Unemployed and depressed

[Fabien Gayraud]

Hey people,

My name is Fabien, I am French and i live in the UK for now more than 3 years, I graduated first class a motorsport Engineering Degree in COventry University. Since July I am looking for a job and unfortunatly nothing since. I would like to ask you, people, that if yo ucan help me to find a job in Motorsport industry I would be deeply amazed. To be able to enter this special branch of work unfortunatly it is all about contact, unfortunatly i do not have contact or i would say not "high' enough. Please feel free to contact me for a chat and/or more informations about my capabilities. I can forward my CV to whom is interested nad/or can help me.
Thanks for your time and consideration.

Regards


Fabien

[crofty1984]

Get a job doing anything. Bar work, in a shop, etc. Then try to find work on the bottom of the ladder and work your way up.

Employers are going to think more kindly of you coming from a job than not. After that, if you can't get your dream job now, look at what skills you need to do it, then look for jobs that will give you those skills. then in 5 years time you will be the perfect candidate and get what you want.

IMO obviously.

[Fabien Gayraud]

I do work but voluntary, it's just I need some one to give one chance. But thanks for your advise anyway! :-)

[OzCupra]

Fabien Gayraud said:

Hey people,

My name is Fabien, I am French and i live in the UK for now more than 3 years, I graduated first class a motorsport Engineering Degree in COventry University. Since July I am looking for a job and unfortunatly nothing since. I would like to ask you, people, that if yo ucan help me to find a job in Motorsport industry I would be deeply amazed. To be able to enter this special branch of work unfortunatly it is all about contact, unfortunatly i do not have contact or i would say not "high' enough. Please feel free to contact me for a chat and/or more informations about my capabilities. I can forward my CV to whom is interested nad/or can help me.
Thanks for your time and consideration.

Regards


Fabien

Unfortunately your trying to break into a market that is currently flooded with many talented experienced engineers. I know of at least a dozen people with current F1, Touring Car or WRC experience all looking for work. It's a hard market to crack.

I myself was found out on my ear this time last year from a motorsport company that should have been safe enough to ride out the economic downturn! I now work for myself!

As suggested already, start at the bottom. Tale a trip to Silverstone for a test day and offer your services to as many people as you can. Get some real race / rally experience as this will always help. Then send your CV to as many teams companies as you can (probably already done this) even if it's for work experience.

Again this isn't an easy time, but if you persevere and are prepared to do anything / go anywhere then you may just crack into it!

Best of luck

[Fabien Gayraud]

Thanks OzCupra, You said you work for yourself, what do you do ? (if it's not too personnal) And yes it's probably the worst time to look for a job into motorsport, and i'm right into it ! Oh yes !

[OzCupra]

Fabien

Not to personal at all.. I worked for nearly 10 years with Mercedes Benz and Prosche in main delaers before getting my break with Prodrive (sales) worked with them for 3 years dealing with WRC and Group N customers (was account manager for Ireland) before being made redundant.

Set up myself with all my contacts to supply the same sort of market, road and track with parts. It's not been easy but it does help when you have the contacts throughout the industry.

If your prepared to do work on anything than you'll pick up bit's and pieces along the way, build up your contacts from there and see how it goes.

[Fabien Gayraud]

Do you do your own part ? and all of that ? Do you have a website ? Would you like to have a look at my CV, maybe to have some feedback. If yes can email it to you aprently i can't email you right now coz i have been member under 24hours.

[Fabien Gayraud]

Anyone for some help ???

[Anthony Micallef]

Bonsoir Fabien, why dont you do some translation work in the meantime to earn some money? Im sure it would make you feel less depressed as well. I bet you could earn quite a bit from it. Especially from the local police as they sometimes need a translator when they bring people in. Not sure how much work you'd get in the area you live in though.

[Fabien Gayraud]

yeah not many frenchies arround here, Eh Eh. But yeah i'll have a look into that on internet.Ta. ANyone else for some motorsport stuff ??

