Hi guys!!!!
By now you should know all about the application process, what to expect upon arrival and what you must do on your first few days and also how to go about finding housing. If you are still unclear about anything from previous posts feel free to email me at sanfranj1@gmail.com. In this post i will give you as much info and help as i can regarding the job hunt.
When seeking work there is one thing you need to do. It is highly important. You MUST keep your head up and dont loose focus. Dont loose motivation and dont fear rejection. Most of you will not be so lucky to just walk straight into a job. you have to hunt one down. You may not get a job in the first place you look. The best thing to do is to apply to as many jobs as you can. Keep looking until you get one. When you have got a job sorted you can then start to party. Dont think you cant party while looking for a job. Business' dont stay open all day long :-).
I will now give you some suggestions on typical jobs for J1ers.
1. Tourism sector - San Francisco has the highest influx of tourists during the summer than any other city in the US. Therefore there are an abundance of jobs in this industry. Get down to the Fishermans Wharf and check out all the tour operators. These will always be hiring peolpe during the summer. Hint: Go into a hotel and check the rack that has flyers and leaflets on activities in San Francisco. These will have info on all the tour operators in SF.
2. Catering sector - This kinda goes together with the tourism sector as tourists need to eat. SF has a ridiculous amount of restraunts. You may have luck finding a job in one of these restraunts. This may be difficult as it is notoriously hard to get wok in a restraunt unless you have experience. Bars, Your Irish, check out the amount of Irish bars in the city. And alot of them have no irish people working in them. This may be a big help when looking for work.
3. Hospitality - There are so many hotels/motels/hostels in SF it is not funny. This might be an ideal job for some. It is a good proposition as there are alot of different areas you can work in a hotel. Bar/administration/valet/room services/custodial etc... check the big ones websites i.e. marriott, hyatt etc.. these will usually post jobs online.
4. Retail - Again SF has a huge retail trade. The westfield shopping centre is like an enormous version of the dundrum shopping centre. It is located at Powell St. station on market street. There is also Stonestown Mall on 19th ave beside SFSU (San Francisco State University). Haight street is also a high end retail area. If retail is what you are after then check out these three places. Dont limit yourself to these places alone as there are oads more shopping areas.
5. Removals - This one would be for people who like a bit of hard labour. This is basically working for a company who move furniture and all sorts. There is a huge industry in this sector as there is alot of moving taking place in the city. I dont know much about how to find work in this sector. I met a few guys last summer who worked doing this and said it was a great job and good pay. You can check craigslist for this. I hear that there are alot of these types of jobs posted here.
6. Construction - I cant really give you much info on this, just that i know a few guys who did this last summer and got PAID!!!! I believe these guys got their jobs through the GAA. There is a huge GAA community in SF and if you play then you will make contacts who will help you out. We tend to take care of our own.
7. Theme-parks - You should check out Great America in Santa Clara. This is a huge themeparks that has a water park also in it. Again it is a seasonal business so they will offer loads of part time jobs during the summer. Waterworld in Concord is also another themepark that can offer jobs. This would be easier to get to as it is on the BART line.
Here are a few websites you can use to find jobs:
http://www.snagajob.com/
http://www.j1jobs.com/
http://www.monster.com/
http://www.themeparkjobs.com/
http://www.waterworldcalifornia.com/
http://www.cagreatamerica.com/
These are the main areas that you should concentrate your search for work. I know people who worked in all these areas last year. Use craigslist to look for jobs. You can find one off jobs here that can get you a few hundred bucks to keep you going. My advice is to really really search the Wharf for work. there are so many business down there that need extra employees to help with the increased demand during the summer. Its your best bet. TRY EVERYWHERE. I would also like to tell you that you are now the minority and should be prepared to do the jobs you wouldnt do at home. At the end of the day its a paycheck, it will keep you going, its a job you only plan on having to get you drunk so who cares. But dont sell yourself to short.
So, to sum up. TRY TRY TRY TRY. Dont give up. Dont loose heart. Dont loose focus and keep going. Something will go your way eventually.
Hopefuly there is enough information here to help you find a job. Again, if you need more help email me at sanranj1@gmail.com. I know of a few places that you would have a good chance of getting work.
Next up i will be a post about the transport network and how to get around the city of San Francisco and the Bay Area in general.
Talk to you guys very soon!!!!
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Housing and Accommodation!!!
Hi Guys!!!!
Sorry for the long break between my last post and now. I was organising my own visa to return to San Francisco in April. I finally got all the paperwork finished and sent in. It was a messy ordeal but i got it sorted eventually thanks to the helpfull staff at USIT. THANKS GILLIAN, your a star. So i am just waiting on my job to be approved and get my visa finalised. Roll on April 8th WOOOOHOOOO!!!!!!
In my last post, at the end, i said i would talk a bit about housing and accommodation in my next post. Well i guess i better do this now. Upon finishing reading this post you should have enough info to get yourself housed and ready to enjoy your summer. Once you have found diggs there will be a load taken off and you can relax.
