Englishman seeking non teaching work asap - to stay in Poland or ..?

Hi:)
I have been living in Krakow now for 2months and started as a Native English Speaking teacher,but was not considered good enough to continue and therefore am looking for immediate work in Krakow,but can only speak English!!!I am learning Polish but need to find work asap!!!

Anyone out there who can offer any advice?Apart from go home!!!!!!!!!!
Thanks guys!!!

Well, it's not hard to see why you were let go. You, along with countless others, are discovering the hard way that you can't step off the plane and be embraced with open arms - especially in Krakow and Wroclaw, there are already more than enough native speakers for everyone.

If you want work in Poland, there's plenty of it - small towns are screaming for native speakers to come and work. But in Krakow?

Anyway, the best advice is indeed to go home - if you can't find work off your own back, the work isn't going to come to you. Poland is a very competitive place - what gives you an advantage?

On a serious note - if you want work, go print up 100 CV's and go and speak to every single business you can find. In fact, you might as well print up 500 of them. Go to every single business you can find and talk to them. Bars, restaurants, hotels, every single one - someone might employ you.

But bear in mind that you're unlikely to earn much more than 1500zl netto by doing this.

what brought you to Krakow in the first place?

do you have Polish friends in Krakow?

Do the have a TEFL cert?

What did you get sacked for? Do you agree with the school's decision that your teaching sucked?

What did you do back home before coming to Poland?

The easiest way out would be to find another school and get some lessons in. Don't tell them that you
were considered not good enough at your previous school of course

failing that, it is the life of the tour guide for you but winter is not the best time for walking up to
groups of tourists and chancing your arm but worth a try

alternatively roll up at a medium sized company and offer to sell on commission only calling prospective clients in the UK
then try and find a salaried job in sales after a month or so.

if you do not have a support network around you in Krakow you would be better heading for home
being alone, broke and friendless (if this is the case) in Poland during wintertime is not a fun prospect

if you really are committed you could maybe try a less glam town with less competition like Katowice for example


so this was your warm, funny side that we are witnessing?

talk about kicking a man when he is down

so he tried to blag it as a English teacher? big deal

it is not as though he was chancing a job as a neuro surgeon based on having a city and guilds in woodwork

The way I see it, every new person who comes to poland must make a critical decision. That decision is either to: teach, to work, or to start a new business. Based on opinions, my personal views on poland have been shaped to make poland seem impossible to make a "decent" living in.

Incidentally, I consider my own thread on the topic unfinished still, and will return to it in due time.

Why? Plenty of people make very good money here - many of them from nothing. Look at all the nice cars, nice flats, nice everything that's here - all this is the result of wealth.

But, like in every country, it isn't handed to you - you have to work for it.

it is not easy but there are opportunities galore here

Nice cars, nice flats, wealth. Is that something a newbie in poland can look forward to do u think?

Thanks for all the advice...Ive done the CV blitzing thing...and will continue to do so.

Pity that its not like England for the Polish!!
They do ok in England.....way I see it...without EU assistance and the foreign investment here,this country would still be in communist state...but Poles still think of foreigners as interfering?

Depends what they can offer Poland.

Getting 10-15k a month is perfectly realistic for a newbie, provided he has the right skills to offer Poland. Even teachers can pull in 10k a month if they're willing to work for it.

I know several foreigners who are earning in/around the 200k mark gross. All of them have significant skills, experience and language abilities.


That's because people aren't better off here to sit at home and complain about bloody foreigners taking all teh jobs.


What country would be in good shape without foreign investment, I wonder?

Most Poles have a good grasp of the English language BEFORE they start seeking work in the UK.


With that attitude I think you might as well throw your CV in the bin. Apart from maybe bar work you will find it difficult to out compete other foreigners and Poles in Krakow.

As you could not be bothered to answer my questions, I have no desire to help you further

lots of luck

not true

not that i have noticed

Most of those who I have met. Or a better understanding than most expats who move over to Poland to a city like Krakow.

well said but maybe he needs some "tough love" on this one. It really does sound like he'd be better off in his own element. It's not a criticism, it's just what it seems like:/

Imagine the Irony if some Polish member told you to ***** off back to your own country" :-D :-D

Shame you can't claim benefits

I was willing to help the guy. I wrote a long post asking him for him to give me a realistic appraisal of his skills and experience

and I was willing to give him a few pointers

for all I know he might have lost the job for improprietry around minors (however I will give him the benefit of the doubt)

however I will not tolerate sauce

if he cannot be bothered to answer mi questions I am not going to bother putting him in touch with a couple of friends who

I have in Krakow who might be able to help and as far as I am concerned he can get stuffed

Delph was right by the way :-)

Just shows how someone can really mess up things for themselves, doesn't it?

I know a couple of people in Krakow who might be willing to help him as well, but if he's already ******** and complaining about Poland and Poles, why the hell should I?


