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Pole d'Emploi? Has any brave soul done this? Advice Please?


Millie
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I stopped work ten years ago, when I left the Middle East and came to France to have our son.  All great, husband came and went for work, as had always been our habit.  I became full-time mother and have been pretty successful at growing a happy, well balanced, bi-lingual kid.  Contentment indeed.

Move on to Summer of this year - husband's contract of employment not renewed (due to the dreadful Greek economy) all income stops.  No great panic for the next couple of months, but..... all the future has been based on my husband working for the next five years.  He is looking, but July and August aren't exactly action packed.

Also, a growing reality that I would like to work here, for my own sense of self too!  I have another at least 15 years of work in front of me, and I would like to do something useful here.  I do lot's of things with my son's school at present.  I run 'Adventures' in English for the kids and all sorts of other things.  I would like to be more commercially enfranchised in the country that I live in.

Have any of you visited the Pole d'Emploi?  I need help and advice and I'm just not sure how or where to get it.  My French isn't bad - I make grammatical gaffs, but am doing the Open University French at the mo.  I have worked for a number of  Chairmen of Publicly listed International Companies in a number of overseas posts, and speak, and write Arabic (rusty now).  I have a wealth of experience, but I'm just not sure how much of it may be relevant to French commercial life.  I want to stay in France.  It's my home.  I can't go 'back' to the UK as I left it thirty years ago.  My kid hardly knows it, and my husband isn't British, he's Canadian.

I'm sort of on the horns of a dilemma, because I had previously wanted to return to work in the next year or so, as my son's needs for maternal support have recently greatly lessened, and had planned to finish my OU and refresh some of my commercial skills to make me eventually more inviting to employers - whereas now I feel an urgent need to support my family, so that my husband doesn't feel quite so pressurised as he does now, and don't know if I'm a viable prospect. 

If I go to the Pole d'Emploi will they laugh, and roll about on the floor?  Or will they give me a sympathetic hearing do you think? 

Have any of you had similar experiences? 

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Yes Millie I have had many times been there and they they are really helpful.

I came here almost 3 years ago from Ireland and tryed to find work thru Pole d'Emploi but was unsucessful as a welder but I was able to find work no problem with Crit Interim which are based all over France but after I was able to work for a year or more and the contract finished  I was able to avail of the services of Pole d'Emploi and done most of it on there web site.

Althought at times I have been out of work max 4 months in the last 2 years I was able to receive what payments I was due.

To look for work Crit Interim was the best option .

If you wish you can pm me if you require more information as it would take so long to explain here and now .

Good luck with Pole d'Emploi as they are very helpful and have plenty of patience 

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Oh, thank you so much.  It's just a bit scary!  Also you have a 'proper' skill, I wish to heavens I could weld!  I just feel like an ageing unmarketable mummy!  I am going to shake off  my blues, gird my loins and drag myself and my paper work into them as soon as my son goes back to school on 2nd September.  Now, whenever I am in the shops, or the street I eye up people carrying out tasks and think 'I could do that' - the problem is I probably could but whether or not I get the chance to try is quite another matter!  However nothing ventured -  and many other platitudes (please don't think about old dogs and new tricks dear readers).  Again, thank you for your encouragement.

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Hi

I have been here 3 years also and arrived from Ireland too.

I came here for a job in big company. My wife came over also and she has had a lot of dealings with Pole emploi.

In fact when she came here first she didn't speak any french and she had a lot of bother.

They kept sending her to different places and they would pass her on etc. that is until she cried.

Then some one finally took pity on her and helped her.

Honestly beware of some lazy french people who don't want to do their job. Dig your heels in if you have to.

Because she came from another european country she was entitled to 13 weeks of chommage/ dole plus assistance from assidec french lessons or training of some sort.

She is now working for a hotel as an contrat d'extra her hours change from week to week but its an income.

I would suggest if you want a job try a hotel you will be classed as unemployed until you get a contract CDI/CDD.

The reason I'm suggesting this is because you need to pay into social security to receive help from the goverment, maybe your husband has paid into the system so you may be entitled to help.

Hope all goes well for you and PM me if you have more questions.

