Student Summer Jobs in France

miaowmiaow

Hi, I'm a first year french student in university in Dublin, and I really want to spend this summer in France possibly working in a job that'll help me interact with french people and improve my oral french.
I'm not interested in becoming an au pair as I'd rather interact with people my own age and I feel like 3 months with a family might slowly drive me crazy! Also I've been advised to stay away from tourist hotspots, such as cafés, as I might then only end up speaking english!
I'd love if anybody here could recommend anything that might be suitable, or tell me about past working experiences in France. I'm especially interested in anything that could connect me to french students or other irish students living and working in france.

Thanks in advance guys!

kitsuune

For slight laziness of repeating myself loads I posted a really detailed reply in this thread about accommodation/job in Paris:
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056110351

Basically, the easiest place to find work will be an Irish bar or something of that sort and I also didn't want to do that when I was there last summer because I did want to speak more French.
You just need to think about where it will work to your advantage that you speak English. Anywhere with lots of tourists is good. It's not that you'll be speaking English all the time, it's more that you are making up for the fact that your not fluent in French by having something else up your sleeve!

Personally, I lived in Paris for about 4 months last summer and got a job (within a week but I'm sure I was very lucky) in a lovely clothes shop on the Champs-Élysées. A couple of days after I got my job I also got a call for an interview from another shop on the Champs (felt so good being able to tell them I was already employed ).
Once I started working it was quite a steep learning curve (and this was after 2 years of university French. It is just not helpful being able to chat about Pascal in French when you know basically no slang or clothing descriptions! The same would go for working in a restaurant I'm sure. All of these places have very specific vocabulary )
You need to already have a good level of French to get the job, which is why a lot of people go for the cafés and restaurants where there will be more of a mixture. I know that with me, while there were quite a lot of tourists, there were also a lot of days when all of my clients were French, and I was the only native English speaker in the shop so it was all French, all the time!

It's not a bad idea to look for an apartment with a French speaker either (www.appartager.com)
And when you're looking for a job somewhere, while beggars can't be choosers, I would DEFINITELY recommend looking for somewhere with a big enough staff. It makes such a difference to be able to make friends with people whose lives are based there, especially if you're not going to know many people over there. Even if you don't end up actually doing much stuff with them outside of work, they'll be able to tell you whats good and make recommendations.

Oh and random stuff about CVs, I found sites liike www.letudiant.fr helpful for seeing what is the norm for CVs over there, because they are a little different.
It's sort of expected to have a photo of yourself on them (racism lol?) and since I've come home I've kind of kept this, because it will help them remember who you are! Push the fact that you speak English as a first language. And when you go in anywhere always ask for a manager, because it's a bit useless giving it to a random shop assistant and it will help your case if you've made a good impression on the manager. In my case, I went in and asked for a manager who basically gave me an interview on the spot and then asked me to come back the next day to talk to another manager, and I got offered the job the next day!

Oh and as regards health insurance, your E111 should cover you for a period of up to 3 months or so. So if they ask you for your social security number you can give them your E111 info.

Hope this helps, that was a little bit off the top of my head so sorry if it was a bit disjointed!

kitsuune

And on the vocabulary point, I only picked this book up at the end of the summer on a whim, but it would have come in very useful earlier on!

It's called Vocabulaire Anglais Courant, and it's one of those little 2euro librio books, but it's really useful for vocab lists of everyday words (and hilarious for some of the English slang they try to translate)
It's just full of words that you will want to use and be amazed that you don't know off the top of your head! I also find that it's actually better for the English --> French, as it has the words grouped with the English first and then the French afterwards

http://www.amazon.fr/Vocabulaire-anglais-courant-Jean-Bernard-Piat/dp/2290339385

bah1011

I went to the south of France found it fairly easy to get a job and picked up the language fairly quickly so was able to understand orders but I couldnt master the accent so i was always having to repeat myself. That probably more a problem for just me. If you cant find something before you go over don't worry too much it much easier when you go over. You could also try summer camp things. www.seasonworkers.com/summerjobs/

sarahmc56343

Did any of you go to France alone? or did you go with a group? Which district is the best to live in?