Have you ever met a foreigner working in a Polish bar?

(genuine question, Krakow is totally different to Poznan in terms of people)

Yeah quite a lot. Wee Cardno who used to post on here was a barman. A few other friends I have work in bars too. My fav barman was a nutter of an Englishman who used to serve at the Irish arms in Krk.

The majority of them are mostly students though. Would be quite hard to scrape by on a 1000pln a month.

Yes, you are foolishly naive to not think very hard about what you were going to do here.

That said, don't be take the advice of some on here too seriously... they too blindly followed a girl to Poland. Some of the characters dishing out advice on here are still 60zł an hour any age, any level anytime teachers after years of being here.

It seems they like to round on the 'off the plane' brigade as a way of making themselves feel more important!

Bloody hell, just shows how one country can be totally different. I'd fall over in shock if I met a foreigner working in a bar here!

About the only foreigners working in "service" jobs here are the sudden proliferation of Turks - most of them are probably Erasmus students, though.


Like who? I know a few posters on here, and none of them fit into that bracket.


I am important, I don't need to "feel" important. :)

When you lose a teaching job, it can be really tough to set yourself up again. Not that I have but I can well imagine. I'd also go home as the harsh reality is that it's a dog-eat-dog world and you ain't gonna get into Polish places without Polish. Even sweeping leaves is for a Polish worker.

Not quite, he clearly stated that he couldn't cut the mustard in one English teaching job in Krakow and if a native can't get a job there with some of the dodgy schools in that area then god help him.


No, I don't think anyone who has answered this topic has "followed" a girl here. Most people have been living happily in Poland for many years. I myself lived in Krakow for around 6-7 years so on the topic of getting a job in that city I think I know my stuff. As the OP has not given any information as to his qualifications then it seems likely that he may have none, therefore there won't be many opportunities in Krk to get a position outside teaching English especially as he is not yet fluent in Polish too.

In other words................DUH!

Just look at his posts, he does a pretty bad job of selling himself as a "teacher". People who are people or who know people post on here, but they're hardly going to recommend someone who can't use English properly, are they?

But really, blaming Poland for his own problems is pretty much a certain sign that the problem is himself, not Poland.

You are man enough to accept that you're not ready to teach at the moment, and some posters have, I think, missed that. Poland, especially the big cities, is a tough place for foreigners to survive in. My advice to you is to cut your losses and get back on safe ground. If you would like to get into teaching English, take a good course back home and then come back armed with the bits of paper required. I wish you luck.

And go somewhere less desirable than Krakow, where every idiot flocks to thinking that "I can teach English for beer money, man".

There's plenty of big-ish cities around where virtually no-one goes - Zielona Gora for example. They're often very pleasant places, too. I can think of one very wealthy place near Poznan - Gostyń - yet there's no natives there. There's plenty of factories there, plenty of businesses supporting those factories and it's one of the richest towns around - and he wouldn't have the same pressures as in Krakow.

But I suppose, it's just not Krakow.

Well said Gustav!

As a fair few people have already mentioned, people won't be satisfied with a "teacher" who has neither the qualifications or experience necessary to suit the role. If teaching is something that you have a serious interest in, then perhaps you should enrol in a CELTA course? At the very least you should research the market, brush up your grammar, acquire some textbooks and spend some time writing and checking your own materials. If however, you came for the girl and teaching is your only available option for work because of a lack of qualifications or knowledge of the local lingo, then I'd recommend that you re-evaluate your decisions. I've only been in Poland for a year, but at least here in Poznań, I know that the market is very competitive and it's all about the connections! At first, I had to fight to get a [very] small client base and cooperate with some schools, but it's not enough. Now, my students recommend me to their friends and colleagues and I have not needed to place an advertisement for work in quite some time (I'm not saying that I would object to more hours though :)). With that in mind, if you have a reputation for being unreliable or unqualified, then you're not going to get far.

Topic is "Englishman seeking non teaching work asap". Key word is non-teaching. As I'm in a similar situation (well planning phase), I have wiped teaching from my list of options. Neither am I experienced or confident, and I do not possess the dedication and commitment to gain a CELTA. Teaching is out! Its just not me! I'm interpreting richwright to be the same, somewhat.

Can I just ask....and this is a question which I'm trying to answer about myself as well...what is your interest in Poland (Krakow) and what do you want to achieve there?

The End Goal?

Without knowing Polish, the job market for foreigners here is extremely limited. Perhaps there is a small opportunity to get a job in a bar or in a restaurant cleaning dishes, or anything that doesn't involve the slightest possibility of being spoken to by a Polish person. Judging by the OP's lack of answer to the question about qualifications, we're left to assume he has none (particularly as he "gave teaching a try but wasn't good enough"). The only other option is searching for some international company that needs native speakers to deal with phone calls. We have something like it in Poznań and one of my students work there, but it's not glamorous and the pay is terrible.