Two Missing 10 Year Olds Found Washing Cars In Belgium (Career Advisor / Counseller in General)

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Product:	Career Advisor / Counseller in General
Date:	31/07/02 (105 review reads)
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Advantages: Good jobs available

Disadvantages: Lots of bureaucracy

Due to the high number of EU offices in Brussels, work is relatively easy to come by, and as far as it goes, you can pick up some very good summer jobs in Brussels as a result. Of course, part of the thing that guarantees you good pay is your knowledge of English as a native speaker, as you are often working in English speaking environments. However, that being said, a foreign language to a high level (A Level or beyond) certainly opens doors for you. Some interim bureaux (temping agencies) actually demand a foreign language, especially if you want to do anything more than photocopying in a multi-national company. Whilst many eurosceptics might think that Brussels is living hell, if you are prepared to work hard as a mercenary you can avoid having to doing anything involving the EU, although there are a remarkable number of companies tied in with the EU operations, and the twelve stars of evil adorn nigh on every company logo.

I had been staying in Plymouth for so long that I wanted to smash my brother's face in. I was so frustrated and bored. So I went out to Belgium on the hoof in July 1998 and due to the successful time I had working, went back even though I ended up hating Brussels as a place (that?s another story). If you are looking for a cheap flat, then be prepared to go into a ?Kot? - a student hovel, which can be had for about 7-8,000 BEF (£115-130) a month, and which abound throughout Brussels. There are always places for rent, and over the summer, many landlords are happy to have someone occupying their kots, which are otherwise empty. In the short term, a kot can save you a lot of money over living in a flat on your own.

If you are only there for the short term, I would actually advise against you registering at your local ?Commune? because it is a waste of time, and also money on occasions. The first time I was in Brussels the failed Eurocrats tried to fleece me for a sum close to £500, just for the privilege of living in Brussels
. I needed a form for the agency that I was working through, but at that price, I some let the clerk now what I thought about it all. Dependent on where you live in Brussels also determines whether all paperwork is done in Dutch (Flemish) or in French, and moving between a Dutch speaking commune and a French speaking commune can be a bureaucratic nightmare. The truth is that they are mainly trying it on, and this is one thing to watch out for, with corruption in administration being rife. They will try and make out you have to pay for this that and the other, when you really don?t need to.

Fortunately there are plenty of agencies available and they will help you get settled in, although a lot of student summer jobs tend to be for a month only, due to complications on temporary contracts. I managed to get around this by being taken on as a temp and firing my CV around the company saying that I was available for other summer jobs. As a result I spent 7 weeks at one company, and then went back on a three-month contract the following summer.

If you are looking for bar work or waiting jobs, then a lot of the Interim Bureaux specialise in ?HORECA? - Hotel, Restaurant and Café work, and there are a lot of agencies between Rogier and De Brouckère worth trying, and similarly on Avenue Louise. I went to Avenue Louise Interim and they were highly professional, and found me a very good job very quickly. Other jobs on offer include temping, office work, manufacturing jobs and data entry. It is advisable to make sure that you have knowledge of MS Word and MS Excel as a minimum, although the more packages that you know, the better.

I would have to recommend that if you are job-seeking in Belgium, that you make sure you are contactable and a mobile phone can be a very sensible investment. If you already have a handset, then you outlay can be vastly diminished, as there a lot of prepaid SIM only deals. I spent two summers on a Mobistar prepaid tariff (call
ed Tempo) and found that the service was good. Bear in mind that if you have to get a handset, you tend to buy it outright in Belgium, although there are assorted second hand mobile phone stores.

In order to earn in Belgium you require a social security number, and this is easily attainable though an Interim Bureau, who will do the spadework, so that you get paid. One advantage of going through an Interim Bureau is that you are paid weekly rather than monthly. Of course there can be problems if you have a very successful summer. In 7 weeks, I earned 149,000 Belgian Francs (that?s close to £2,500!) and was within 1000 Francs of the tax free limit. Once you go over the 150,000 Franc limit you can expect punitive taxation. To give you an idea of how back this is, the following summer, to earn 150,000 BEF I had to earn nearly 250,000 BEF (that?s about 40% taxation! OUCH!!!). Banking is a bit of a lottery, and the Général de Banque (now the Fortis Group) proved to be pretty incompetent. Other banks are equally inflexible, being shut during lunch hours, and generally stupid and with poor Customer Service, although friends have been fairly complimentary about the service offered by the Crédit Communal. It may be worth setting up a Euro account in Great Britain, as this will allow you to keep the costs of a money transfer down, so that you don?t end up handing over as much to your bank as they would like you to.

You are entitled to ?Cheques de Répas? - 45 BEF a day which are part of your remuneration, and you should make sure that you claim them, as they can pay for a lot of shopping for you, and are accepted more or less everywhere (in particularly at GB and other large supermarkets as well as at restaurants). They are however usually dished out a month in arrears.

If you are settling in Belgium you may want to think about fixed line phone. Once the chimpanzees at Belgacom have connected you, do the decent thing and get on board with one of the A
lternative Operators, as they offer much cheaper calls. Belgacom are also renowned for their shocking customer service (the gratuitous baby-kissing on their website is an indictment of this! Publicly seen as benign, but absolutely shocking in reality!) There are assorted prepaid cards such as XL available from nigh on every shop in Brussels, which are good value solutions for calling abroad, or there are alternative operators such as:

If you are signing a contract, it is your right to get a copy in English of it. I had to sign my contract in Dutch and English, and spent ten days of sending it back and forth to correct it. Be very careful before signing a contract in Brussels, as you are often signing away a lot more than you think. Try and get a transport allowance included (even if it only subsidised the cost of travelling to work) and see if you can get some training in various IT packages whilst you are there, as this will help you no end. An EU based job will probably have the advantage that you will be able to have a rapidly formed social life, as full time employees sometimes don?t like mixing with ?lowly? temps. Otherwise head in to the centre of town and you?ll soon me English speakers, if you haven?t had enough of them at work!

One final consideration is whether to work bank holidays or not (i.e. are you in it for the money!) and my advice would be if you are on a fixed money wage, then take them off. If you are going through a temping agency you can often get paid time and a half to double time, and you can exploit it by working longer that week anyway to bump up your overtime. Such a ploy once earnt me 30,000 BEF in a week (£500 approx.)

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