PS. I suggested my wife to start a small business from home and thats also another option.
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Bless you Gyro, Yes I'm going to give anything a try!  I have always paid my cotisisations (for the last ten years) for me and my son for our Social Security at URSAAF.  However, this is based on my husband's earnings, but doesn't cover him, as he is Canadian.  All very confusing.  I will still have to pay the same till the end of the year, because of course they are based on his last year's earnings.  It's amazing really, I'm very independent, and think of myself as a small unstopable tank in tights and make-up, not at all of the crying variety, but I too have been brought to tears in the past in the URSAAF offices, and that's just trying to pay them.  They are all so growly.  Hence I would prefer a poke in the eye with a sharp stick than a visit to the Pole d'Emploi I think.  I feel a bit low and useless at the present, and I am in terror that some bureaucrat will confirm my worst suspicions!
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Hello Millie

You sound great fun, wish we had met whilst I was still in France.  [:D]

 

As for the Pole well I personally would start by registering for email alerts on the website, if something catches your eye apply for it, if it's via the pole then go in and talk to them about it, if not just apply yourself.  They cant really find you a job and wont put too much effort in but if you find something you like you have something to talk to them about rather than them saying they have nothing and you losing heart.

Go for it!

P x

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Go and register now, you may not be eligible for cash benefits but there are lots of non-cash benefits available - such as french courses. I also went to Addecco, (through the Pole) where they tested my rusty office skills - and apart from the grammar and office skills, I (surprisingly)passed with flying colours.

I also attended CV writing courses and interview skille - French style. If you are willing, you can push and push until you find what you want.

i have to say this was in Burgundy, when I was unemployed in the Alps, they were no help at all. OK, so I was 5 months pregnant but, telling me that pregnancy was no bar to employment and that I wasn't obliged to tell a prospective employer....!

Alos, once you have been registered unemployed for 6 months you get lots of aid to start your own business.

Good luck, with your attitude you will find a job and don't forget it's easier to find a job once you are already employed, so consider anything if you really want to work.
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Exactly Ladoix Addecco or Crit Interim if you want to find work in France as the employers will not take you on to their books because of the costistations.Although the work is temp but if you are good at what you do then the company will keep you as long as there is plenty of work but when it gets quiet you are the first to go but fom my experience it can last along time and then move onto some where else where there is work and do the same over again and always be in work .I have had 2 phone calls this week from Crit  as I have registered with every office within 25 km of my village to start work.

 

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Ha - I wrote the last answer in a hurry and have just spotted all the errors, I actually meant to say I failed miserably on grammar and spelling.  [:$]

They test your comprehension, your data entry, word and excell and keyboard speed (so practice on a french keyboard), then give a summary of how employable you are and what further training you need.  It was the Pole who made the appointment to see what kind of training would help me back to work.

With the employment agencies you need to keep ringing them up and going in, until you have done a couple of jobs for them.  I have also had success with speculative applications, newspaper adverts and just knocking on the door.  If you can speak reasonable French and can offer other skills as well as fluent English, it's amazing what you will find, you just have to be prepared to take a lower standard of job than you would have in an English speaking company, as (I am presuming here) if you can't read and write fluent French, you have to be prepared to take unskilled work, just like immigrants in any other country.

Incidentally, I now work in a wine cellar in Burgundy (which has higher than average unemployment), 3 days a week, selling top class wine to the French (and other nationalities), so anything is possible.[:D]

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Oh thank heaven's for this website, and your kind replies.  Since my beloved (who happens to be the nicest man in the world) has had the rug pulled out from underneath him, it's felt like I'm groping through a minefield of the unknown.  In my heart I'm positive, it's just sometimes first thing in the morning, when I open my eyes and think - oh hell!  However...I am going to take this bull by the horns and get it sorted.  I feel sorry for every French company who isn't employing 'me'!  The only problem is, trying to persuade any French company to possibly feel the same way.  Quite seriously though, thank you for your positive and helpful replies, I cannot express how very much appreciated they are.
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My neighbour arrived here five years ago with enough money to keep herself for a couple of years until employment would be her only option.  She registered at the Pole d'emploi and with every other agency she could think of whilst she set her mind to learning French (of which she knew only a few words at best.)  Now she is fully employed (albeit as an English language teacher for which she had qualification when she arrived here) and has enough to live on and speaks confident French to boot.  I'm off back to the UK for a couple of weeks shortly, Millie, but when I get back I will ask her if she'd be willing to chat to you about her experiences and give you some advice, as I guess we live pretty close so they may even be the same agencies.  Are you North or South of LM?

