Soldato
I'm trying to avoid writing a long, boring post with my life story, but it may turn out that way, so apologies in advance 
I'm currently in my last few weeks of uni, studying English and French, and should easily graduate with a 2:1. For the last year, I've also worked part time as an area manager for a retail auditing company. I enjoy my job: my colleagues are great, and I was offered the chance of a promotion and full time role once I graduate. However, it requires me to stay in London, and the money they were offering was nowhere near good enough for me to be able to afford to rent even a tiny flat in zone 6, let alone save for a deposit, so I declined.
As part of my degree, I did a placement year teaching English in the south of France and loved every minute of it. The lifestyle was fantastic, and I was paying €500 per month including bills for my own flat by the beach, in a lovely area. However, I don't feel my skills are best suited to teaching: I did a good job, and got an excellent reference from the Lycée, but I enjoy management more and feel I am better at it.
I've done various freelance jobs in the past: chauffeuring, IT support and general admin, and can provide references from solicitors, CEOs, and even a couple of minor American celebrities. I like to think that my work experience would be more impressive to most employers than many other graduates.
I've spent a lot of time looking at jobs based in France, and most either require extensive work experience in very specific fields, or native speaker levels of French. I would say I am 80-90% fluent, but I suspect if I was dumped straight into a high pressure, business environment with French speakers, it would take me a few months to get up to speed.
So, the way I see it, I have two options:
1) Join one of the many 3 year graduate schemes with a British company, accept that it'll mean another 3 years of living with my parents, and hope that I can move on to something abroad. In this situation though, I'd be concerned I'd start losing my French - I learned German to a decent level when I was 17, I've now forgotten all of it. I'd also be a bit gutted at spending 3 of the best years of my life doing something I don't really want to do, living somewhere I don't really want to live.
2) Move out to France with my meagre savings and just take any job I can get, working in a bar or hotel for example. Count on impressing them enough that they promote me, or search for another job as my French becomes 100% fluent. This is risky though - I'd run out of money quickly if I didn't find a job, and could see myself getting stuck in a dead end job with no prospects.
So, what would OCUK do?
I'm currently in my last few weeks of uni, studying English and French, and should easily graduate with a 2:1. For the last year, I've also worked part time as an area manager for a retail auditing company. I enjoy my job: my colleagues are great, and I was offered the chance of a promotion and full time role once I graduate. However, it requires me to stay in London, and the money they were offering was nowhere near good enough for me to be able to afford to rent even a tiny flat in zone 6, let alone save for a deposit, so I declined.
As part of my degree, I did a placement year teaching English in the south of France and loved every minute of it. The lifestyle was fantastic, and I was paying €500 per month including bills for my own flat by the beach, in a lovely area. However, I don't feel my skills are best suited to teaching: I did a good job, and got an excellent reference from the Lycée, but I enjoy management more and feel I am better at it.
I've done various freelance jobs in the past: chauffeuring, IT support and general admin, and can provide references from solicitors, CEOs, and even a couple of minor American celebrities. I like to think that my work experience would be more impressive to most employers than many other graduates.
I've spent a lot of time looking at jobs based in France, and most either require extensive work experience in very specific fields, or native speaker levels of French. I would say I am 80-90% fluent, but I suspect if I was dumped straight into a high pressure, business environment with French speakers, it would take me a few months to get up to speed.
So, the way I see it, I have two options:
1) Join one of the many 3 year graduate schemes with a British company, accept that it'll mean another 3 years of living with my parents, and hope that I can move on to something abroad. In this situation though, I'd be concerned I'd start losing my French - I learned German to a decent level when I was 17, I've now forgotten all of it. I'd also be a bit gutted at spending 3 of the best years of my life doing something I don't really want to do, living somewhere I don't really want to live.
2) Move out to France with my meagre savings and just take any job I can get, working in a bar or hotel for example. Count on impressing them enough that they promote me, or search for another job as my French becomes 100% fluent. This is risky though - I'd run out of money quickly if I didn't find a job, and could see myself getting stuck in a dead end job with no prospects.
So, what would OCUK do?
