***Taken from my personal blog: http://welshboymeetschile.weebly.com/the-blog
Exams are finally coming to an end which means I am so close to being free once again! The semester has been great, I’ve met so many people, my Spanish has come a long way and I know I’ve made some friends which I will keep for a very long time! And if I’m ever in the US, I’m pretty sure I’ve got a place to stay in nearly every state. So look out America, you are likely to be hit with the full force of Furlong in the near future!
What many of you don’t know, as that I’m not actually here to study two whole semesters, instead of studying for a second semester, I have to get a job! I have been worried that I wasn’t going to find anything at all, but in the past few weeks I have gotten more jobs than I can handle, I sort of maybe kind of have 4 now! I never thought I would ever be in a situation where I could say that I have too many jobs and have to start turning some down, but c’est la vie!
So let me tell you a bit about the jobs I currently have, and if anyone reading this ever plans to go to Chile on a year abroad to work, I hope this article can act as a good basis for you to start looking for jobs!
1. The first job I got about 3 weeks ago and it is for a StartUp company which deals with reports on Chilean trade and economy, who were looking for a Social Media intern. I sent them my blog and they were very impressed with my style of writing and surprisingly offered me the job after just sending them a few emails. I was ecstatic when I first received the news because it meant that I would definitely have a concrete plan in place for the new year.
I found the job through a website called StartUps Chile, and this is not the last time I will mention this organisation in this article. So far in my short time here, it has been amazing for me. As someone who has always wanted to work for a start-up, it is perfect. They offer internships in many different varieties of enterprises. From my experience, this ranged from a social platform to share unique types of art from throughout the world, to a position as a “Sales Ninja” in an advertising firm. If you are a developer, it surely helps, there are so many opportunities!
2. The second job I received was from a newspaper for expats. My original plan was to work for a newspaper, but the one I had in mind was conveniently shutting down when I applied. However, I struck gold when I found an advertisement on Facebook for a different expat paper based in my city. I contacted them immediately after finding the advertisement and got invited to come down to the office for an interview. Again, I showed them my blog as a writing sample and they were very impressed and offered me a position. I would advise anybody going on a year abroad to keep a blog, not only to keep a record of what you did and to bring your readers into your exciting new world, but to act as a great writing sample which a lot of employers will ask for.
I absolutely loved the atmosphere working with the newspaper. They told me I could be a journalist, I could have my own radio show, the opportunity to go to some amazing events within Chile (if I take photos and write about it that is) and they would encourage me to travel. The majority of the team is Chilean which would also be great for my Spanish! Straight after the interview, I got thrown in at the deep end. Someone was running a story on abortion and she came in to share her opinions and get feedback. Being the only guy in a group of 4 Chilean girls, an Argentinian woman and a British girl, I felt very uncomfortable as the conversation slowly took a turn away from abortion towards a long, complicated and controversial conversation about the female genitalia, the details of which I don’t particularly want to go into. They never covered that kind of vocabulary in Stage 5 Spanish!
3. Moving swiftly on that vivid story, let me tell you about job 3. It sounds absolutely frickin’ incredible! It is a start-up which is kind of like the bus version of SkyScanner in South America. For those of you who don’t know what SkyScanner is, it is the best website ever for finding cheap flights. It compares the prices from almost every airline and makes sure there are no hidden fees! It has come in handy for my travelling so far! Anyway, this company does exactly the same but with buses. It is a full-time job, 5 days a week which wants me to travel to every university in Chile from what I gather. I would be doing marketing in a team of three with two other Chileans. I have been told I would receive the salary of 2 and a half people, my hostels would be paid for when travelling, I get free bus tickets, and quite possibly the opportunity to meet Michelle Bachelet who is only the frickin’ president of Chile! Who else can say they’ve done that on a year abroad!?
How could I possibly consider turning such an amazing opportunity down? It sounds a bit demanding. I don’t think I’m in the position where I want to be taking a full-time job which wants me to live and breath the business! I’m a student, on an incredible experience in a foreign country and I don’t want such tight restrictions on my freedom. Yes, I would get to travel a lot and get paid a fair bit of money, but I would have next to no free time and I still have a big-ass project to do for my University in England! I haven’t turned it down yet, but I’m having a good think about it. The next job I have doesn’t help my decision though.
4. Job number four, owning my own business! So I went to a Start-Up Weekend which will be the focus of my next article and I won! It is a competition where you pitch a business idea and have 54 hours to develop it and pitch it in front of a panel of judges. My idea won, and as the founder of the business and leader of the team, I won a new Laptop! And for those of you who know me well, you know how much I complain about my suck-ass laptop which crashes every time you click the mouse, so this was the best prize I could have possibly won! Now, we are continuing working on the project, having just gotten on board another developer who will help us with the website and mobile app design! It’s really exciting, and like a dream come true for me. If it continues at this rate, I could end up finding myself being the founder of a start-up in Chile, which is an incredible thing to put on my CV!
The chief director of the organisation that organised the start-up weekend has also been in contact with me. He was very impressed with me, my presentation style and the idea, and he is keen on getting me more involved with the start-up scene in Chile, and it is my call whether or not this means carrying on with the current business. As of yet I am not sure what this means, whether he wants to help us develop, get funding and mentorship, or whether he wants to discuss other ideas with me to just get me involved. Either way, I am damn well excited to find out!
Here’s a picture of the Fantastic Five who won the competition right there!
Now I have a tough decision to make. Four exciting opportunities and I can only choose one (unless I choose the newspaper, with which I will have a bit more flexibility to continue with my own business). Do I go with one where I could potentially meet the president of Chile, one where I could quite possibly get more intriguing conversations about the female thingamabob and my own radio show, or do I play the long and risky game and see how it goes with a start-up with which if all goes well I could possibly continue on returning to the UK?
If you want to offer me any advice or make a decision for me, please leave me a comment or send me a message on Facebook, Twitter or whatever. It would be awesome to get some more reader engagement on here, so I look forward to hearing anyone’s opinions!
That’s it for this one, the next article will also be released very shortly to tell you more about my business idea and the start-up weekend itself! Watch this space!
