Why Even Native Swiss Struggle to Find Jobs After Time Abroad:
Inside our immigration journey and a system that favors the familiar.
On top of the mountain of paperwork we had already tackled for immigration, the strain of moving, the Whirlwind of getting married and preparing for the arrival of our child, came another layer of pressure: money.
We had been living entirely off our savings for three months, watching that number slowly but steadily tick downward. With a baby on the way and knowing Nicole wouldn’t be able to work once she gave birth, the financial strain started to settle on us like a quiet but constant weight.
Swiss Job Market: Like Trying to Enter a Boulder
In Switzerland, entering the job market as a foreigner (or we soon found out even a returning swiss native), can feel like getting inside of a boulder. No matter which angle you try from, its a fucking boulder.
She grew up here, went to school here, speaks fluent Swiss German, but after spending 14 years abroad, it was like none of that mattered. She’d even been employed remotely for a Swiss company for seven years, doing solid work, but without a formal reference letter from them, her applications went nowhere.
She sent out CV after CV, often for jobs well below her skill level, and still was met with silence or a string of polite rejections. In the Swiss job market, if you don’t have recent Swiss experience or a local reference, you’re basically invisible.
When she finally did get that letter, everything flipped. Literally the next day, she got five calls before noon asking for an interview. That’s how much weight that one piece of paper held.
In Switzerland, credentials from abroad, even with glowing qualifications and years of experience, often carry less weight than a fart. I remember watching the news, where they were interviewing a refugee from somewhere who had been an ER doctor for over thirty years, yet here, in the schweiz, she had to go back to school or get her leg chopped off before seeing an emergency room again. You could have a guy whose delivered over a million babies, but they would rather take a fresh graduate who hasn't even sniffed a real vagina.
This mismatch between ability and recognition is a frustrating and demoralizing barrier to integration and i couldn't wait until I, an Americaner to the gills, who spoke barley any german let alone swiss german, with no education or work experience in the schweiz, would get a crack at finding a job.
Nicole Lands the Job
Now that she had choices, Nicole decided on taking a job through a temporary staffing agency at one of Switzerland’s major banks, PostFinance. The role was straightforward, customer service, strictly through email, just a digital inbox full of confused, irritated, and occasionally hilarious queries from customers.
Her job was to sift through these emails, determine whether the person was eligible for a refund, and, at her discretion, issue it… or not.
But of course, it wasn’t so straightforward. Not in the linguistic roulette wheel of Switzerland.
The country has four national languages, so on any given day, she’d be flipping between English, German, French, and Italian. Sometimes all in the same hour. With the help of her own language skills, and when those ran out, the assistance of online translators, she became a one-woman multilingual customer service department.
Over dinner, she’d share the day’s funniest messages:
Customers pleading for refunds of .30 francs
customers asking for refunds for subscription charges where they didn't read the agreement yet signed anyway (Some people clearly thought a subscription meant “a gift,”)
Others writing in caps-lock outrage about monthly fees they’d apparently never heard of
One-liner masterpieces like: “Refund. Now.”
In reality, Nicole’s job was a mix of diplomacy, detective work, and digital babysitting. It wasn’t glamorous, but it was steady. And at a time when money was tight and the pressure was mounting, it was exactly what we needed.
Countdown to a Decision
As the end date of my tourist visa crept closer, the uncertainty hung over us like a storm cloud. We still had no official word. Just silence. And with each passing day, that silence grew heavier.
We had done everything we could, crossed every ‘t’, dotted every “i”, submitted every form and answered every question. But the truth was, it was exhausting. It felt like the universe was testing our patience, our stamina, and our belief that things would work out, forcing us to sign a lease before knowing if i could even stay and planning the arrival of our son something labeled TBD.
It came right down to the wire.
With exactly one week left on my visa, just seven days before I would legally have to leave the country, we finally received the letter.
I had been granted permission to stay.
Not a single day had been wasted in the process; if we had hesitated or delayed even slightly, I would’ve had to pack up and go.