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INTERNSHIP IN FRANCE I My Paris Internship Experience + Tips

Unintentionally Frenchified

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⭐ Interning in Paris sounds very glamorous and it can be at times! But most of the time it's about as glamorous as interning wherever you grew up! :) In today's video I talk to you about my experience interning in France in two different luxury companies. I also give tips on finding internships in France/ Paris throughout the video too. I cover everything from how i got my positions, to how hard it was to integrate, to how much interns are paid and why i didn't get hired at either of them afterwards! Get ready for some juicy internships in France storytime. Hope you guys enjoy and don't hesitate to leave comments below! xx ⭐

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20 Comments

@charlottebobowski7915 5 years ago

The struggle is real 😫 I’m 30 and competing against much younger students for internships. It’s encouraging hearing your experience and the reminder to keep at it. Great video!

@scb25 5 years ago

Two things that I really do appreciate about internships in France:
a) You do actual work, so you gain valuable work experience which prepares you for your career: in North America I did several internships where I wasn't necessarily getting coffee, but was working alone on side projects which weren't the main focus of the organization, whereas in France I was always in the middle of the action!
b) They have to be paid - even if it's a very, very low salary, in my case I did a lot of internships in the non-profit sector where the equivalent internship in the US would have been unpaid, so it was better than nothing 🤷

I was lucky though and never felt like my colleagues didn't want to get to know me because I was only there for a short period of time. That being, said, none of them led to jobs either, and I am in the midst of the same struggle you are describing where basically junior, entry-level positions do not exist because they are all replaced by internships 😢

I also had a very similar experience to what you described with regards to companies searching for INTERNS who already have a lot of experience... in the first year of my Master's, I was at my school's career fair and a representative from a well-known French multinational food & beverage company told me that they like to hire people with more experience for their internships, and so she very seriously suggested that I take a gap year and complete 1 year of internships in the same position in other companies before applying to work with them for my final internship... I didn't know whether to laugh or cry tbh 😂 😡😡

@carolinefiorentini3233 5 years ago

It's also a nightmare when you try to change jobs and be in a New field... They only recognize diplomas specifically from the field. You need to be a specialist and i have more transversal and general knowledge skills... it's starting to change but it's really slow

@georgiancrossroads 5 years ago

Thanks Kate. You are helping me to understand some of the dynamics of an institution where I was a scholar in residence.

@juliana21405 5 years ago

Thank you so much for this video! I’m doing my masters here in France and now in this summer I have the opportunity to do a 3 months internship. I’m struggling so much, I’m a international student from Brazil beginner in French and I fell that I don’t have a chance in the market. Thank you a lot for sharing your experience

@carolinefiorentini3233 5 years ago

I was told that i was too enthousiastic and spontaneous... OK...

@ahoj7720 5 years ago

Yes, the salary you get as an intern is very low, but companies must contribute financially to professional training through taxe d’apprentissage, which contributes to keeping tuition fees extremely low...

@mailfergal 2 years ago

Great story, thanks!

@alg394 5 years ago

Merci Kate! Tes vidéos sont comme un rayon de soleil. J'adore ta positivité et bonne humeur ❤️

@DollyJohanne 5 years ago

Very interesting and you are as always at a good humor, I just love how you tell stories 😍🙏🏼 Love from Johanne, Norway

@peternakitch4167 5 years ago

Honest, practical and direct.

@bratboybobbee6938 5 years ago

I LOVE this video.
So Brutally honest, and helpful in managing expectations/preparations..
Thank You. This will help others

@carolinefiorentini3233 5 years ago (edited)

Really shocked by the "we already ate with you this week"... i always try to make everybody comfortable and feel welcomed even if they don't stay long... but i work in the public sector and i was always well included in the teams

@Moonisbrightx 3 years ago

Hey! Great vid- could you PLS talk about the visa process?🙏🏼

@hemantdabhi1392 5 years ago

Hi Kate, hope you are doing well. Firstly thank you for such an informative video. It’s really helpful. I am really having a tough time finding an internship for my Summer break. And you are absolutely right about Schools selling themselves telling they will help you get internships :) I live in Normandy and speak English. Is there any suggestion, how can I improve my chances for getting a call? Thank you:)

@Redgethechemist 5 years ago

I will just add a bit of information about internships in France, before 2006, intern salaries were not mandatory in the private area, but most companies were already giving an allowance euivalent to 30% of the minimum salary, on the other hand, in the public area, we were not given anything. I did internships in universities as I was doing an MSc degree in research and it was really difficult to get an internship in a private company unless you knew somebody or you belonged to an engineer school where the networking is more developed, so most companies were recruiting only engineering students. In public research labs, we were doing a very similar job to Ph.D students with our own subject with the help of our mentor, and it included as well tasks that were done by PhD students like maintaining the workspace, material and so on. We were doing mostly the same hours with 0 € by the end of the month. I had the chance to do an internship in Canada as well thanks to a professor who had a lot of contacts and who was sending students abroad (in MSc 1, it was highly recommended to go abroad for 3 to 5 months) and I was actually getting a pretty good allowance at this time, but for the last year of MSc, we had almost no choice but to do the internship within the university as it was 9 months during which we had classes during the 1st semester, so this last year was really intense, go to classes and prepare exams while having to deal with a research project and associated tasks. Luckily now, interns get also paid in university. So depending on your school, there might be some teachers helping to find an internship, and maybe a job later.

@alicemolinari1759 5 years ago

Very helpful video. Your tips can be applied to Italy as well, except we are much more friendly with interns :)

@julienbee3467 5 years ago

Great video. Hope one day you will make a video on how working in the US is like when you have a standard office job (assistant, accountant etc )

@thiagogregory1 2 years ago

The "8th graders interns" are so real. I have a high school-aged friend from France (I'm 2 years older than him) and he goes to some sort of technical/vocational high school and he interned at this luxury company lol. So hard.

@ybreton6593 5 years ago

beaucoups d'entreprises de la mode et autres offrent des stages à des étrangers , car ils ont une totale ignorance des lois françaises . ils vous promettent monts et merveilles et hop a la fin du CDD tu es jeter comme un malpropre , cette entreprise va reprendre une personne bilingue et recommencer la même chose .
une personne étrangère , ne doit pas rester à Paris c'est une ville à fuir . beaucoup d'entreprises cherchent des personnes bilingues ou mieux polyglotte , dans les autres villes de provinces . si leurs compétences sont reconnues , elles auront un C.D.I