How to find work in the European Union

EURES is an acronym of the European Employment Services and is the European Union’s main economic instrument to ensure correct running of the labour market. EURES is made up of European Commission trained advisors who provide informational, advisory and intermediary services to clients from all over Europe.

Does that mean that EURES is represented in all EU countries?
Yes, labour offices in all 27 countries of the EU are members of the EURES network. As well as these, public employment services in non-EU countries in the European Economic Area are also members. These countries are Iceland, Norway, Liechtenstein and Switzerland.

ADVERTISING

What services do EURES advisors offer their clients?
The most important is the EURES database of vacant job positions across the whole of the EU – at present the database has over 700,000 vacant positions. A real advantage of the database is that the positions have all been verified in advance, which means, of course, less risk to the client. 
As well as information about job positions, our advisors also give information about living and working conditions in EU/EEA states and about the situation in individual labour markets. They can also advise clients about the administrative obligations and tax burden they will face in a given country, also what the average living expenses are there. Further they can recommend clients which sector in the country’s job market it is most worth looking for work in. Our advisors also know how to help and advise clients when writing CVs to send to individual EU countries. Basically they help clients gain a more realistic idea about work abroad.

You mentioned that the EURES network is in every EU country and in some cases also outside EU boundaries. What is its presence here in Slovakia?
In Slovakia all 46 labour, social affairs and family offices offer EURES services. In each of the offices a EURES help-point has been created where either a trained EURES advisor or assistant works, or in some cases, both. At present we have 22 of these offices staffed with European Commission trained advisors while at the others nearly fifty, as yet untrained EURES assistants work. They too, however, provide a service equal in quality to that provided by the advisors.

How should a person interested in working abroad begin?
There are various possibilities. One thing a client can do is access our website www.eures.sk, or use the European EURES portal at eures.europa.eu. Both these sites contain databases of job positions available all over Europe as well as detailed information about living and working conditions in individual countries of the EU/EEA.
A second option is to visit in person the nearest labour, social affairs and family office, where, during office hours, our staff can provide the advisory services mentioned above.

We live in the age of information technology. So let’s take a look at the two websites you mention for a moment. What is the difference between them?
As I have said, the www.eures.sk website is a Slovak employment portal for work abroad, is maintained by the Slovak EURES network and its advisors, and in its database only those job positions are listed which have been been advertised in Slovakia by foreign employers or by our EURES colleagues from other EU/EEA countries. All these advertised positions are suitable for Slovak citizens, employers know that these positions are being advertised in Slovakia and are therefore prepared to take on eligible applicants from here.
The European EURES portal (www.eures.europa.eu) is maintained by the European Commission and contains a database of all EU vacant job positions which are advertised in the labour offices of the individual member states. At present the database contains about 700,000 such positions, not all of which are suitable for Slovak citizens, however. Public employment services are obliged to “turn over“ details of all their national job vacancies to the huge Brussels database. Most employers in member states don’t even realize their vacant positions are being advertised all over the EU and in many cases they are unable or unwilling to take on employees from abroad.

Let’s look more closely at the Slovak EURES portal. Apart from job positions, what else does it offer clients?
A number of other things. As well as job positions in Europe, the portal contains detailed information about living and working conditions in all  EU/EEA states. Clients can register their CV on the site and use SMS notification services which update them about new job positions and EURES events. This service was launched in 2006 and was recently expanded to include the third Slovak mobile phone operator. Clients have opportunity to use the forum page, where they can post their thoughts and experience of working abroad, they can also use the Ask the EURES advisor service where, after entering the basic data and posing their question they can contact by email one of our EURES advisors, who will then reply directly to the client’s question.

Amongst other people, our magazine is aimed at Slovaks living and working in English-speaking countries such as the United Kingdom and Ireland. What is your cooperation like with these countries?
Great Britain and Ireland are amongst the leading countries in the world as far as migration from Slovakia is concerned. For this reason, good cooperation with our counterparts in the Job Centre Plus in the UK as well as with the FÁS in Ireland is high up in our list of priorities. At present more than 60,000 Slovaks are working in Britain and more than 25,000 in Ireland, many of whom have found work in these countries thanks to the EURES network. With both these institutions we organise interviews and selection processes for employers from the two countries, we meet at seminars aimed at raising the quality of our services and both the British Job Centre Plus and the Irish FÁS are among regular participants at the international employment fairs we organise in Slovakia.

Within the EURES network, are you preparing anything special for these two countries and for our compatriots working there?
I’d like to mention one specific project which we are preparing in collaboration with FÁS aimed at providing advice to Slovaks who have already travelled to Ireland to find work. In April and May this year there will be Slovak EURES advisors at selected labour offices in Ireland (so far Dublin, Cork and Limerick have confirmed participation), where they will be available to Slovaks living and working in Ireland for a period of six weeks. An information campaign organised by our Irish counterparts will precede their stay so I’m confident Slovaks there will find out about it. The aim of the whole project is to provide professional advice and information in Slovak to clients in the places where they work. If it is successful, we will then consider launching a similar scheme in the United Kingdom.

EURES has been active in Slovakia since May 2004. If you had to briefly summarize the results of its activities, what would you focus on?
The easiest thing is to let the numbers speak for themselves. So far EURES advisors and assistants have provided EURES network services to more than 530,000 clients, we have organised 12 international employment fairs and more than 1,250 selection processes for foreign employers, and have given more than 2,000 presentations about the EURES network to students and employers. The most important statistic of all, however, is that so far, more than 50,000 Slovaks have found work in an EU or EEA country by going through the EURES network.

More info: www.eures.sk

Author: Martin Hakel

Audio/Video

Photogallery