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Hello Dakka dakka readers and "ancients".
My name is Alan and I am writing this proposal to you in hope that somebody will somehow be able to help me.
I am living in former Yugoslavia and situation is not so bright here, long story short me and my wife are both college educated but as a situation is complete mess here we cant find "normal" jobs (by normal I think about jobs which provide worker with salary that is enough for a normal life). I have a son that is three years old and right now I am afraid that I wont be able to provide him with anything while he grows up. I have finished law school and my wife is lower grade teacher but I am working as a receptionist and she is working as a sales person in groceries store.
The reason I am writing this here is hope that someone who is employing or is interested in employing someone will read this and get in contact with me to help me save my life and to help me bright the future for my only child.
I am not looking for a charity but for a chance to prove myself as a good employee to the good employer which knows how to appreciate his employees or co workers.
I dont have any illusions about working in law "branch" (since I finished law school based on Roman law and most of Dakka people are living in a Anglo American law systems) but I am willing to work any job and for anyone whose work ethics are similar or same as mine (no work is hard if it it is honest and paid adequately).
If someone is having a immigration service or is a job owner or has some idea to help me to leave this countries please contact me over PM and I will send you my CV right away and then we will see if we can find something out.
P.S. Me and my son are EU citizens but my wife isnt
P.S.S. I really hope that I am not breaking any Dakka Dakka rule that I am not aware of, if I am please delete this topic and I apologize in advance.

I have been on Dakka a fair while and I have not seen many people on these forums from your area so I am not sure how likely you are to reach someone positioned to help here. In truth I'm not sure I've ever seen a Bosnian flag here before your post.

Are you just looking to immigrate elsewhere? That might go better, lots of EU dakkaroos - not sure how that applies to your wife.

Best of luck.

Well to be honest I am looking to go somewhere out of former Yugoslavian territory or to put it otherwise I would prefer to immigrate somewhere else while I am not too old for that (currently 30).
I am Croat but currently working in Bosnia.
Thank you for best wishes.

You try KFOR positions? Look up DoS positions. Better yet USAID

Navigate the site. I cannot offer anymore. Start a network with an organization tied to the US.

Thank you Jihadin for advice been looking trough those sites already but I dont meet required criteria for most of the jobs or vacancies offered.

Your going to have go "outside the box" and perhaps relocate. I would say try KBR as contractors but we are out of Iraq and they lost their contract in Afghanistan. KBR hire a very large number of individuals in your area though for positions around the world.

 Jihadin wrote:
Your going to have go "outside the box" and perhaps relocate. I would say try KBR as contractors but we are out of Iraq and they lost their contract in Afghanistan. KBR hire a very large number of individuals in your area though for positions around the world.

Fluor and Dyncorp are really big in Afghanistan right now.

My wife is non EU citizen so I have some experience of the UK rules on immigration.

As an EU citizen you have the right to move to and work in any EU country. Or I think you can move and claim social security. Your child of course can come with you.

Your wife will have more difficulty unless you have a steady job earning over about £18,000 a year (for UK). Even then it is a lot of hassle.

You would need to first get your wide a spouse visa, which lasts for two years. This will cost about £800. It will allow her to live in the UK and access services like NHS but not social security. After nearly two years you need to apply for the indefinite leave to remain (ILR) which grants her most of the same rights as a UK citizen. This will cost £1,200 or more. She has to take a test of English language ability and of British culture. After that she could work here, draw social security, and basically the only things denied would be voting and

Be warned that the rules on all this are badly explained, change often, and are not properly understood by the people in charge of administering them. But if your application is genuine and well prepared, with lots of evidence, you should succeed.

As for jobs, the situation is perhaps not as good as people think in the UK. Your law degree may be some use. It shows at least you can take a degree and also understand legal processes. It may be worth looking into legal jobs in the UK. The UK system must often deal with European systems (Roman law, etc) and your training and language skills would be useful.

