Finding a job in Geneva (2)

Are you (or your spouse) looking for a job in Geneva? I just discovered a great website for you: www.jobsingenevacom. 

An ebook for expats moving to Switzerland

The Expats Fribourg website, that was created in order to assist those expatriates moving to the canton of Fribourg, publishes a great resource: the Expat-Guide. It is a free ebook that you can download here. It provides very valuable checklists for all the things to do before and after the move and a wealth of information about living in Switzerland. Although some resources are local and therefore limited to the Fribourg area, most of them are extremely useful for all expats moving to or arriving in Switzerland.

Finding a job in Geneva (1)

This article is the first of a future series that presents resources for people who are looking for a job in Geneva.

If you want to find a job here either in a NGO (Non-Governmental Organization) or at the United Nations, I recommend the website Ibid Jobs. It is new and will be more developed in the future, but it already provides a wealth of interesting positions, that are easy to sort out according to various criteria.

If you find the ideal job for you in Geneva, please consider one thing. If you are new to Geneva, and its international community, if you are working for an international organization for the 1st time, and even more if you moved from abroad in order to do so, hiring a professional expat and career coach can often make a huge difference in the way you will adapt to the new job and your new life, which in turn helps you achieve professional success more quickly. If you are interested in the coaching services that I provide, please read the articles under Coaching & programs by A+B (Pascale Cotton) in the right column of this blog.

The Happy Hours of the Geneva Welcome Centre

The Happy Hours of the Geneva Welcome Centre take place twice a month:

• Every 1st Thursday of the month in a local bar or pub, from 6 pm on.
• Every 3rd Thursday of the month in the villa "La Pastorale", right in front of the Intercontinental hotel, close to the international organizations (beginning also at 6 pm). In the summer time, the Happy Hours take place in the beautiful garden. There is often a country theme for the evening, with the possibility to order a local dish in advance. Some evenings are also focussed on musics and dancing, with a DJ or a band.
  

The setting is always relaxed and informal, with a warm welcome from the team of the Welcome Centre. It is a great place to go if you want to meet interesting people. Most of them work for international organizations or NGOs.

If there is a specific theme for the evening, please consult the website and register from there in order to order the local dishes. Otherwise, no registration is required. You can also bring your (international) friends!

New version of the "Know-it-all Passport" just published

The new and updated version of the "Know-it-all Passport" for 2009/2010 was just released.

This is "THE" book to buy if you arrived recently in Geneva or Lausanne area. If you have been here for a long time, the book is very handy and useful, for example in order to find out many activities, shopping places, restaurants, services etc. that you didn't know. It contains a wealth of useful information in a well organized manner.

You can order it on the Knowt-it-all website or buy it for example in the Payot and Off-the-Shelf bookshops in Geneva or Lausanne.

Geneva Lunch

GenevaLunch is a free online magazine for the international community in Geneva. Its editor is Ellen Wallace, a British journalist living in the Geneva area. Written by professional journalists, GenevaLunch offers not only news, but also interviews, travel articles, community blogs, a photo album and several in-depth guides about the region.

Lake Geneva on the crest of a business wave

"The Lake Geneva region is undergoing an unprecedented business boom, outperforming the Zurich region over the past ten years, says a Swiss research group."...

If you want to read the whole article, please click here.

Events with authors at the Off-the-Shelf bookshop

The new Off-the-Shelf bookshop in Geneva has been organizing events with authors for some time in Geneva. You can read the program here.

Interactive dialogue with the readers

For the last few months, I have been spending quite a lot of time creating this blog and writing articles. But a blog is also an interactive too. Therefore, all my readers are kindly invited to use the "comment" function on this blog, below this article, in order to express their impressions, wishes, etc. Are there in particular any specific subjects that you would like to be covered or developed?

Thanks a lot and "see" you soon on this blog!

What is a "portable business"?

I published recently an article about "What is a "portable business"?" on my blog Expat & Mobile Entrepreneurs. You can read the article here...

Do you like skiing, hiking or cycling?

