Hi everyone. I am currently considering a move to Switzerland to follow my mostly German boyfriend of one year (born in Kreuzlingen, grew up in Konstanz, Swiss mother/German father). He has been in the UK for 11 years after moving here with his family as a teenager and has been growing increasingly homesick, not helped by Brexit and the rest of his family moving. His parents are now in Graubünden and his brother has just accepted a job in Winterthur and will be leaving next month.
He has a Skype interview for a job in Basel tomorrow and is also considering jobs in Zürich. At the moment he is an account manager for a tech company, so looking for something similar.
I would love to come with him if I am able to get a job. I studied German at university and my German is a bit rusty but still decent. Of course I can practice with him in the meantime. I have worked as an in-house translator and EFL tutor before but don't have any formal qualifications, which makes me uneasy about being able to get a job here. Since then, I have mostly had admin assistant jobs in banks. So we'll see! I guess I will mostly be found on the jobs board in the meantime.

Welcome to the forum.

Well, that's going to be the problem I expect. Still it never hurts to try, but be aware that the emphasis here is for employers to try and hire people who already have a permit to live/work here so not having one will put you down the list.

As an EU national (for now) you can come here for up to 3 months as a tourist and look for work. If you don't find a job in that timeframe you can then apply for an L job seeker permit for another 3 month period, providing you have sufficient funds to support yourself.

Here are some websites to try:

www.jobs.ch
www.jobup.ch
www.monster.ch
www.monster.co.uk (yes they have Swiss jobs advertised, you just need to change the location to access them)

You/he might also look at the possibility of a concubine permit for you. It's for unmarried hetreosexual couples, but he would have to agree to be financially responsible for you for 5 years, not all cantons offer this permit and it may be that your relationship hasn't been going long enough for this to be possible.

Sign up to www.indeed.ch and complete your profile on there. You'll receive a daily email of new vacancies which may be suitable for you.

If you are young, are up for the adventure, and wouldn't be sacrificing a career or a whole lot else by moving, then - since you have no real qualifications and need to brush up your German before you can get "serious" employment - you might consider simply taking any job you can find and which will cover your bills, for that year that you'll need to find your niche here.

That way, you'd have a permit in your own right, rather than being dependent on what your partner does.

Here's this forum's bumper thread about finding work without qualifications, started by someone with very different circumstances from yours, but helpful in that is has a range of perpectives.
https://www.englishforum.ch/employme...fications.html

You might also find some of the discussion on this thread interesting, from someone else who is carefully thinking through the options before Brexit possibly closes the door.
https://www.englishforum.ch/permits-...erland-uk.html

Just checked back on this thread, thank you so much everyone for the advice! I will check out all the links this evening.

As an update, we are now moving to Winterthur next week!
I will be starting an MA in Translation at the ZHAW, and he will be working in Zürich!