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Finding a job in Barcelona
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Since this guide is meant to be read
from people (hopefully) from all over the
world, I’m not going to explain what
documents you need to have to be legally
entitled to work and live in Spain.
I suggest you to ask your local Spanish
embassy, before you come to Barcelona.
Also, before you leave your country, it’s better if you
translate your Curriculum in English and
Spanish.
Don’t worry if you don't speak a
proper Spanish (or you speak no Spanish at
all !): thanks
to the big number of European educated
residents (most of us own at least a
University degree), Barcelona is full of
international companies that decide to open
here an EMEA contact center (i.e. Call
center).
If you’re not a Native English (in this case
you could be interested in an English
teaching job), the easiest way to find a
job is to look for a Call center. They are
not interested in Spanish skills (most of
the time you will be required to work in
your native language): unfortunately to be
part of the local market place (i.e. Spanish
companies) you need to speak a very good
Catalan, so, most of expatriates are out
from the race !
This is something important to keep in mind:
it’s hard to come in Barcelona and apply for
a “proper” job. Most of the time, if you are
not native Catalan, your CV will go
automatically into the trashcan.
Most of my friends belonging to the
expatriates community work in a Call Center:
this kind of job is ok if you’re looking for
a typcal 9 to 6 office job. It’s quite
commont to receive a good (compared to
Barcelona Standards) salary and a permanent
contract (normally after some months of
temporary one). The kind of job you will be
required to do, depends on the company you
will join: from outbound sales, to customer
care agents, to help-desk.
The following is a list of big multinational
companies where many expats are working:
Citibank
Avis
Agilen
Transcom
HP/Deloitte
Colt
Sellbytel
Sietel
You can have a look on the internet to be
clarified on what’s the market of these
companies. For a better idea of what kind of
skills the companies are looking, you might
want to download
this file
containing some pages I've scanned from
Metropolitan, one of the most important
expatriates magazine in
English.
Actually call-centers are not the only
alternative: they are just the most common
one.
I know many people working into big
pharmaceutical industries, designs studios,
fashion agencies… but they are not many: 95%
of the people I know work in call center (or
as English teachers…if they’re native
English!).
As said, a very useful resource to look for
a new job is the magazine “Metropolitan”:
it’s free and it distributed in many
different spots in
town. Beside useful information and
articles to know what’s going on in town, it
has a classified section where companies
publish their currently open positions.
Given the target of this magazine, many
companies that publish they ad in here, are
looking for foreigners who can speak
English… normally they are not interested in
your Spanish level.
The website of this magazine
here
If you’re going to search your new job on
the web, I suggest having a look at Infojobs
(www.infojobs.net)
and Monster (http://www.monster.es).
Normally Monster has got higher level
positions…but most of them are meant to
be filled from Spanish natives.
Apart from sending your CVs via email, it’s
really useful having a walk across some job
agencies spread across town.
This is a list
of almost all of them.
Two of them seems to be quite successful among people I know:
the one into the World trade center in
Barceloneta, and the Ramstad agency in Paseo
de Gracia.
As I said, most of the jobs you will find
offer a permanent contract (contracto
indefinido).
It's useful to know that, with such a
contract, in case of problems, your employee
cannot just make you redundant . They will have to pay you a
compensation (indenizacion) for kick
you out of the company:
45 days of salary for each year you have
worked for them. This is given you cash at
the moment they fire you.
Also, a very important form of protecting
the worker, is the paro (a kind of
unemployment benefit). If you lose your job, you are entitled of
4 months salary for each year you have
worked.
This money is given by the Spanish
government and the amount you will receive each months
depends on your last salaries…the upper
limit is around 900 euros per month.
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