Here are some great clubs or one-person companies in or around Geneva who organize skiing, hiking and cycling groups:

• http://www.scig.ch/
• http://club-ski.web.cern.ch
• www.active-mates.com
• http://www.rando-avec-francis.com/

Of course, you'll have to wait until the next winter in order to register for the 2009 skiing season at the Cern Ski Club. But the three other organizations organize hiking tours from spring to automn.

Newsletter and blog for expats in Switzerland

Maybe you are not aware that I also run a blog called Expats in Switzerland. You can also subscribe to the free newsletter.

Glocals

Glocals is "a community of globals and locals". It started in 2006 as GenevaOnline and was so successful that the concept was extended to other big cities in Switzerland, in particular Zurich. It is the perfect place to look at if you want to find new activities for the next week-end in and around Geneva, or to announce an event that you organize, because it focuses mostly on "offline" activities - i.e. in the real world. For more information, please click here.

New and original expat survey

I invite all my expatriate readers to participate in the survey that is mentioned below. The article is written by Kate Goggin, writer and editor, whose website is here.

Participate in our survey: At Home Abroad: How Design and Architecture Influence Overseas Living in association with the Interchange Institute.

Do you live overseas currently? Does your international home measure up to your expectations? Whether you live in a castle, a cottage, a hut or a hovel, I am interested in your story - how you made a home in a faraway land and how it affects your work, your family and your life.

Take part in this exciting new survey by The Interchange Institute.

The results will help us:

Document the importance of home environments to overseas living.

Examine the relationship between housing choices and expat assignment success.

Desired participants:

Anyone who is currently living outside his/her passport country for either his/her work or education, or for a spouse's/partner's work/education is eligible.

We encourage both spouses/partners to complete the survey if possible. They will need different computers to do so, however.

Help us understand:

How you chose and settled into your home.

Whether and how your home affects your overall expatriate experience.

How the layout, design, and/or furnishings of your home affect your family’s interaction.

The survey takes about 20 minutes. To show our appreciation, we will award a $100 Amazon.com gift certificate to one participant for every 50 people who complete the entire survey.

Questions? Contact: Dr. Anne Copeland, The Interchange Institute, copeland@interchangeinstitute.org (617) 566-2227 (USA) or Kate Goggin, kate@kategoggin.com.

Photo submissions are encouraged. Please contact me for more details.

View home-related clips on international housing and antiquing in Europe.

Survey about the relocation issues of expatriate families

Robin Pascoe, "the Expat Expert" who published several books about expatriates, created a survey about the relocation issues of expat families and the support that they received.

I can only encourage you to take the survey, as it will provide valuable insights from the perspective of the families.

I quote 2 paragraphs from the web page about the survey:

"There are numerous relocation surveys that examine the challenges of relocation in order to help companies and sponsoring organizations to better develop relocation policies. But, with very few exceptions, they neglect to go straight to the source—the family—for input.

Family Matters! will fill this gap by sampling only the accompanying spouse, the working partner in his/her capacity as spouse or parent, and any high school children in the family. The entire family can do this survey with lots of room provided to give us your opinions. As we are only offering one survey (instead of multiple surveys depending on where you fit in the family) do keep in mind that some questions may not apply to you. Just skip them.

In recognition of your contribution to this important exercise, after we have collected all the responses, we will be making a donation of $2.00 CDN for each survey to a very well-respected Canadian organization which helps families in Africa called The Stephen Lewis Foundation which can be found at www.stephenlewisfoundation.org."

at any time to do the survey

Expat Programs Limited in Vaud Schools

The Tribune de Genève published recently an article about specific schooling systems for the children of expatriates in the Canton de Vaud. It states that "The canton’s education department has no plans to provide special programs tailored to the needs of Anglophones in the Lake Geneva region." Due to the development of multinational companies in the region, the private schools, who provide tradionally schooling that corresponds to the needs of expatriates, are full. They cannot expand further due to the shortage of land in the region. On the other hand, the public school system cannot provide specific programs for expat children in English, due to the lack of bilingual teachers, and because their number doesn't reach the critical mass. It could create problems for multinational companies considering relocating to the Canton de Vaud, if their managers cannot find an appropriate school system for their children.

