I know 4 languages and am moving to Warsaw by next year, jobs advice?

Can someone tell me if it's easy to find a job in Warsaw for foreigners?

I know 4 languages: Armenian-Greek-English-Arabic-and i understand very very little Polish.

Thanks

check out all of those threads about Warszawa and working there...

please advice?

It's easy, especially if you know polish language :)

I don't think it's any more difficult that it would be in any other land foreign to you. You have everything you could want plus some. The food is great, the entertainment is endless, and you can buy just about anything you could possibly need. Prices vary tremendously but if I've really wanted or needed it, I've been able to easily find it.

It's beautiful here, even in the city. Everything is so green, parks every where, babies and kids every where! Dogs galore and yummy desserts and hands down the best fresh bread!

Driving aside and the parking entitlement issues, I really do like it here. :0)

Dear Chipmunk

are you from Poland?

how much is it to rent 1 or 2 bedroom flat in Ursynow or Piaseczno? for long term.

Thanks

Merged: Working in Poland

Hi everyone!

I'm actually living in Barcelona, but I am thinking about the possibility to move to Warsaw. The main reason is that I heard that I could study during the weekends (something "unthinkable" in Spain unfortunately).

I am interested on IT area.

I am 25 years old, and I have been working as a helpdesk operator in a callcenter for almost 5 years. My mother tongue is Spanish and I consider that I have a very good english level.

I read some other posts where people say that 4000pln monthly is not enough to live decently (I share flat here, so I won't mind doing that in Poland).

Is there really possibilities to find a job? I mean, with Spanish, English, French (basic) and Catalan?
(I don't see myself as a teacher xD)

I also have got knowledge in IT (basic-intermediate)

Do I have any possibilities? :)

Thank you very much !

Kind regards!

Yes, but you would have to pay for it.



Yes, you would be able to get a job in a call center.


About 4000 PLN monthly brutto is about the best you can expect, unless you have some rare, highly technical expertise. Your French and Catalan will not be too salable, but your Spanish will be, and your English will allow you to function in a call-center environment.

4000 PLN brutto is about 2600 netto. Probably not enough to live comfortably in Warsaw and pay for school.

You are unlikely to earn more unless you are a pretty advanced programmer or have a masters in engineering.

I would strongly advise against studying at any of the private schools. Study only at the University of Warsaw or the Warsaw University of Technology (Politechnika Warszawska). Generally, degrees from private schools are worthless even inside Poland, and worth even less outside of Poland.

Also, evening and weekend studies are held in lower regard both inside and outside of Poland, as are courses taught in English.

You would be much better off studying full time at a good school in Spain or the West, and picking a program that is more likely to land you a better paying job like petroleum, geological or biomedical engineering, econometrics, actuarial sciences, financial mathematics or financial engineering. Take a year off to brush up on your math before you start. Talk to your family about financing your studies.

Thank you Dominic for your answers.

I've got money saved to pay the studies in Poland but not enough to pay it in Spain. Also, I can't mix studies and a job (no university classe's during the weekends).

On the other side, my family live in Argentina and I don't want them to give me any money (matter of pride).

Is it possible to earn more than 4000pln brutto on any other kind of job? I mean from the beginning. Or not at all?
For example, some back office work or similar.

Of course should be on public university .. I can't afford a private one. (in spain the private costs between 9.000€ and 10.000€ =/ ... )

But anyway, I still need to think.

I appreciate your answer.

Regards,
Hernán

maybe you should think about moving to London hernan, where weekend and evening studies are normal and there is much more work available
bbk.ac.uk/front-page

also, finding work without the language is going to be really really hard, and you already speak English.
I would say your opportunities in an international city like London are going to be far greater.
Plus getting a degree from London would be more prestigious for your future.

Frankly, no. Back office work would pay half of that, or less, and without being able to speak Polish, is pretty much out of the question.

Like I said, the only thing that would pay more is advanced programming. Without Polish and Programming, 4000 PLN would be the upper limit, and you could possibly make less than that.

In any case, your life during your years of study in Poland are going to be lean and fun-free, especially with a job like working in a call center. Warsaw is an expensive city, and it will break your heart when you see people all around you having fun and spending lots of cash when you have to think twice before making a major purchase like a hot dog.

You really have to rethink this because earning potential in Poland is abysmally low in Poland compared to the cost of living, especially in Warsaw. Also because the degree you get will not be worth very much. There are more realistic options elsewhere, as Rozumiemnic pointed out. One of my former students is studying in London and funding his studies and living expenses by working part-time as a waiter.

And consider a higher-earning subject to study than IT, as I said above. You, your parents and your children will be glad you did. If you're going to suffer and agonize about spending the few pennies you have in your tattered pocket on a lousy hotdog, it might as well be for something that enables you to feast on steak and lobster in the future.

After all it seems that is not a good idea ...

Thank you very much you both for your answers. I lived in England in 2009 but I don't think I should go back.

Anyway, I don't want you to waste your time with me :P

Thank you again and good luck ^^

Regards,

@ DominicB - "About 4000 PLN monthly brutto is about the best you can expect," - this is now the second time that I see you spread your wisdom and sell what you write here as facts.

As a Spanish native speaker, a technical helpdesk / support job in Warsaw would pay about 6500 - 7000 PLN brutto. Can you please advise where you got the 4000 PLN from? Is this taken from your own experience or do you have any contacts in the SSC / BPO sector in Poland?

Basically you have just scared Hernan off moving to Poland by telling him utter nonsense.

That's correct. But the operative word is "technical". The OP says that his IT skills are basic/intermediate, so that rules out the higher paying specialist troubleshooting jobs you are talking about and leaves the lower paying "just read the friggin' script" jobs the OP is likely to get without advanced and specialized IT knowledge and experience.

