I personally know of no area positions for experienced controllers, never mind student controllers. It seems to be the norm now to train from an ab-initio level on the area side at all times, the only place I can think of that recruits experienced controllers is the middle east. However I think you may struggle to get employment there with no experience.
You could try various airports with your approach rating, many smaller airports don't train in-house but instead put out vacancies for controllers as they need them. However I think your lack of an aerodrome rating will be a penalty against other candidates. You also need to realise that a prospective employer will want to know why you were not offered training with your original ANSP.
When in training you get the impression that once you have the rating it's all good, I found when I got out in the real world that before you have validated it's actually worth very little.