I guess i will start off by freaking you out a little and giving you the horror story first. Its not that much of a horror story really. I guess by now you know that housing is pricey in San Francisco. I have a theory as to the reason. My theory is that San Francisco is sitting on top of the San Andreas fault line and is prone to earthquakes. Im sure you have all heard of the 2 big ones. One in 1906 and the other in 1989. These are the two most horrific ones that caused the most amount of destruction. What you may not know is that San Francisco experiences earthquakes quite freaquently. Dont worry though, you cant even notice them they are so small. Well i believe that this is the reason for the high prices of housing. The insurance must be very high as there is the constant threat of earthquakes. This in turn will lead to higher rents.
If you have made the decision to go to San Francisco then you are willing to pay these prices. The way around these high prices is to wedge a load of you into one apartment. The more you get the lower your rent. Dont over do it though becasue it will get cramped and at times may get unbearable.
Last summer i had my accommodation sorted before i left. This was such a relief as we could move in straight away. It may be more difficult for you to organise it before you go as you will not be in the city. I was lucky as i had friends already living there who helped me out alot. Basically sorted it out for me. As i will be there in April i will gladly help anyone i can, if you need it that is.
So, down to the important info of this post. To start off you will need to know where to look for your housing. The best place is on craigslist (www.craigslist.org). This is where practically every person in the city goes to get a new apartment. craigslist is a beast. you can get everything you need on it. EVERYTHING. It is handy for jobs too. For the housing aspect i will give you a run down on how to use it.
1. log onto www.craigslist.org
2. click on SF Bay Area
3. click apts/housing
4. depending on where you want to live you have 2 options. To live in the city itself click the San Francisco tab. If you want to live in Berkeley click the East Bay tab.
5. choose the neighbourhood you wish to live. For Berkeley choose Berkeley and not Berkeley north/hills. For the city then just choose what ever district you want. I will do a later post on the different neighbourhoods of San Francisco.
6. put in the range you wish to spend on rent, the number of bedrooms you desire and then check the "has image" box so it filters out ones without pictures of the apartment. you dont have to do this if you want a wider search. I just like to see the apartment before hand so i dont waste my time.
So that is how you find yuor housing on craigslist. Now i will give you some tips that will be very usefull when getting in contact with the apartments. It will usually be carried out through e-mail first, some have phone numbers displayed and you can easily call them. If you are looking to have it sorted before you leave then it will be best to use e-mail. I will now give you some tips to make this easier, as you will more than likely be sending loads of mails to loads of different apartments.
1. Draw up a template email and save it. This can then be weasily copied and pasted to your email and saves a hell of alot of time.
2. Create a folder on your desktop and call it "housing". Inside this folder create some sub-folders and call them the names of the different districts of San Francisco. This is so you can save the ads that you have replied to so you know where abouts in the city they are.
3. Each ad will generally have a "reply to" address at the ver top. It will generally look like this hous-xjrpg-1653149791@craigslist.org. This is the address you send your mail to. some will have no reply to address on the top but you will find it somewhere else in the ad.
4. When you have sent the e-mail you should open up a word document and copy and paste the ad to it. Copy from the very top, where it shows the price and number of rooms in big bold text, right down to the very end where it gives the "posting ID". Now save this into whatever sub-folder it belongs in. The reason for saving it is because any replies you get will not com back from the email address you sent it to. You will get a reply from your original mail and you can locate the ad from the address you originally sent it to. This may be confusing to read but believe me it will be a million more times confusing and frustrating when you get a reply about an apartment and you dont know which one it was. This is a tip i was given from my friends living in San Francisco.
Now that i have given you tips on how to locate apartments i will give you a brief rundown on what type of prices to expect. Well, for a 2 bed apartment you can pay anywhere from $2000 up to $3500, depending on where it is located. some areas are far more expensive than others. A studio apartment could cost you anywhere from $800 to $2000. Some apartments are bigger than others and nicer than others. The apartment i lived in last summer was 2 bed and 2 bath. It was huge and there were only 4 of us in it. It cost us $2400 a month. We could have easily had8 8 people live in it. one bedroom comfortably holding 4 people ad the other 3 and then you could have had a few stragglers in the sitting room. I know of a group in the same apartments as us that had 10 people in the same size place as us. The were only paying $240 each a month. Very affordable.
So, this is a good bit of info for you and some tips. If you have any questions feel free to ask me sanfranj1@gmail.com . also contact me if there is stuff i missed that you think should be posted. And one last reason to contact me, I will be there in a few weeks and would gladly help anyone who may need any help getting settled or needing help finding apartments or just looking for any info in general about the city.
I reckon my next post will be about jobs and employment. stay tuned. Hopefully i dont leave it so long for the next post.
Sorry for the long break between my last post and now. I was organising my own visa to return to San Francisco in April. I finally got all the paperwork finished and sent in. It was a messy ordeal but i got it sorted eventually thanks to the helpfull staff at USIT. THANKS GILLIAN, your a star. So i am just waiting on my job to be approved and get my visa finalised. Roll on April 8th WOOOOHOOOO!!!!!!
