Finding Work in Galway - Galway, Ireland

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Galway, Ireland I walked into La Salsa, a small Mexican restaurant on Mary St. in Galway, and asked about a job. "I think we'll be hiring fairly soon," said the man behind the counter. "Have you got a C.V?" I reached into my backpack, retrieved a copy, and handed it to him. He looked it over, and asked me a few questions. No, I've never worked at a Mexican restaurant before, but I have worked in food service; and I'm a fast learner. Yes, I can start immediately. He nodded seemingly satisfied with my answers and said he'd let me know. "What do you think my chances are?" I asked. He reached behind the counter and held up a stack of resumes about five inches thick. "These are from today and yesterday," he said dropping them back on the counter with thud. Conversations like this are familiar to anyone who has tried to find summer work in Galway. The third largest city in Ireland, Galway, with around eighty thousand people, is one the fastest growing cities in Western Europe, and there is a reason for this. Throughout its history, Galway has been a magnet for artists, musicians, writers, hipsters, and young people from all over the world. This is largely attributable to all the music in the air. One only has to walk through the city center to see what I mean. Among the colorful shop fronts, numerous pubs, and old buildings, dating back to seventeenth century, are a slew of musicians, puppeteers, dancers, and jugglers all showcasing there skills for passers by. I once saw a man push a small piano into the middle of the street and sit for hours pounding out jazz, rag time and blues classics. The music is not limited to the street. Almost every pub has live music after 9 p.m. Pubs like the King's Head, The Quay's, the Roisin Dub, Sally Long's, and the Cellar Bar, all have different bands playing popular rock songs every night of the week. If traditional Irish music, called trad, is more your cup of tea, there are plenty of pubs, like Taaffe's or Tig Neachtain, which feature instrumental Irish favorites. There's also the Galway arts festival. The festival, which is held the middle two weeks of July, is filled with plays, concerts, exhibitions, and a huge slew of street events. This leads up to the Galway races, a huge weeklong horse race which is one of the biggest sporting events in Western Europe. Because of this, young people from all over the world opt to spend anywhere from a few months to a year in Galway. Europeans, who are legally entitled to work anywhere in the E.U. flock there for a change of scenery during their summer break, as do Australians, New Zealanders, Canadians, and Americans who like myself come with student work visas. Spend a few days in Galway, and you'll meet people from all over the world, and this certainly contributes to the wild, endless carnival that is Galway; but it doesn't help much when you're looking for work. I had come to Ireland expecting to find work in a pub, but this hope was dashed my first night in town while I enjoyed a pint with two Canadians I'd just met. The pair had been working in Galway for the past nine months, and I asked what my chances were of finding work in a pub. "Have you got experience?" they asked. I hadn't. "Then you'll be working at McDonalds," they laughed. At the time, I'd hoped this was an exaggeration, but after about a week of looking and no leeds, I applied at the only two McDonalds franchises in town. Neither would hire me. My first few weeks in town were an utter mess of walking through the city center, stopping in at pubs, restaurants, Internet cafes, fast food places, hotels, any place that might be hiring. I'd drop off a C.V., the manager would assure me that he'd call soon, and I'd never hear from him again. Everyday from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m., I looked for work. No one was hiring, and I was getting desperate. The exchange rate was killing me. I knew the dollar was weak; but I hadn't expected these kinds of prices. My hostel alone was $25 a day. I needed to find work. Soon. "It just takes a couple of weeks," said Chris, an American college student who was working as a night porter at my hostel. "You have to stick it out. When I first got here, I had a hard time finding a job. I looked a couple of weeks. My euros started to get low, but after three weeks I got the night porter job, and everyone else I met found a job in about two to three weeks." This advice proved to be prophetic. Three weeks to the day after I arrived in Galway, I was offered a job as a chef in a fifties style café where I worked the rest of the summer, but I'm convinced it was my determination and not fate that led to my success. While I was looking for work, I met two guys from Newfoundland who had also planned to work in Galway. They checked into the hostel, met all the people looking for work, and were immediately discouraged. After a little under a week of looking, they gave up on Galway and ventured out into other parts of the country. Timing is important. Most businesses haven't started hiring yet in the last week of April. All the jobs are gone by the first week in June. So you've really got to stick to it in May if you're going to find anything. Galway is definitely the big leagues, but for those lucky few, it's a great place to spend a summer.


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