After almost three months of fruitless job searching, someone has finally recognized genius and swooped me up. The loooong process that took me from unhireable foreigner to owner of French working papers picked up when we decided to get married. Before then, I would have had to convince a potential employer to pay 800 or so euros and slave over a heap of paperwork in order to hire me. But after the wedding in May, things got more hopeful. Of course then I had to wait three months to get my titre de sejour (ie. right to work in France). After getting my working papers, I scoured through want ads that were either for stages (internships- It seems there are 50 internships for every one job in Paris) or for positions that had nothing to do with my background. I talked to people that had been searching for work for five months to a year before finding something good. It got to the point where I was writing cover letters that read: "Though my past experiences have been in journalism and fashion, I have always at heart wanted to be the coordinator responsible for European projects in the field of public health." And try writing that in French by the way. I can speak and write French pretty comfortably by now but French cover letters are another language on their own. They could translate to something like this:
Madame, Monsieur,
I am delighted to see that you look for (insert job title), position that is perfectly suitable to me. It seems to me passionate to work for you. I implore that you well find my enclosed cv(resumé). Please accept the expression of my distinguished sentiments.
I won't get into the specifics of the new job as I think employment and blogging should be kept far enough apart as overlapping the two is potential for trouble. But I will say that it is for a designer based in Paris' 1st arrondisement. Cork the champagne already!