In my last post, at the end, i said i would talk a bit about housing and accommodation in my next post. Well i guess i better do this now. Upon finishing reading this post you should have enough info to get yourself housed and ready to enjoy your summer. Once you have found diggs there will be a load taken off and you can relax.
I guess i will start off by freaking you out a little and giving you the horror story first. Its not that much of a horror story really. I guess by now you know that housing is pricey in San Francisco. I have a theory as to the reason. My theory is that San Francisco is sitting on top of the San Andreas fault line and is prone to earthquakes. Im sure you have all heard of the 2 big ones. One in 1906 and the other in 1989. These are the two most horrific ones that caused the most amount of destruction. What you may not know is that San Francisco experiences earthquakes quite freaquently. Dont worry though, you cant even notice them they are so small. Well i believe that this is the reason for the high prices of housing. The insurance must be very high as there is the constant threat of earthquakes. This in turn will lead to higher rents.
If you have made the decision to go to San Francisco then you are willing to pay these prices. The way around these high prices is to wedge a load of you into one apartment. The more you get the lower your rent. Dont over do it though becasue it will get cramped and at times may get unbearable.
Last summer i had my accommodation sorted before i left. This was such a relief as we could move in straight away. It may be more difficult for you to organise it before you go as you will not be in the city. I was lucky as i had friends already living there who helped me out alot. Basically sorted it out for me. As i will be there in April i will gladly help anyone i can, if you need it that is.
So, down to the important info of this post. To start off you will need to know where to look for your housing. The best place is on craigslist (www.craigslist.org). This is where practically every person in the city goes to get a new apartment. craigslist is a beast. you can get everything you need on it. EVERYTHING. It is handy for jobs too. For the housing aspect i will give you a run down on how to use it.
1. log onto www.craigslist.org
2. click on SF Bay Area
3. click apts/housing
4. depending on where you want to live you have 2 options. To live in the city itself click the San Francisco tab. If you want to live in Berkeley click the East Bay tab.
5. choose the neighbourhood you wish to live. For Berkeley choose Berkeley and not Berkeley north/hills. For the city then just choose what ever district you want. I will do a later post on the different neighbourhoods of San Francisco.
6. put in the range you wish to spend on rent, the number of bedrooms you desire and then check the "has image" box so it filters out ones without pictures of the apartment. you dont have to do this if you want a wider search. I just like to see the apartment before hand so i dont waste my time.
So that is how you find yuor housing on craigslist. Now i will give you some tips that will be very usefull when getting in contact with the apartments. It will usually be carried out through e-mail first, some have phone numbers displayed and you can easily call them. If you are looking to have it sorted before you leave then it will be best to use e-mail. I will now give you some tips to make this easier, as you will more than likely be sending loads of mails to loads of different apartments.
1. Draw up a template email and save it. This can then be weasily copied and pasted to your email and saves a hell of alot of time.
2. Create a folder on your desktop and call it "housing". Inside this folder create some sub-folders and call them the names of the different districts of San Francisco. This is so you can save the ads that you have replied to so you know where abouts in the city they are.
3. Each ad will generally have a "reply to" address at the ver top. It will generally look like this hous-xjrpg-1653149791@craigslist.org. This is the address you send your mail to. some will have no reply to address on the top but you will find it somewhere else in the ad.
4. When you have sent the e-mail you should open up a word document and copy and paste the ad to it. Copy from the very top, where it shows the price and number of rooms in big bold text, right down to the very end where it gives the "posting ID". Now save this into whatever sub-folder it belongs in. The reason for saving it is because any replies you get will not com back from the email address you sent it to. You will get a reply from your original mail and you can locate the ad from the address you originally sent it to. This may be confusing to read but believe me it will be a million more times confusing and frustrating when you get a reply about an apartment and you dont know which one it was. This is a tip i was given from my friends living in San Francisco.
Now that i have given you tips on how to locate apartments i will give you a brief rundown on what type of prices to expect. Well, for a 2 bed apartment you can pay anywhere from $2000 up to $3500, depending on where it is located. some areas are far more expensive than others. A studio apartment could cost you anywhere from $800 to $2000. Some apartments are bigger than others and nicer than others. The apartment i lived in last summer was 2 bed and 2 bath. It was huge and there were only 4 of us in it. It cost us $2400 a month. We could have easily had8 8 people live in it. one bedroom comfortably holding 4 people ad the other 3 and then you could have had a few stragglers in the sitting room. I know of a group in the same apartments as us that had 10 people in the same size place as us. The were only paying $240 each a month. Very affordable.
So, this is a good bit of info for you and some tips. If you have any questions feel free to ask me sanfranj1@gmail.com . also contact me if there is stuff i missed that you think should be posted. And one last reason to contact me, I will be there in a few weeks and would gladly help anyone who may need any help getting settled or needing help finding apartments or just looking for any info in general about the city.
I reckon my next post will be about jobs and employment. stay tuned. Hopefully i dont leave it so long for the next post.
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