Career

Job Opportunities in Krakow!

With the dynamic recruitment market over the past 18 months we have been hearing more and more about recruitment and job opportunities in Eastern Europe.  One of the cities where major investment has taken place is Krakow (or Cracow) in Poland.  Krakow is one of the largest and oldest cities in Poland and a popular tourist destination.  The city dates back to the 7th century and has traditionally been one of the leading centres of Polish academic, cultural and artistic life, and is currently one of Poland’s most important economic centres.   Recently a number of Shared Service and IT Centres have established a presence here, these include:  CAP Gemini, PWC Polska, IFS Poland, Airline Accounting Centre (Lufthansa Group), IBM BTO Business Consulting Services, Centrum Finansowe Tesco, Electrolux, Shell, Google, Motorola and Delphi Polska.  These multinational companies offer a variety of opportunities including:  technical support, software development, customer service, accountants, teamleaders, account administrators with a large proportion of the roles requiring multilingual candidates.  Dutch, Danish, Finnish, Norwegian, Swedish and German to name a few.
 
Krakow offers an excellent opportunity to gain both work and life experience, it is a thriving city with an active social scene and for jobseekers with a second language offers career opportunities that may not be possible in their home country. 
 
Lets take an example;  a Dutch speaking candidate with a financial qualification and maybe 3 months work experience.  In Krakow, they could be offered a role of Accounting Assistant with one of the worlds leading IT companies.  The role involves processing transactions and supporting experienced accounting professionals as well as providing input into improving processes and procedures.  This type of position is just a starting point and with time it is possible to progress and develop their career within this company either locally or internationally.
 
But aren’t salaries in Eastern Europe at a much lower level to the rest of Europe?  Yes that is true.  HOWEVER cost of living is a lot lower.  Lets look at the above example; for this role you would be looking at an average salary of 5000pln before tax, sharing a 2 bed apartment in Krakow city centre would cost approximately 700 pln, so for your rent you are paying approx 15% of your monthly salary.  For a similar job in Dublin you would maybe be looking at a salary of €1800 per month and for a similar apartment €600 per month.  In this case you are paying 30% of your monthly salary.  As you can see your disposable income is proportionate to the expense of living in a city so take a second look when you are evaluating a job!
 
For more info contact Anne on 0035316146084 or anne.lavelle@cpl.ie