IT Technician in the UK wanting out for a year

When I moved from Vancouver to London I went through an inter-company transfer. They helped me set-up a local bank account, put me in a B&B while I looked for a place to stay and generally made the transition stress free. Knowing I had a place to stay and a guaranteed income made the process much easier for me to deal with.

When I moved from London to Barcelona I didn't know the language, anyone there, didn't have a job and I couldn't speak the language. I stayed in a hostel for a couple of weeks while I found an apartment. I signed up for language courses. I met locals. I started freelancing from home.

Both ways worked out OK for me. When I came to Barcelona I was a little more wise about travelling and I had enough money saved to weather any financial storm. Without the experience and financial safety net I'd recommend you have a job waiting for you. A friend recently told me that Germany and the Netherlands are actively hiring IT candidates so you could look for opportunities there.

Good luck. I highly recommend doing it.

reggieband, would your friend have any suggestions of where to look for those gigs in germany / netherlands?
thanks

If you under 30 you can apply for a working holiday visa for, Canada, Australia or New Zealand. The visa gives you 1 year to travel & work in those countries. You can get a job in any industry. do a google search for BUNAC and the website will give you all the info you need.

Consider working / subcontracting via one of the IT outsourcing websites.

I have often hired people from oDesk.com to do things on my websites that I don't know how to do. You would need to compete with people from around the world who are willing to work for modest wages, but there is a real need for skilled people.

You probably also have to actively watch the job offerings. But - one thing will work in your favor - and that is that you are a native speaker of English. There are often problems when hiring people to do work, that language gets in the way of their understanding exactly what you want done. It can become quite tedious to try to explain something that you barely understand yourself - but that you need fixed or built - to someone who has a very different understanding of English - or even just a minimal understanding.

There are numerous other sites that are similar, Elance.com is one and I am not too familiar with the others.

I guess just scowering the internet for job offers is the best thing to do then rather than just moving away without having anything planned?

Any ideas of any good websites (apart from the ones mentioned, thank you very much!). All websites i find offering foreign placements are always agency ones.

How about getting a job in an educational establishment abroad as a technician, has anyone had any experience of that before?

Thanks for your posts!

Dan

All websites i find offering foreign placements are always agency ones.

No problem with recruiters or agencies if they find you the job you want, no?

Why pass up exactly what might find you the situation you are looking for?

Don't PAY anyone for the service, they should be getting paid by the people looking to hire you.