First of all thank you all for fast replies and encouragement, I really need that, and also it is great to be part of such a great community like Dakka dakka.
@Killkrazy - yes I feel your pain you endured fighting administration we went also trough that more then once, since we are different nationalities but our son is same nationality like me but was born in foreign country. You should see face of a lady at registration office when I asked her how come that non-Croat mother can give birth to a Croat child .She was left with her mouth wide open without finding right words to explain it to me (of course I was joking but nevertheless it was funny at the moment).
@Sasori and Jihadin - thank you both for recommendation of those companies I will look trough those jobs this evening and try to find something to apply for it.

I opened this topic to get recommendation like these and advices also but also in hope that someone from Dakka members is owner of company of any kind that is willing to employ someone. I know it is a long shot but I had to try it because time is flying by and somehow I must admit that I am bit afraid not for me but for my family. You know here in Slav countries there is a saying that if you dont learn and study that you will have to dig holes for your living but right now I think it would be better if I spent those years I "lost" studying practicing and mastering some kind of hole digging or any other practical skills, at least it would be much easier for me to find some job.

dubovac wrote:
First of all thank you all for fast replies and encouragement, I really need that, and also it is great to be part of such a great community like Dakka dakka.
@Killkrazy - yes I feel your pain you endured fighting administration we went also trough that more then once, since we are different nationalities but our son is same nationality like me but was born in foreign country. You should see face of a lady at registration office when I asked her how come that non-Croat mother can give birth to a Croat child .She was left with her mouth wide open without finding right words to explain it to me (of course I was joking but nevertheless it was funny at the moment).
@Sasori and Jihadin - thank you both for recommendation of those companies I will look trough those jobs this evening and try to find something to apply for it.

I opened this topic to get recommendation like these and advices also but also in hope that someone from Dakka members is owner of company of any kind that is willing to employ someone. I know it is a long shot but I had to try it because time is flying by and somehow I must admit that I am bit afraid not for me but for my family. You know here in Slav countries there is a saying that if you dont learn and study that you will have to dig holes for your living but right now I think it would be better if I spent those years I "lost" studying practicing and mastering some kind of hole digging or any other practical skills, at least it would be much easier for me to find some job.

Well, the Dakka OT community never fails to surprise me. Whenever I think I've seen everything, there is a new, even stranger thread.
Dakka may seem a strange place for such requests at first, but using your connections, no matter how strange, is always good for finding jobs. As the Dutch say: "A shot never taken is a shot always missed."

Just out of curiosity, what nationality is your wife? Croatia is an EU member, so as Croats, at least you and your son should have no problem emigrating. Another question out of curiosity, does Croatia have such economical problems? I always had the impression it was doing quite well. I'll be visiting Croatia in the coming weeks, so I guess I'll see for myself.
In any case, my family was once in pretty much the same position as yours (albeit not under any kind of pressure except my mother's desire to immigrate and a very good job offer for my father). My mother and I were EU citizens, but my father, as an Ukrainian citizen, was not. But he was able to find a job in Berlin and get a working visa. And now I don't know the specifics, but after a while, my father got a job in the Netherlands and there he was able to apply for naturalisation because he had a Dutch wife and child and a job. He succesfully completed a naturalisation course and got a Dutch passport.
So, if your wife would be able to find a job somewhere in the EU, she would be able to get a visa of some kind, which would allow her to naturalise after a certain amount of years. And I don't know exactly, but there may be some countries that allow the spouse to come over as well if the husband is an EU citizen.

P.S.: This may be of interest to you if you would be looking to immigrating to the Netherlands: http://www.expatica.com/nl/essentials_moving_to/essentials/Dutch-residence-permits-for-family-reunification-with-EEA-Swiss-EU-citizens-in-the-Netherlands_18661.html
As a Croatian citizen, you could get a certificate of lawful residence if you find a job in the Netherlands, and it appears that your spouse, as long as she is married to an EU citizen, will be able to get a certificate of lawful residence which allows her to live and work in the Netherlands. The only thing I am wondering about is how it works for Croatians/Bulgarians/Romanians and other new EU members.
P.P.S.: This is the same guide, but for Germany. Maybe other EU countries can be found there as well: http://www.expatica.com/nl/essentials_moving_to/essentials/How-to-move-to-Germany-legally_-visas-and-citizenship_13866.html

@Iron_Captain - To answer your question my wife is Bosnian so in most countries she wont have too much problems emigrating if I find job which is paid enough for granting certificates of lawful residence. In most cases salary needs to be around 1600,00 € for a couple, and of course I dont plan to come illegally to some foreign country to suck its social help programs I just want to work and be paid for it.