[SGirl]

Anthony Micallef said:

Bonsoir Fabien, why dont you do some translation work in the meantime to earn some money? Im sure it would make you feel less depressed as well. I bet you could earn quite a bit from it. Especially from the local police as they sometimes need a translator when they bring people in. Not sure how much work you'd get in the area you live in though.

No. You can't translate just because you can speak a language fluently. I know plenty of multilingual people who'd make terrible translators or interpreters. You have to be able to write in your own language as well. Many people can't do that well enough to be able to translate.

Translation really isn't the stroll in the park most people seem to think it is. It requires an in-depth knowledge of both source and target language and subject matter. And then an ability to read minds as well, because clients always forget to tell you things you need to know and then wonder why you didn't know them!

And to add to that, translation companies simply won't use translators who are just doing it "for a bit of cash". You need experience and a track record, unless you're doing a rare language combination. English to French translators, unfortunately, are ten a penny. When I was working for an agency, I used to file all the CVs in order of experience, and the English > French CVs with no experience listed never even came out of the filing cabinet once they went in.

Oh, and the local police have a pool of trained, certified interpreters they can call on - they won't use someone off the street. Again, you need experience and training to interpret for the police/courts. I think you might even need certification these days too - not sure, I don't do interpreting so it's outside my field.

So - sorry Anthony, but that's a bad idea.

Edited by SGirl on Thursday 17th December 11:15

[Fabien Gayraud]

Oh Ok Sgirl i won't do that then, but just to write in your own language is the main education subject in France we learn how to write and know all the about french useless stuff til about when you are 18, part of the Baccalaureat, as well as 12 other Subjects (history, Geography, Phylosophy, Math , Physics, CHimy, English, German or italian or spanish, French, Ingineering, and other useless stuff). :-) But thanks for the answer.

[patmahe]

OzCupra said:

Fabien Gayraud said:

Hey people,

My name is Fabien, I am French and i live in the UK for now more than 3 years, I graduated first class a motorsport Engineering Degree in COventry University. Since July I am looking for a job and unfortunatly nothing since. I would like to ask you, people, that if yo ucan help me to find a job in Motorsport industry I would be deeply amazed. To be able to enter this special branch of work unfortunatly it is all about contact, unfortunatly i do not have contact or i would say not "high' enough. Please feel free to contact me for a chat and/or more informations about my capabilities. I can forward my CV to whom is interested nad/or can help me.
Thanks for your time and consideration.

Regards


Fabien

Unfortunately your trying to break into a market that is currently flooded with many talented experienced engineers. I know of at least a dozen people with current F1, Touring Car or WRC experience all looking for work. It's a hard market to crack.

I myself was found out on my ear this time last year from a motorsport company that should have been safe enough to ride out the economic downturn! I now work for myself!

As suggested already, start at the bottom. Tale a trip to Silverstone for a test day and offer your services to as many people as you can. Get some real race / rally experience as this will always help. Then send your CV to as many teams companies as you can (probably already done this) even if it's for work experience.

Again this isn't an easy time, but if you persevere and are prepared to do anything / go anywhere then you may just crack into it!

Best of luck

This seems like the best advice, offer to help out people at various events (probably for free at first), prove your skillset and get yourself known. Then when people get to know you and what you can do, you may be able to make enquiries about paid work. Your experience, reputation and new contacts will come in very handy here. Best of luck, its a tough time to be trying to break into motorsport, but persevere and you'll get there.

Edited by patmahe on Thursday 17th December 11:17

[SGirl]

Fabien Gayraud said:

Oh Ok Sgirl i won't do that then, but just to write in your own language is the main education subject in France we learn how to write and know all the about french useless stuff til about when you are 18, part of the Baccalaureat, as well as 12 other Subjects (history, Geography, Phylosophy, Math , Physics, CHimy, English, German or italian or spanish, French, Ingineering, and other useless stuff). :-) But thanks for the answer.

