Bonjour, Geneva here!
I’ve been doing my practical training here since the end of March in a recruitment agency, so I have been here for a few months by now. To sum everything up quickly, Geneva seems so much more than a city the size of Tampere (by population)!
The summer here has been extremely beautiful (nothing like Finland, eh?), but of course there’s more to that than the eye can see. Working in a office, where the temperature is +40 degrees celsius, with no air conditioning is not the most pleasant experience. Furthermore, try doing that for three weeks straight.
I’ve been working long hours at the office, but the more I think of it, the more I realize, that most Swiss people do that their entire lives. The Finnish system with regular 9-to-5 days does not prevail here, and it is almost expected from you to work at least nine hours a day, often ten, eleven, or twelve. Then again, you do learn much more about what you are doing.
The work itself has been interesting, yet extremely challenging. I’m still trying to get used to a completely different pace of work and several recruitment processes I was completely new to, but I feel, that I’m getting more and more into the job day by day. Most of my days go by interviewing candidates on the phone and searching for potential ones online.
Thankfully I also have some spare time, and the other weekend me and my girlfriend visited a beautiful mountain range not far from Geneva. In fact, only an hour and a half drive away.
The trip was wonderful, and the hike took approximately five hours circling around the mountainside. We also went to Lac Blanc, a beautiful mountain lake at approximately at 2400 meters.
Life here can be complicated at times (people on the French side just do not speak English!!!) due to my non-existent French skills and the lack of interest in serving me from the customer service’s side, but overall the pros overcome the cons. Besides, I have never lived so close to an airport, so it is good fun to watch planes from around the world take off and land. 🙂
The workload does not seem to decrease, nor does the temperature seem to go down much, but life in Geneva is all ways good!
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