And I didn't "scare off" the OP. I just made him aware that much better options exist elsewhere, and that his time would be spent more wisely pursuing those.

Not really Dominic. Do you really think that all the technical support agents / helpdesk operators are highly qualified IT experts? In most cases they will undergo a training lasting between 3 - 6 weeks which specializes them on the products / applications they will support.

They also most likely have a database of common errors available to them with which they will be able to solve the problem according to step by step instructions. These databases are usually updated regularly.

The OP has stated 5 years call center experience. That experience and the language is key here. The rest will come with the training provided by the SSC / BPO's.

Those that are bringing in 6000 a month sure are.


And they earn substantially less. 4000 a month, tops, or even less. Why in God's name do you think that they should earn more? It's a monkey job. Monkey jobs get money pay.


Get real. Call center experience might mean something in terms of landing a job, but it doesn't fatten your paycheck any (unless it's highly advanced). And Spanish speakers with basic IT knowledge are not in desperate demand in Poland.

Again, Dominic, what do you base your posts on? Do you have any experience in the SSC / BPO sector in Poland or do you have any contacts?

I can see your point but it seems that to me that you are mixing the job market for locals with the job market for foreigners.

I started and ran the largest weekly social gathering for young tech and science people in Wrocław for six years, so my engineering and tech network is huge, and even included Spaniards who work in technical support at HP. And no, I am not confusing local wages with foreigner wages. 4000 gross is the most the OP can expect. If that.

Sorry Dominic, that is the biggest nonsense you have ever written here on this forum. How would the SSC / BPO's ever attract native speakers with 4000 PLN gross per month?

"I started and ran the largest weekly social gathering for young tech and science people in Wrocław for six years" - and yet you still come up with such nonsense as in post 8.

There's no need to attract unqualified, inexperienced native speakers to do a monkey job because there is already a good supply in the country as it is, and wages like 4000 PLN gross are attractive to them. Like I said, there is no desperate shortage of Spanish native-speakers in Poland, unless they happen to have heavy-duty qualifications and experience, which the OP doesn't.

The OP, like gazillions of other Spaniards, has limited, non-specialist IT knowledge and zero IT experience besides help-desk work, which is not worth much in terms of negotiating wages. Why, in God's name, do you think they can expect as much as an experienced technical specialist? What could possibly make him worth "attracting" to Poland, from an employer's viewpoint?

Dominic, you need to look into the SSC / BPO sector first before you start posting. You clearly have no idea about the salaries that are on offer. I am not talking about "big salaries" but most certainly more than the 4000 PLN gross you have mentioned.

You also need to get away from the "heavy-duty qualifications". What counts is the language skills in most cases. The rest will be provided to them in trainings. BPO / SSC's have contractual obligations. In most cases they have to employ a certain number of native speakers. To get them and more important to keep them they have to attract them either with higher salaries or with benefits such as free accomodation.

All these multilingual service centers, whether BPO or SSC, are competing against each other. Just recently in Lodz, one of the companies started to pay contract signing bonuses. They are actually paying a bonus for someone to join them.

Anyway, CPL's "2014 Salary report" shows the average. With 5 years call center experience the OP would fall in either the "Specialist" or "Senior" bracket, no matter what he did in that call center. Again, the language and call center experience is what counts. For the rest, the product / products or applications he would support, he would get the training. Scroll down to page 21 of the report.

cpljobs.pl/Documents/CPL%20Jobs%20-%20Salary%20Report%202014%20-%20Summary%20of%202013.pdf

As an example, I know of a girl who was responsible for printing customer credit card statements for a multinational bank for several years. Monkey job right? Yes, i agree! Yet she was hired by a BPO as a "G/L accountant specialist with German" and actually seniors the people without experience by 2 job bands.

That's reality Dominic.

Get real. He would certainly not qualify as either. He's a flunky, pure and simple, and will be paid accordingly. Nobody's going to pay him premium wages because he has nothing premium to offer. At all.

Once again, as in a similar thread you are responding to examples I give you with "nobody would do that". I guess that's because you don't actually know what you are posting about.

Dominic, you said that you work / worked as a translator. I guess that's working for yourself? So how well would you know the service sector really? I am not talking about your small translation contracts you may have with your clients.

I have been working across different countries in Europe for almost 15 years. Most of the time in Shared Service Centers. I know the sector very well. I know the contractual agreements SSC's have towards to their local entities and BPO's towards their clients. I am very well aware of how competitive recruitment agencies are to bring native speakers (Spanish, German, French etc) into their client's contract instead of some other recruiter to their client. I also very well know what a foreigner in Poland can and can not ask for.

It is a pity that you are not even trying to understand but instead reply with "Get real". You may want to ask Polish people why, more often than not, they are quite upset when they look at the salaries of their foreign colleagues.

Perhaps you can start discussing facts and examples (I have given you one) instead of just scaring people off with your posts which are based purely on assumptions.

By the way, I am not saying that non-specialist foreigners should be paid what they are being paid. I have seen a lot of people that simply made me shake my head wondering how they ever made it to the airport to actually come to Poland. But........that's the way it is.

Oh, yeah! Poland is the land of milk and honey for unqualified, inexperienced slackers and flunkies. All you have to do is speak a foreign language and, of course, you get a fat paycheck.

Earth to Romek! Earth to Romek! Come in, Romek!

Do you actually have any examples or facts to talk about are we still discussing your assumptions which you are trying to sell as facts?

6000, 6500 or even 7000 PLN is hardly a "fat paycheck". I have never said that but it is considerably more than your max. 4000 PLN gross which you probably came up with out of nowhere.

Any facts or real life examples? Because I am not willing to continue to discuss your fantasies with you.