Desperate for Switzerland

Hi and welcome on board want2BSwissMiss!

Maybe you could tell more about your professional profile so that other members can help you

Regards
Armand

I have over 15 years experience in Administration, Staffing and Management.  Some of my past responsibilities have included:

· Office Management
· Staffing (on-site and branch management)
· Customer Service (call-center and in office settings)
· Retail Management with an International organization
· Data Entry Operation

My administrative skills are executive level and I am a consumat professional in both attire and action.  I am a highly motivated individual with a strong work ethic and excellent written and verbal communication skills. I have exceptional attention to detail and though I am comfortable in my ability to work independently, I also know the value of being a team player.

Hope this helps give a bit more info on my background.  Please feel free to post any questions if you need to know more :-)

You are on the right track when it comes to getting to live in Switzerland: the first thing to do is to find a job in Switzerland. That, however, can be pretty difficult. Two main obstacles are:

- If I read your posting correctly, you are from the USA and you are a US citizen. Immigration rules are pretty tough for anyone not coming from the EU/EFTA-countries: an employer has to prove that he/she cannot find any Swiss or EU/EFTA person for the job before he is allowed to hire you, and even then there are quotas determining the maximal number of people that are allowed to immigrate. Your chances will be better if you look for a job that requires particular US experiences. That may blend out a lot of job seeker competition from Swiss/EU/EFTA-people that do not have such experience.

- Language. Though many people can speak and understand English over here, it is by no means the daily life language. That will be (Swiss) German, French, or Italian, depending on the part of the country where you'll end up. For job seeking, this would mean that you'll need to look for something in a very international environment, may be at the main office of some big international firm or organisation (luckily, there are quite a lot of these in Switzerland). Finding a job at a local Swiss company is pretty desperate if you don't speak the local language, I'm afraid.

Won't be easy, I'm afraid. Wish you all the luck you need.

Hope this helps,
Twan.

As a US citizen based in Switzerland, I have to fully agree with the poster above (Twan) regarding the challenges of finding a job here. There are challenges to be sure, but these are not insurmountable.

Beyond the usual hurdles of finding a job anywhere, emigrating to Switzerland entails the additional challenge of the hiring company having to prove they couldn't find a Swiss person to do the job, since citizens from non-EU/EFTA countries are subject to cantonal quotas.

Based on this, it would seem difficult to get hired as an administrative assistant in a small company with purely local customers.

As Twan mentioned, it would be wise to focus one's job search on large, international companies. As a US person, you can certainly capitalize on your skills in English and experience working in the US. Despite all the talk about the rising cost of doing business here (e.g., appreciating Swiss franc), Switzerland boasts a highly educated, multilingual workforce and I've read, for example, there is still a call center industry of note.

In trying to find a job here, you might have to pursue a different angle than usual in presenting yourself, for example, emphasizing English and the fact you are very familiar with how business is done in the US (as mentioned above). If you like to write, you might even present yourself as a technical writer or documentation specialist. Native English writers are still in demand here, and are even being hired by small Swiss companies with local or European customers.

If you have some capital and you do some research on the Swiss/European market and can tolerate some risk, you might think about starting up a limited liability company here. As a US person you would have some more paperwork than an EU/EFTA citizen, but the Swiss government generally welcomes foreigners bringing capital and expertise.