A world of work
Go Fund your trip: What better way to see the world than working your way around it to fund the trip, writes Sandra O’Connell
Teach English
When it comes to working your way around the world we Irish are blessed with an ability to TEFL.
The acronym, which stands for Teaching English as a Foreign Language, is well established enough to have morphed into a verb, which is something you’ll be able to discuss with your students in far flung posts around the globe.
To give yourself the best chance of nabbing a position, the Cambridge CELTA (Certificate in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) is perhaps the best known qualification worldwide, and so is your passport to employment.
International House Dublin has four-week CELTA courses for €1,510 or Waterford-based voluntourism specialist i-to-i can sort you out not just with a qualification but will help you find employment too.
TEFL pay rates depend on a number of factors, including length of service, experience and the employer. Don’t be put off by apparently low rates of pay either – it could be enough to provide a high quality of life overseas.
The highest pay for TEFL teachers on short-term contracts is in the Middle East while demand for English classes far exceeds the number of teachers in places such as Taiwan, Japan and South Korea.
Monthly rates of pay in Taiwan are around US$2,000. In Japan, you can expect to get €1,820 a month.
- ihdublin.com or i-to-i.com
Fruit picking
One of the surprising elements of Australian cities are the endless market gardens that extend beyond the suburbs of places such as Sydney, shuttling fresh produce to health-conscious urbanites on a daily basis.
Well it makes sense – it ain’t cheap to import fresh veg when you’re a 24-hour flight from anywhere.
The good news for job hunters is that someone has to pick all these greens. In fact, so many fruit pickers are required that the Aussie government has a dedicated Harvest Trail website devoted to matching farmers with workers.
From grape harvesting in Berri to mango picking in Darwin, thousands of people are required each year, allowing you backpack around Australia at your own pace, working and earning money as you go.
What’s more, changes to the working holiday visa scheme allow travellers who have worked as a seasonal worker in regional Australia for at least three months to apply for a second work visa.
You get paid by the quantity you pick but, worked out on an hourly rate, it should net you between $10 to $20 an hour with meals and accommodation usually provided. Just bring insect repellent.
Seasonal jobs in France include picking lavender in July and August. Accommodation and meals are usually provided.
- Australia: jobsearch.gov.au/harvesttrail and for jobs see jobaroo.com. France: anefa.org/pages/decouvrir
Fishing in Alaska
How about a trip to the last frontier, Alaska? It has traditionally netted fat pay cheques to those prepared to take on the hazards of commercial fishing.
According to www.fishingjobs.com, crew members on an Alaskan salmon boat can earn between USD$6,000 and USD$12,000 over a summer.
In fact, what you earn is typically based on a percentage of the overall haul, with newbie deckhands getting anything from 1.5 per cent to 10 per cent of the catch.
In some cases your skipper will offer you a daily rate of USD $50 to $100 instead, so the choice is yours.
You’ll need to invest in some kit before starting, not least waterproofs, wellies and a good sleeping bag, as well as your own commercial fishing licence.
Don’t go looking for your en suite cabin either. Conditions range from basic to primitive. Privacy freaks take note.
You’ll increase your chances of getting on a boat if you are available to work for a full season or contract period, are able to work on your feet for long hours, moving heavy objects and are able to follow directions to the letter.
It isn’t just fishing. There are offshore processing vessels too. In both cases, you’ll be sleeping with the fishes. In a good way.
- admin.adfg.state.ak.us/license; alaskajobfinder.com and fishingjobs.com
Worldwide wwoofing
Love the great outdoors? Feel passionate about produce? Why not be a wwoofer? Yet another acronym, this one stands for Worldwide Opportunities on Organic Farms – and it’s a movement that has taken off.
By volunteering to work on an organic farm – which could be anything from a herb garden for someone’s kitchen to a commercial but sustainable farm – you get your bed and board for free, with plenty of time to meet like-minded people and indulge in the local social life too.
The website wwoof.org has work/stay opportunities from around the world with options ranging from working on a farm to helping build artists’ studios which, admittedly, doesn’t seem to have much to do with organics but is indicative of the variety involved.
Most of the opportunities are time defined, from a week to a few months and, while you have to pay to get yourself over there, and indeed you won’t earn any hard cash, the idea is you’ll come away with new skills for sustainable living back home.
- wwoof.org and wwoof.ie
Round up on a ranch
Meanwhile back at the ranch, there’s no end of opportunities for seasonal workers who know how to handle a horse.
Whether it’s a cattle round up at a commercial ranch or a tourist round-up at a dude ranch, there’s just no way of doing this job without feeling like you’re in your own private John Wayne movie.
Seasonal jobs website Coolworks currently has a wanted ad from Rancho de Los Caballeros, a 20,000 acre property, an hour’s drive north of Phoenix in the high Sonoran Desert.
The 50-year-old ranch takes in guests from October to May and needs a number of cow hands – as well as traditional hotel staff – to keep it all going.