Expat interview: Nicole in Lausanne

Nicole, an expat and secretary in Lausanne, is interviewed on the "Expat Interviews" website. You can read the interview here.

For expat entrepreneurs in Switzerland (in or near Geneva)

If you are an expatriate entrepreneur in Switzerland (in Geneva or the Suisse romande), or are interested in creating your own business in this country, I published some interesting information in my blog "Expat & mobile entrepreneurs".

Geneva: a town for writers?

Geneva has a long tradition of welcoming writers, like Lord Byron and many others. It seems that there are also many writers among the English-speaking expat community in Geneva. For example, the Geneva Writers' Group has more that 100 members from 26 countries. It also organizes conferences. One of their committee members, Alistair Scott, was interviewed on the Tribune de Genève (in English!). For French-speaking people who would rather participate in a writing group or other activities around writing in French, the Ville de Genève provides an impressive list of resources.

Geneva and Switzerland in the news

I just added a new feature in the right column of this blog: Geneva and Lausanne in the news. It displays automatically a few lines from relevant articles, that you can then read by clicking on the link. As most of them are in French, it is a great opportunity to improve your language skills if you are a new expat!

Theatre in English in and around Geneva

One of the wonderful things in Geneva is that there are so many opportunities for expats that you keep discovering new ones.

I just discovered the website of Theatre in English. Here is how the administrators present it:

"This is your guide to shows by the two English-speaking amateur theatre groups in Geneva, Switzerland/Voici votre guide des spectacles donnés par et pour les anglophones dans la région de Genève - pièces de théâtre, comédies musicales, operettes.

The Geneva English Drama Society (GEDS) provides a diverse theatre programme with a wide variety of styles and periods. A typical season includes 3-4 full stage productions and 20 fortnightly staged playreadings, plus workshops and social events.

The Geneva Amateur Operatic Society(GAOS) offers you a traditional British pantomime each winter, its Spring production is an operetta or musical comedy, while the type of show produced in the Summer varies from year to year. In the Autumn The Really Youthful Group performs a musical show entirely organised by its young members."

Christmas decoration, advent calendars, presents etc.

If you spend the Christmas holidays in a foreign country, maybe you miss the special atmosphere and the Christmas decorations back home - or you don't know how to send the right Christmas presents conveniently to your friends and relatives. I just received the Christmas catalogue of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and I find it is the perfect resource, not only for American expats! You can find advent calendars representing for ex. the Museum, a popup book presenting the holiday season in New York, wonderful Christmas ornaments and cards, jewellery and all kinds of presents for adults and children. You can have the catalogue sent to you, or you can click on the title in order to be redirected to the website.

Books about Geneva and Switzerland

I added recently a few books about Geneva and Switzerland, which are particularly useful for expats arriving in Geneva. Each book that is presented has a direct link to www.amazon.com, except the "Know-it-all Passport", which has its own link above. Please have a look at the column on the right side of this blog! Some of them could even be the perfect present for your expat friends.

Are you an expat in Geneva AND an entrepreneur?

A new Meetup event is being created in Geneva: the Geneva Entrepeneur Meetup group. Please find below a description of the group from the Meetup website. As I plan to attend the first meeting next week, on Tuesday 30 October, I'll write more about it afterwards. If you wish to come, please click on the title or on the button on the right of this blog (downwards). There is also another Meetup specifically for high-tech entrepreneurs (biotech, Internet, electronics & telecommunications, etc.) and their partners (business angels, venture capitalists), which I attend as much as I can. It is called the Geneva Open Coffee Meetup Group. It is really amazing to notice how many bright people from the whole world are attracted to Geneva, or want to stay here after a short-term expat assignment, and have a high potential and great ideas in order to create their own business here.

"MEETUP, STARTUP.
Networking for people who are involved in a startup, running a business or looking to invest in one. Chill, chat. Expand your environment.
WHO ?
To those who are starting up, running or looking to invest, or would like to be in the future. Corporates with skills welcome.
FIELDS
No rules, the variety is great to get discussions going.
FEEL
Friendly. Laid-back. Conversational. Unstructured. Enjoyable. Open to those with ideas to share.
ORG
Monthly"