Hey everyone,
I'm looking for a mid-senior executive level job in Switzerland. As of now I have applied and got rejected by almost every single company due to visa issues as they would not want to obtain a work permit on my behalf. I am trying to find ways to move here for employment as my partner is here, so I'm putting up a post in the hopes of someone being able to assist me.
I am a full time strategist for an agency, and I'm open to jobs (either full time, freelance or remote) that deal with brand/campaign strategy, copywriting (English), content creation, account management, social media management.
Mod snip: CV deleted, please use pm
It’s not that easy. Any Swiss employer will have to prove they can’t find a Swiss/EU national who could do the job before they’d get permission to hire you. So unless you can offer something that makes it worth their while to apply they simply won’t do so. The non-EU hiring criteria is here.
https://www.sem.admin.ch/sem/en/home…zulassung.html
You can’t be freelance since a Swiss employer has to apply for any non-EU permits and remote working means you’d stay in Singapore and work from there.
If you’re partner is here then you have a couple of other options.
First - get married. That way you’d get a family reunification permit whihc would allow you to live/work here without needing to meet the non-EU hiring criteria.
Second - if marriage isn’t on the table and assuming the canton your partner lives in has this type of permit (not all cantons do), your partner could apply for a concubine permit for you. They would have to agree to be financially responsible for you for 5 years and you may or may not be able to work with that permit. That seems to depend on the nationalities involved: EU/EU no problem with working, non-EU/non-EU the dependent isn’t allowed to work and EU/non-EU seems to dependent on what each canton decides.
May be some companies in one of these threads where you could apply and maybe get a permit.
https://www.englishforum.ch/employme…itzerland.html
I would guess, given the skills you list, that learning whichever Swiss language is used in the area you want to move to would help as well.
Thank you for your detailed response! Appreciate it, I am actually in the midst of learning German but I don't think I can learn it fast enough to use it for job leverage unfortunately, that's why I decided to just try my luck here haha.
I read in your other replies about the concubine visa, is that available in zurich and if yes is it also as impossible as a normal visa?
Thanks again for your time x
Yes, Zurich is one of the cantons that has that type of permit. It’s not as difficult, but there are requirements to be met. I suggest your partner contacts the cantonal migration office for more info.