Stay a season at the ranch and your accommodation is free, meals are provided and while pay rates are typically minimum wage – you’ll get tips too. Some ranches offer a completion bonus too, if you last the season.
- jobmonkey.com or coolworks.com
Apres ski the Alps
Like migratory birds in reverse, when winter comes some of the best opportunities are found in the coolest climes. Specifically, ski resorts.
It’s not just instructors that are needed but everything from piste groomers to lift operators to chalet staff.
Those who do want to spend their time on the slopes will need to have their ISIA (International Ski Instructors Association) qualifications in order first, so check out the Irish Association of Snowsports Instructors website to find out how.
Alternatively, Irish specialist ski operator Highlife is currently recruiting for everything from child minders to chalet maids and chefs for its properties in the French alps this winter. The season lasts from early December to mid-April.
Chalet staff typically work mornings and evenings, and have the day free. Flights, ski gear and lift passes – as well as bed and board – are all provided and pay runs from around €180 to €250 a week.
- iasisnowsports.ie or check out highlife.ie
Crew on a cruise
Want to see the world with just one job? Then grab your sea legs because this is the one for you.
Working on a cruise ship is a passport to travel, with no worries about accommodation along the way. Opportunities are increasing too, with around 100 new cruise ships launched over the last decade.
Anyone with experience in the hospitality sector has the advantage here but there are all sorts of openings for people, from teaching bridge to washing dishes.
And while the tipping etiquette of many cruise ships is a pain for passengers, for personnel it’s a lifeline, assuring even busboys an average on board salary of up to US $3000 (€2,369) a month.
Non-tipped personnel, who serve the crew, typically have fixed earnings of around US $350 to US$500 a week.
Irish website Gumtree.ie has an ad on it recruiting cruise ship personnel in Dublin for a junior bar position, assisting the bartender, at US$9 an hour plus tips.
- mermaid-group.co.uk or cruiseline.jobs.com
Camp it up Stateside
Generations of Americans have spent their summers at camp, while generations of Irish students have paid their way through college by helping them.
US camps are typically residential and cater for six to 16 year olds. To work there, you’ll need to be at least 18 and preferably experienced in various outdoor pursuits. You’ll also need an interest in – okay, a tolerance of – kids.
You can expect to live either in cabins with the campers or with other support staff on the property. You’ll typically get a full day off each week plus free periods during the day. The plus side of all this work is that you won’t have much time off to spend money.
The pay is modest but the accommodation and all meals are looked after. Advances are given during your time there and then the balance is paid at the end of the summer and often a completion bonus is on offer as well.
One of the best known recruiters in this part of the world is Bunac which offers eight and nine week contracts, with all food and accommodation provided and wages held and paid to you at the end, which you can use to fund further travel. This summer it offered a rate of US$1,215 per contract (about €959).
What’s more, it offers a discount arrangement with Trek America which bags you 15 per cent off tours for post-camp site seeing. You have to pay a registration fee to get placed, which is currently around €529, but that also covers your transatlantic flights.
- greatcampjobs.com or bunac.org
STUDENTS sweating over their college places this week might like to know there is one career in which you can make not just serious money but travel the world too.
What’s more, you can acquire the skills required to succeed in a matter of days. Drum roll please; sheep shearing.
As career paths go it only sounds woolly. In fact it’s a highly regulated, very professional industry and, in some parts of the world at least, sheep shearers are in serious demand.
Even better, they’re all places you are likely to want to go to, with huge demand for seasonal sheep workers in countries such as New Zealand and Australia.
It’s not a glamorous job, admittedly, and you can’t expect to start off by shearing 500 sheep a day – which is the kind of performance a pro will put in.
In fact, you probably won’t start by shearing sheep at all. Novices tend to be assigned crutching duties. Basically this means cleaning the sheep’s bottom before the shearer proper arrives.
Currently in Australia the shearers rate, according to shearingworld.com, is equivalent to around €180 per 100 sheep. The crutching rate is equivalent to around €42 per 100.
And then there are the travelling allowances, sleeping quarter allowances and even vehicle allowances (around 52 cents a km) too.
According to Paddy Rock, of the Irish Sheep Shearers Association, being able to shear is a passport to travel.
“It’s a great way to work your way around the world. Many of our guys base themselves in the Falklands and travel round the globe, following the sun in the course of the year,” he says.
“They do Australia, New Zealand, here, the UK and then move on to Scandinavia.”
In fact, the world sheep shearing record is held by an Irishman, Ivan Scott. He won by shearing 736 animals in eight hours.
Not a bad day’s work when you consider the Irish rate is up to €3 a sheep.
In farming circles, he’s regarded the way the rest of us view elite athletes. “He would have a physio, trainers and a chiropractor to keep him fit,” says Rock.
Shearing work is found primarily through specialist agents who, if they take you on, will guarantee you work, put you in a gang and then get you where you need to be.
The ISSA can put you in touch with such agents and can also set you up with the training required to do the job.
In agricultural colleges courses can be as short as just two days. After that, the world’s your wool sac.
sheepshearingireland.com
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