there. Can I ask what level you'd be qualified at?

It's something that should be checked as it's not necessarily the case.

US standards are different (although converging with international) and countries can have their own local standards. UK standards for example are different to international, and the companies which do apply international standards (mainly listed) do so under EU interpretations.

randomshenans · 2 Apr 2013 at 14:27

Take some real time to research the area (not saying you wouldn't or haven't) and everything there. Not just the jobs, but airports, links, standard of living vs. wages, state pensions, tax rates in the area, housing costs etc.

As all this has a big impact on your life, which often isn't considered in the outset and it's best to be prepared for all of these.

-westy- · 2 Apr 2013 at 14:30

Pudney said:
It's something that should be checked as it's not necessarily the case.

US standards are different (although converging with international) and countries can have their own local standards. UK standards for example are different to international, and the companies which do apply international standards (mainly listed) do so under EU interpretations.

Apologies, I forgot about the US

As far as I was aware, the working practices tend to be extremely similar on the whole

Martynt74 · 2 Apr 2013 at 14:31

Agreed, its all things we'll be looking at. All i've done so far is look at jobs i've seen on various British Expats sites. There seemed to be very few in Rome, however i saw a couple of jobs which looked very interesting in Milan

-westy- · 2 Apr 2013 at 14:36

Out of interest, why Italy?

Martynt74 · 2 Apr 2013 at 14:43

Its not for anything permenant, and it may or may not actually happen. We both just loved it when we were there for a recent holiday and talked about the possibility of spending a year (or longer) over there.

The kids will be finished at school in a few years and our plan was once they had we would move back into Manchester, this plan would just involve a little bit of a long term holiday in the middle.

Col_M · 2 Apr 2013 at 15:03

I work for an American company with a German parent company in Prague doing CRM admin/support, as you can expect the corporate language is English.
We have a few customer support teams in the Prague office so there is a significant number of foreigners, about 40-50% are natives (Czechs+Slovaks), the rest are foreigners ranging from French, Spanish, Swedish, Romanian, Portuguese, Italian, Russian, Belgian, Dutch, Bulgarian, Chinese, German, Polish, Canadian, Turkish, Indian, American and of course British (plus more that I can't remember).

It's fantastic, working with only British people would now be quite bland and uninteresting I think.

You should be able to get a job in accountancy reasonably easily or at least a job where your skills would be transferable, as long as you can find a large international company, e.g. in Prague J&J, Honeywell, DHL and a number of others have some form of shared service centre dealing with invoices, AP, auditing, purchasing etc.

Marvt74 said:
Cheers guys, the companies you work for, how large are they? Do they have mainly international interests?

My company ~2500 employees, parent company is SAP >60,000 employees. Both global entities.

panthro · 2 Apr 2013 at 16:10

Marvt74 said:
Cheers guys, the companies you work for, how large are they? Do they have mainly international interests?

Just trying to guage if its a standard thing even for smaller companies.

I worked for Alstom Power in the gas turbine division. Global company with many international interests.

D.P. · 2 Apr 2013 at 17:09

I lived and worked (PhD) in Switzerland for 5 years. Best time of my life and I intend to return once my stint in the US is over (which could be as soon as next year or in another 10 years...).

Lots of large companies in Switzerland use English for business speak but it isn't universal.If you don't speak the local language you will be excluded from many discussions and will be socially outcast.

In Italy you will have a much harder time finding a company that operates in English. And even if you find a workplace that officially uses English you will find good Italian essential to be functional. I worked in a project with lots of Italians - they will always resort to Italian to have a discussion or argument when there is more than 1 of them in the room. Also, unlike other European countries a lot of the older Italians didn't learn English but learned French.