Hi Fabien,

Sure, same over here. (Well, kind of. ) But writing and translating are two different things, really. I've been in the business for years and I've never once seen anyone who can translate well just naturally. There's more to it than just converting one language to another.

Fabien, how patient a person are you? Could you teach people the basics of the French language? That seems to be a common pastime round here - people come over from other countries and advertise language lessons in newsagents' windows. I've been asked by several people recently if I know people teaching French and Spanish.

[Anthony Micallef]

SGirl said:

Anthony Micallef said:

Bonsoir Fabien, why dont you do some translation work in the meantime to earn some money? Im sure it would make you feel less depressed as well. I bet you could earn quite a bit from it. Especially from the local police as they sometimes need a translator when they bring people in. Not sure how much work you'd get in the area you live in though.

No. You can't translate just because you can speak a language fluently. I know plenty of multilingual people who'd make terrible translators or interpreters. You have to be able to write in your own language as well. Many people can't do that well enough to be able to translate.

Translation really isn't the stroll in the park most people seem to think it is. It requires an in-depth knowledge of both source and target language and subject matter. And then an ability to read minds as well, because clients always forget to tell you things you need to know and then wonder why you didn't know them!

And to add to that, translation companies simply won't use translators who are just doing it "for a bit of cash". You need experience and a track record, unless you're doing a rare language combination. English to French translators, unfortunately, are ten a penny. When I was working for an agency, I used to file all the CVs in order of experience, and the English > French CVs with no experience listed never even came out of the filing cabinet once they went in.

Oh, and the local police have a pool of trained, certified interpreters they can call on - they won't use someone off the street. Again, you need experience and training to interpret for the police/courts. I think you might even need certification these days too - not sure, I don't do interpreting so it's outside my field.

So - sorry Anthony, but that's a bad idea.

Edited by SGirl on Thursday 17th December 11:15

Who says Fabien doesnt have an in depth knowledge of English as well as French? Also can you tell me where you go to learn how to read minds?? That would be a good skill to learn!

Dont you just love sweeping statements

Oh and by the way, bad ideas, Im full of them :P

[bonsai]

Gayraud? Isn't that a term the Chinese use to insult homosexuals?

[SGirl]

Anthony Micallef said:

Who says Fabien doesnt have an in depth knowledge of English as well as French? Also can you tell me where you go to learn how to read minds?? That would be a good skill to learn!

Dont you just love sweeping statements

Oh and by the way, bad ideas, Im full of them :P

I'm sure Fabien speaks really good English - he's been here 3 years, after all.

But just being able to speak a language is by no means enough to equip you for translating. It's not a simple "say *** in English and turn it into *** in French" as many (most?) people seem to think it is. It can be a very straightforward job at times, but at other times it feels like bashing your head against a brick wall. And sometimes, just sometimes, bashing my head against a brick wall would be preferable.

As for reading minds - you can never learn that, but you can learn to pre-empt some of the client requests if you know what to watch out for. It all comes with practice and experience. And without experience, ultimately someone doing English to French won't even get a foot in the door over here unless they can find an in-house position as a trainee translator - but these positions are very rare these days. TBH he'd have more chance of finding a bilingual secretary position, if he's interested in office work and trained for it.

More and more companies now are also asking for an MA in translation and/or 10 years + of proven track record in full-time translation before they'll even look at freelancers. Especially in a high-supply language like French. ISO 9001 has a lot to answer for.

If Fabien is interested in translating, I'd be happy to point him in the direction of people to talk to about it. But they'll only tell him more or less what I've just said.

And all this is before I tell you that French > English > French is apparently very quiet at the moment. The regulars with years and years of experience are having a hard time finding work. Not all languages are suffering the effects of the recession, but from talking to other translators I've heard that French is quiet.

Edited by SGirl on Thursday 17th December 14:45

[Anthony Micallef]

My dad's 1st language is French but for some reason he never passed it on to me I would love to be bi-lingual.