Bon courage.[:)]

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Cooperlola, I'm just near La Fleche, so that's south I suppose.  I do have a TEFL qualification from about a hundred years ago as it goes.  It's just that as time passes, and you haven't been 'properly' employed just explaining to kids that you do have more than a passing knowledge of who Jules Cesar was, just in a different accent! (this afternoon's task)  etc., you tend to lose your confidence.  Were I in any country I'd be going through this angst of finding work with the 'missing mummy years' CV wise, but somehow in France it seems,  not more scary, but maybe more challenging.  When I wake at 3 a.m. with my eyes large and staring like one of those dreadful Nintendo characters, I'm not sure that challenging is the first word that comes to mind...but!  I don't know many English people in France, and am so pleased to have found this website where everyone seems so encouraging.  All of our French friends are generally very positive.  The only English girl I know here, told me I would basically have to pack my bags and return to the UK.  I found that hard to take, I've been here ten years, my kid doesn't know any other country than France, and I left the UK nearly thirty years ago, for a gap year!  Wouldn't life be great if it came with an instruction book, I'd be zipping down the index right now, looking for the chapter on Troubleshooting!

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"The only English girl I know here, told me I would basically have to pack my bags and return to the UK."

B0llox will you. You will probably have to accept that you're likely to end up in work which is rather below what your skills and education merit though - take whatever you're offered. Working supermarket checkouts, while not exactly a first choice, isn't actually as soul-destroying as you'd think. It also brings in cash and improves your French no end.

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Misplacedperson - I like the expletive deletive!  It was just what I thought actually, with knobs on!   Pathetic to say isn't it, but I'd loooove to work in a supermarket if I could.  Since this shenanagins upset our apple cart, it's sort of made me reassess everything, and it's not been before time.  We are eating fantastically!  I am zipping up little meals from practically nothing that masterchef would be proud of .  Our outgoings have sunk to the minimum - but we are still having some great days out, cycling and picnicing (very important not to let kids summer be a sod too) and needing my hair coloured (yes, I am worth it) specially thinking about all these rendevous/interviews (job offers??) I'm going to be getting in September!  Yesterday I went off to ED who have colour on special offer (I've always gone to the hairdressers before) three of the assistants and I found me a hopefully good colour - the difference being, before I would never have asked their opinion, and I had a great time.  The women and I were rolling around with hilarity and they were absolutely bloody great.  It was as I left the shop, that I felt a great big wellspring of belonging - I've been here a long time, but I'd never felt quite so at home before.  Weird eh?  I am in a toes on the edge of a precipice sort of nervy way, looking forward to September, God knows what it may bring, but it's certainly going to bring something!
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Millie, have you ever considered living in Canada, as with your husband being Canadian presumably you would be entitled to live and work there. An opportunity many others would jump at, but are unable to do so because of the inability to obtain an appropriate visa?

The reason I ask, is that the economy in Canada is booming and they seem to be one of the very few countries to escape the recession and therefore I would have thought jobs would be much easier to find for you and your husband.

Whilst I love France, I am not sure that it can provide as good future opportunities for your child, as sadly Europe's day has passed. France is a great country for holidays or retirees, not in my opinion for employment opportunities.

As you may know many French emigrate to North America which tells you something!
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Russethouse!  Big shocks all round, my colour is great!  Husband applied it this morning!  I might not look a million dollars, but certainly not too shabby I feel.  I may well yet be able to take the world by storm.  If the photo is of you, you look fantastic.  I regret to say my hair has never been my crowing glory - but I'm sure that I've got other bits to die for - just not sure which bits!

Sprogster, yes, we have sort of thought about this.  The Canadian economy is doing well.  I'm not too keen on living in Canada - possibly because my mother-in-law is truly ghastly (that being said she thinks I'm horrid too, and one can't be sure who may be right - probably 50/50).  I am not anti Canada - but not for the next three years.  Our sproglett was born here, and I feel that if I have gone through this French adventure thus far, he may as well get his French nationality out of it (granted to kids who are thirteen, if they were born here - and he's coming up for ten in January.)