About situation in Croatia - the war which was waged here in the 90s left Croatia pretty devastated but the main problems is not devastation brought by war but criminal activity after the war and bad "handling" of the states interests by politicians and big centralization.
Criminal activity - as with most former communist or socialist countries we suffered a lot from dwindling economy because our products werent competitive on global scale and main income to that industries came from SSSR, Cuba and other nonaligned countries like Libya etc. Those companies and their properties were sold by country for ridiculously small amount to the war profiteers (smugglers, ex war generals etc.) which then resold it to the country back for enormous amount of money (they were sucking legally money out of national banks and foreign help which came during the war).
Bad handling of internal and foreign politics - Should I say more then our former prime minister is in jail sentenced for now for around 20 years and still waiting for some more cases to be opened against him. The politic party that prime minister was head of was sentenced as a criminal organization and they were leading party for around 17 years during our 25 years of independence (they are still active and probably will win next elections since their opposition is totally incompetent even for low expectations of Croatian citizens ).
Centralization - most of the money goes to the capital of Zagreb and they do just fine but rest of Croatia is in near bankruptcy condition. Since you said you will visit Croatia, I presume that you go to the Adriatic sea so ask them what do they think about Zagreb and situation in Croatia.
Big problem is that Croatia present itself as a country that is doing just fine and everything is OK but in truth a lot of population lives on loans (not to buy houses, cars etc but to sustain itself, one absurd example is products which are made in Croatia are cheaper outside of county borders). We have VAT around 26% on everything, we sold our oil company to the Hungary, we export our quality wood to Italy for small price then import sub par furniture from them for enormous prices, we had disastrous floods this year which devastated farmers land but our prime minister didnt want any financial help from EU and comforted one women that lost everything with following sentence: "I know how you feel, last year pipe broke in my bathroom" etc., but yes we have really good commercials on world TV networks.

Hi Alan,

Fellow lawyer here from Vienna. I've been handling a lot of immigration proceedings and have years of experience in dealing with trans-national private law. Allow me to offer a few pieces of advice:

1) If you believe that you can not put your education to use (I would disagree here) and consequently aim for "lower tier" jobs, you should be aware that only a small minority of continental European companies will even be willing to look at your application before you have relocated to the country in question FIRST and have completed all the necessary proceedings for you AND your family (your wife, in this case). This would put you and your family in a risky position until you find work, and I'd generally advise against it.

2) Forget Roman Law / Common Law - your law degree is 90% worthless as soon as you leave your country of origin, no matter the legal heritage. If you want to retain a chance on the job market, you will have to find a connection between your potential foreign employer and YOUR expertise in YOUR legal system. For Austria, the first things that come to mind would be the United Nations, OSCE, OMV (mineral oil company), the large travel agents or even notaries, banks and real estate brokers dealing with real estate and other property in Dalmatia. Depending on your work experience so far, your chances might not be so bad there.

Contact those. Ask if they would consider employing you. If the answer is "no", ask why. Build a list of potential employers that signaled their interest for every country you are seriously considering. Then work from there.

3) If you can, capitalize on language skills. Did you learn Russian, German, French, Spanish, Italian or Hungarian? How many Balkan languages do you at least understand (actively speaking them is secondary)? This is a point that can set you apart from typical Middle Europeans, use it to your advantage!

4) You and your wife probably need to get your university degrees "approbated", as judging by your age yours will not be recognized automatically in most EU countries. Get that process started after compiling a list of promising potential employers, but before applying for the job, or, failing that, at least before the interview. A non-recognized degree is no degree.


If you have any questions regarding the specific immigration process in Austria or Germany, feel free to drop me a PM and I'll help.