KyleDollar

Hi,

I'm new to this forum and I had a few questions and concerns about moving to Ireland. We live in America at the moment. Currently my girlfriend and I are both in college and plan to move to Ireland once we both graduate. We've been researching the many different things we have to do in order to move and one of our biggest concerns is acquiring a work permit. If you're non-European it seems nearly impossible to get one of these permits. Is there any way we can make this dream become a reality?

nytraveler

You have hit on the biggest snag. Getting a visa to work there is extremely difficult. You best bet is to find a company with offices there, get a job in the US and eventually try to transfer there.

Or develop credentials that will allow you access (generally able to do a job that a local can't).

It's just like the US - getting in and working legally is very difficult. It can be done - but is very difficult until you have an established career.

(My company employs several foreign nationals - but they are either spouses of American citizens - or came with a spouse that had a career entree - accepted for a residency program at a very prestigious medical center and stayed on as a fellow and now an attending.)

hetismij2

Ireland has been especially hard hit by the current crisis. As of September it had an unemployment rate of over 14%.
What jobs there are there will go first to Irish citizens, then to European citizens and only then to other nationals.
Unless you are both going to be working in a very niche area which Ireland has a need of, and where there are no experts, from anywhere in the EU, your chances of fulfilling your dream are remote.

If you are anything to do with the oil industry there is a faint hope of a job due to recent finds of the Irish coast I guess, but even then the queue will be long and there are plenty of experienced Europeans able to take those jobs.

dutyfree

I think that you might need to rethink this?
Both of my kids went to graduate school in the UK in the past couple years. They were entitled to apply for a UK 2 year work visa after they graduated which cost about 600 pounds.In order to get a UK work visa,the UK government made one prove that they had graduated from a UK school;showed enough money in the bank,etc. for so many points geared towards their visa.(This particular visa has since stopped this past year for everyone though.)
Both of them got their work visas but all they could find were jobs or internships that were either temporary or barely minimum wage despite having masters degrees.Unless you have a skill that is so unusual, you have a very slim chance as all of the EU countries are being flooded with the Eastern Bloc/Ex Soviet satelite groups taking the jobs now. Lots of Polish,Czechs,Russians,etc. due to the immigration rules.
Quite honestly, I would say to continue looking into immigrating but you have alot of roadblocks to overcome.

hetismij2

I should add that 75% of young people aged between 16 and 24 are unemployed in Ireland. True that includes all the low schooled, and those at university, but it shows you how hard starter jobs are to get there.

Tony2phones

As stated it depends on your field of expertise but rather than make the jump why not consider looking at a few months working holiday with one of the organisations who handle such things

http://www.workaway.info/hostlist-IE...egion=Connacht
http://www.sunrisefarmireland.org/

Alec

Young US citizens can get working holiday visa for Ireland, valid a year. No work permit required.
See http://www.dfa.ie/home/index.aspx?id=73713

jamikins

While you may be able to get a working holiday visa - getting a job to pay for your living expenses may be a challenge (as the stats above show!). You may need to save up some cash before you can actually get over there to ensure you have enough money to live on in case you cant actually find work...

Alec

You need to have 1500 euro ($1940) to get your WH visa, which is a good amount to get you started. I agree jobs are difficult to find, but it's often possible to pick up casual work in the season. It's a career-type job especially that is hard to find for young Irish people.

nytraveler

Yes - but casual work isn't going to pay enough for someone to live on for more than a very short time. Nor is it any way to find a way to live there long-term.

longhorn55

Have you considered doing a semester or a year of study abroad in Ireland? (My daughter did this and had a fabulous year in Ireland.) Your time in Ireland will give you a chance to see what living in Ireland is really like. It may turn out that it's not what you expected and you don't really want to live there. Or it may convince you that you really have to find a way to (legally) live and work there.

spaarne

<i>
Posted by: KyleDollar on Oct 11, 12 at 1:35pm
If you're non-European it seems nearly impossible to get one of these permits. Is there any way we can make this dream become a reality?
</i>
I suggest that you find a job with an American company which has operations in Ireland. Then try to get a transfer. Get the job first and let the company do the work permit and other paperwork if they will transfer you. See
http://www.enjoy-europe.com/hte/chap21/working.htm for my experiences getting transferred to Holland and Germany.

Good luck!

Alec

Intra-company transfer is only feasible for more senior experienced staff, as it costs employer money and red tape, and being college students, the OPs are unlikely to be in such a position.

nytraveler

Agree - you usually need to be at a fairly senior level - or have very specific skills - to be transferred abroad. We have transfers between our offices at times (not permanent - but perhaps up to a year) - but it is always someone with at least 7 or 8 years experience - often more. (There is no point in a company going through all that trouble and expense to send a junior employee abroad - when they have a tone of peopl eont he spot that can do the same job.)

travelgourmet

<i>Intra-company transfer is only feasible for more senior experienced staff, as it costs employer money and red tape, and being college students, the OPs are unlikely to be in such a position.</i>

While it is doubtful that you will be hired out of college to be an expat, but my company has been known to do foreign assignments for junior staff if they have the right skill set and if they are a promising candidate for future growth in the company.

If you are going to be looking for an assignment, you would be best served if you are working in one of the major multinational industries in Ireland, particularly pharmaceuticals and certain IT sectors.

nytraveler

Agree that jobs that are techie often offer better opportunities. But it is probably worthwhile researching what companies have sizable offices in Ireland (and yes, Pharma is among them - but unless you are on the science side (meaning a PhD) you usually have to be above junior level to be assigned abroad.

This is the field I work in. We have staff going to other offices - Tokyo, London, Barcelona, Weisbaden - but only experienced people. On the company side marketing people usually need at least 4 or 5 years inside experience - after a couple of years of sales experience before they have a chance of moving. Science/medical may be sooner - but as noted needs advanced degrees in the right areas. (Our Medical/science people all have PhDs in life sciences - often cell biology -plus at least 1 or 2 years post-doctoral work, professional publications, etc. and usually are from top universites. Most taught at the university level.)

jamikins

I live in London and since 2008 I can say that a lot of large companies have stopped doing their exchanges and secondments to the extent that they used to. This includes companies like KPMG, PwC, Northern Trust to name a few that I am very familiar with. There is such a huge amount of unemployed people at experienced but lower levels that it is just not worth going through the hassle of doing secondments in these economic conditions. This is the level where most secondments at these companies come from.

Even at those large companies, they werent doing secondments for new hires, usually you had to be experienced but at either a lower manager/supervisor level, or a very senior level to get a secondment and even then you had to be a high performer to qualify and go through an in depth selection process.

travelgourmet

<i>Pharma is among them - but unless you are on the science side (meaning a PhD) you usually have to be above junior level to be assigned abroad.</i>

Not true. Perhaps for your company, but not all.

And I question the utility of a PhD in getting a job at a pharma outpost in Ireland. The Irish pharma industry is overwhelmingly manufacturing, not R&D. At a manufacturing site, you will find relatively few PhDs, if any.

mariha2912

This post has turner out as a very interesting to me case study but I wander what OP's thoughts are... I think he may have some idea of how difficult his plan is by now, and if we have to stay focused in the particular request, his contribution is necessary.

KyleDollar

This is all very helpful information and I thank all of you. We've been thinking about saving up as much as we can, traveling there this summer, and seeing how we like it. We also thought that maybe work here in the U.S. for 2-3 years, save up as much money as we can, and then hopefully get a job to transfer over there or just move and see what happens. Is that approach not something we should consider? We didn't realize how hard this would actually be. If it's that hard to move overseas, then how or why would people do it?