Hello everyone,

I'm a UK qualified pharmacist with 7 years of experience. I would like to move to a French speaking city in Switzerland as I speak French fluently.

I was wondering if anyone here is a pharmacist working in Switzerland with a UK degree. I had a look at the requirements on the OFSP website. But the process to get recognised is confusing. I even sent them a email for further informations and all I received was yes/no answers without any explanations.

Also, is there any chance for me to get a job as a pharmacist there? I don't see the point of getting my degree recognised and pay the fee if I have no chance of getting hired there.

Thank you in advance

Welcome to the forum.

Well, put it this way. If you don't get your degree recognised here you stand no chance of getting a job.

The other main problem - assuming you have no other EU nationality - is likely to be that as of January 1st 2021 UK nationals will be non-EU so will come under the non-EU hiring criteria, i.e. any Swiss employer has to prove they can't find a Swiss/EU national to do the job.

https://www.sem.admin.ch/sem/en/home...zulassung.html

Is this who you contacted?

https://www.sbfi.admin.ch/sbfi/en/ho...ropractic.html

Hi,

I'm a French citizen who moved to the UK when I was 10. So I hope I won't have any problems regarding immigration.

Yes, this is the organisation I contacted. I understand that getting my degree recognised is the 1st step. And I was wondering if anyone in this forum had to get through the same process.

With an EU nationality getting a job here shouldn't be a problem - coronavirus permitting of course.

My wife got her Polish degree recognized. Since the bilateral agreements with EU applied to her, the most important part was getting all documentation translated with certified copies and obtaining a confirmation from Polish pharmacistis association that her degree has been awarded according to the EU regulations for medical degrees. The process took circa one month, maybe a bit longer, but that was before the pandemy. As long as you follow direct degree recognition under EU rules, everything is relatively simple.

Getting a job is a different matter of course. From our experience, it's not easy to land job interviews while still being abroad and not having any experience in Switzerland (canton Zürich), but it might be different for a person with a longer experience in the field. She worked for circa 1.5 years before moving to here.

Furthermore, you will have to obtain a permit from cantonal authorities to work as a pharmacist. In Zürich, that required some additional documentation, she needed to have the language capability confirmed by MEBEKO and that requires a proof of language capabilities (at least B2 German certificate, not older than six years). She had to get certified in venipuncture and administering vaccine injections, which is not a skill required in Poland, but her employer paid for the course. I guess it might not be a common skill for Swiss graduates as well.

Thanks Yarpen for your reply.

May I ask if she managed to find a job ? And if yes, how long it took her?

I expect they would not expect a French citizen to produce a certificate proving that they can speak French!

I didn't that know OP is French while writing my post. In case of your mother tongue, they require a self-declaration.

https://www.bag.admin.ch/bag/de/home...nntnissen.html

You can always have a look and see what jobs are on offer.

www.jobs.ch
www.jobup.ch
www.monster.ch

Yes, she landed a temporary position through a Polish agency specializing in pharmaceutical jobs abroad. This took few weeks, but finding a new job here with few months of experience was much easier, I think it took slightly less than 1.5 month, because she went for one day to each pharmacy to see how they work there.

In Switzerland, things generally move slowly. Even Swiss citizens who have done their qualifications in Switzerland and have their working experience in Switzerland may find it takes many months or longer to find work. And then their notice period is 2 or 3 months.

This need not discourage you if you've accepted that this is the usual way, here. If you have a spouse supporting you, such as yarpen's wife probably had, so much the better. Very encouraging, yarpen, that things moved ahead so quickly, for your wife.

OP, other than if you are in a top niche branch of science, it is not very likely that you would be able to find work while still abroad. At least, that was the case, and it might have changed, now, because of Corona, so that perhaps an interview could be possible online.

It's really important that you specify on your letters of application and cv that you hold French nationality. That makes things so much easier for any employer.

If you're single and young-ish, one way to make the transition is to be willing to take work below your level of qualification and experience, just to pay your own way, while you look for work. I know people who've done this, for example a nurse who filled the time waiting for the registration by working as a nurse-aide, and then, when the registration came through, moved into a proper position as a professional nurse. And a physiotherapist who started out working as a barrista, and then got a real job once the papers were approved. Doing so covered their basic expenses, and did not negatively affect their employability nor salary once they went back into their professions. Of course, that's not so easy to contemplate if you have dependents.

Thank you doropfiz for your message,

I at least know what I have to do now. I'm married but no kids, so it would have been ideal to move now but I'm tied up with my current employer till April 2021.
In the meantime, I'm gonna start the process of having my degree recognised.

Thank you Yarpen,

I had no idea that I could go through a local agency to find a job abroad. I will look into it.

Do you know how she finds working there ? Is it similar to the polish system ?

Bear in mind it's going to be different for you. Poland is part of the EU and as such agencies can help in finding jobs here. As you'll be a non-EU (from January 2021) they can do nothing; it's the employer who has to apply for a permit for you. No agency can do that on their behalf.

I believe the OP is French ...

He is, he said so in his second post in this thread.

Ah, yes, I forgot they had French nationality.

Here is some more info - legal basis: https://www.admin.ch/opc/fr/classifi...265/index.html


And the body for recognition (pharmacists'diplomas) is MEBEKO (and not SBFI): https://www.bag.admin.ch/bag/fr/home...on-mebeko.html


Good luck

You're welcome :-)

I'm not sure if there's such agency in your current country of residence or in France. It might be specific to Poland, since we have a significant number of medical professionals looking for employment abroad due to much better working conditions. Yes, there are differences when compared to her previous work in a Polish pharmacy, but again, this might be caused by deficiences of our system. There are no vaccinations there, and the concept of pharmaceutical care doesn't exist yet.

I agree here with doropfiz: I can't tell you if our case is a rule or exception. I hope that it goes swiftly for you, but job interviews can take time. Furthermore, my wife was looking in the vicinity of Zürich and there are multiple job openings here all the time.

The process of direct diploma recognition is very clearly described on MEBEKO website, they even enumerate all documents you need and explain clearly each requirement - see the first PDF below (website is available in French as well). Swiss authorities recognize and authorize degrees awarded according to EU directive 2005/36/EC. I can't give you a guarantee, but I think that you should have no problems as long as your UK degree fulfills that requirement (which should be the case, right?). The process costed us 800 CHF. I wouldn't wait with it if I were you, since I have no idea what's going to happen next year - I guess that MEBEKO bureaucrats don't know either :-)

https://www.bag.admin.ch/bag/de/home...g-diplome.html