Once before, about seven years ago, we thought we may have to move to Canada (my husband resists it - he left there 30 years ago, and no longer identifies himself with them I feel) and I contacted the Canadian govenment who were quite sniffily unpleasant about the idea of me working there, I believe they said at the time "just because you married a Canadian, doesn't mean you get the right to live and work in Canada".  Looked on a Canadian website the other day, that was bemoaning the fact that it was easier for a non-native Canadian to get a workpermit for a Thai or Russian bride, than a native born Canadian to get a work permit for a European wife - bizzare?  I believe the Government are presently working to sort this out. But like the mills of God, this will probably take some time. We are not finished with France yet, it really is our home, our hearts are here.  I don't have any family in other parts, it's just our little threesome, and I feel all our roots are here.  Also, making a decision about maybe moving to Canada when my husband retires, is one thing, but sort of selling up as a knee jerk reaction to the odious mess that's got trapped in the family fan smacks of throwing in the towel and I can't do that.  Therefore it's Pole d'Emploi come September for me, poor loves, I feel the fonctionaires should be informed to give them chance to make their excuses and leave.

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Presumably Millie, it will all come down to at the end of the day, whether or not you and your husband can make an adequate living in France. The challenge for most expats is finding one that pays sufficiently well to live on, as presumably you want more than a hand to mouth existence.

Therefore, it might be worthwhile having a plan B to fall back on, entailing options outside France.

If your son, who presumably is a British national, acquires French nationality, then moves to Canada and acquires Canadian nationality, can he retain all three. I know dual nationality is allowed, but I am not sure about tri-nationality.
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Russethouse!  Big shocks all round, my colour is great!  Husband applied it this morning!  I might not look a million dollars, but certainly not too shabby I feel.  I may well yet be able to take the world by storm.  If the photo is of you, you look fantastic.  I regret to say my hair has never been my crowing glory - but I'm sure that I've got other bits to die for - just not sure which bits!

I'm sure your colour is great - when my daughter (in my avatar) was made redundant she made a similar move to a bought product rather than the hairdressers, but for a cut she used the 'Model nights' Salons here at least supervise pretty carefully. so not too big a risk.

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Hi Millie, Will second your opinions on Canada, my brother married a Canadian whilst they were both living in France. After the birth of their daughter they decided to go back to Canada and my brother had a complete nightmare trying to get the right to live and work there. 3 children later, he finally has permission but he is still treated as a second class citizen.

Incidentally, you can sign up to the Pole Emploi all on internet, do it now so that you are all set to go in September! You probably wont even get an interview before then anyway.

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Russethouse, for me, you are your photo!  I shall think for you that way for ever!  It's super!  No, Sprogster, I'm not really looking for a hand to mouth existence, but of course I am hoping that my husband will find employment - he is the best man in the world, and his Company know it too, they just lost their contract, which had a knockdown effect on him.  However, even if he works (he normally does four weeks in Africa then four weeks back home, it was just this stint in Greece that messed it all up) it won't change my desire to work. I think I might be a good bet for an employer actually.  I have another 15 years before needing to think about retirement, so I'm worth training (I think), just need to make them see the same thing.  I have liked being a mummy, but now I want to do something else too.  Kidlet has British Nationality from me, and he has 'right to reside in Canada' from his dad.  There are 'deals' that can be gained from Canadian universities for French nationals with regard to fees.  So wanting him to get his French passport is not for nothing. 

Ladoix, you have it spot on.  The Canadians are very welcoming to lots, but not it seems the British.  I am my husband's second wife, and his daughter who was born in Canada, has married a British lad and moved to Toronto.  He was headhunted from London, for the job in Toronto, is a bright lad, and certainly not going to drain their system, and he has experienced hell on toast, there have been times when he has been pretty near to throwing in the towel. 

I am signing up for the Pole d'Emploi on line this afternoon!  This website has not turned me into Polyanna, but it has given me sensible supportive advice, and I appreciate it.   

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One thing I did after registering on the Pole Emploi website was to set up an email alert for anything with the keyword "anglais" in the advert. From memory I think you can do this in the advanced search option.

I found an advert for a 20 hour contract talking about the culture, history, geography and economy of England for a local business school. Following that they asked me to come back in the new term to teach International Business English, as I used to be a facilitator/trainer for a large multinational.

When I moved to France I never imagined that my business/training background would be at all marketable, not being in Paris, but I have happily been proved wrong.

I also had help via Pole Emploi with preparing CV's French style and understanding the job market, which proved to be very useful in the first instance.

Good luck with your search. . .

 

 

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