Hi, just following up on a post stating that teaching is a waste of time. For some it is and for others…
I was wondering if anyone knew of any headhunters or contacts to find non-teaching jobs. I have a business background and three years office experience but…but… no chinese.
Let me know ( arctor@hotmail.com ) if you have any leads. Right now my heart is not in teaching as it once was my first time in Taiwan.
thanks, Bob Arctor
There is, of course, the job section here at Oriented, and of course the local (English language) papers. Depending on what you want to do, the experiences I have heard of the head hunters were absolutely useless unless you spoke Chinese fluently.
Try AMCHAM as a conduit of information, plus other country’s business groups.
PS: Isn’t Bob Arctor the main character from one of Philip K. Dick’s novels?
What are the opportunities for a non-Taiwanese to get a job other than teaching english 
and how would I go about this?
Praying might help.
Go to Eslite, buy a bible, grab yourself a pushbike, and you’re on your way.
If you’re good-looking, you could look into becoming a niulang. I know they’ve had vacancies since I left the business. Pun intended.
Okay seriously,
There are some opportunities outside teaching but the competition is great. You also much ask yourself i you want to deal with people at a company in Taiwan, it is very different than teaching. Each have there own BS and to tell you the truth I am not sure which one is worse. You will probably not make as much money in a non-teaching job, and your hours at the office will most likely be more than 40 a week, which you are not paid for.
I am not trying to discourage you from looking, but you should know the truth and consider what you really want. But that is not really what you are asking… There are jobs, but you have to search for them, and just taking any 'ol job that is not teaching may not be any better than teaching. Just something to think about.
You might want to narrow down the field a bit by telling us exactly what field you have experience in (e.g. engineering, business, editing, writing, translating), and what you might be interested in.
Tired of teaching?? Well, it’s hard to find other work, but what I have done is switch to part-time teaching (for beer money and an ARC) but with plenty of time for writing.
As with most things in Taiwan what you can get will depend on your contacts.
I know foreign English teachers (none of whom have any special skills or knowledge of Chinese language) who have moved on to full-time jobs and are doing okay; you can…
Open a bar/restaurant.
Open an illegal bushiban with Taiwanese wife/girlfriend.
Become a technical writer for a Hsinchu computer company.
Work for a trading company (mostly correcting e-mails, letters and rewriting difficult English/Chinglish)
Beome a Taiwan Beer taster.
But I want to stress that there is a world of difference between teaching 30 hours at a crap school and teaching 10 hours at a good school. I enjoy the social contact at my school (i.e. lots of tasty females) after hours spent alone looking at books and the computer screen.
Cheers.
Without other special skills, experience, and connections (e.g. liberal arts college grad, English only) editing and writing for English publications seem to be the most likely jobs, but these aren’t that easy to come by. Luck and persistence seem to play the biggest role in getting these kinds of jobs.
gigoloing? oops 
ax
houziwang, you need to narrow the field a little.
(1) what kind of job are you looking for? what field?
(2) do you have any experience? what are your credentials?
(3) do you speak chinese? (a little…some?) do you read chinese?
I think it is certainly possible to find work other than teaching English but I think two questions you might want to ask yourself are… why would they want to hire you instead of a local? What special skills and/or experience do you have that make it worth all the trouble and expense it requires to hire you a foreigner?
I think there is a lot of opportunity if you’re looking for a job in international business. You, howver, need the following, A good command of Chinese, spoken and written. A little Taiwanese would also be a bonus, especially if you’re going to work for an international firm here and represent them. You’ll also need to track down any possible leads, and develop your guanxi. You’ll also need a little luck.
First of all, get English teaching off your resume and learn some Chinese. Most of the non-English teaching jobs here are journalism/writing/editing related, and experience in this can eventually lead to, if you are lucky, more than just running around as a reporter. It is easy to get hired at the papers, especially if you’ve got something quasi-journalism on your resume, and this can be used as a stepping stone to other things. Try to join some commerce or other networking clubs–if you can’t afford the dues, the happy hours they hold are free. If you are from the US or other place with higher wages, it will suck being totally overworked and underpaid at one of the papers or tech writing for one of the cheapshit hi-tech corps around here, but it should lead to something better. The English teaching jobs here offer good money, but if you are looking to break away from that, you gotta bite the bullet for a little while.
It’s entirely possible to find non-english teaching jobs here. I did it with little in the way of connections and ended up in an exciting career field and a good company. All you have to do is to look. Starting out as an editor may be neccesary, and odds are that you will have to live on a low salary for a year or 2.
But I believe that that’s the way to go if you are tired of teaching. Credentials? well, a suit (w tie)and a nice-looking resume (Remember, you weren’t a dish washer, but a sanitary technician) are both advisable.
Appearance counts for everything here – that is, the way you’re dressed and groomed and the way your resume is likewise. Do those things right and anything’s possible.
Working for a business here is demanding on your time. It is common to finish at 7 or 8pm. Most people do not pay overtime. You should get one or two months bonus at the end of the year. Stock options appear every now and then but at the present are pretty worthless. I dont have to work saturday mornings anymore but i did at the start…man that was a pain.
If you are smart and personable I think you can get any job you want eventually with perserverance and especially if you learn some chinese. If you have a skill or expertise in another language other than english this will help but plenty of people work in business here with none of this really. It can be a bit boring being the only foreigner in a company (like me) but some people like that kind of thing. Don’t count on it improving your chinese much as most people won’t help you or don’t have the time or interest at work.
It must be said though that not many foreigners work in business . I work in a famous Taipei business park and can pretty much recognise the 10-20 caucasians that work permanently in the area…that is a VERY small number out of the thousands who work here everyday.
You probably would have to stick it out at a lower end job for 1 or 2 years. It’s interesting to work in business here sometimes as you get a bit more interaction with Taiwanese. The holidays are bad though in many Taiwanese companies. You might be looking at 5 days in the first year.
It’s difficult to get away from the fact that you will earn less money. All depends on how long you want to stick around. Some luck goes a long way too and of course ‘guanxi guanxi’, the more people you know the more options you have. Many employees move companies in herds and give each other the nod about positions and new opportunities.
If you want to stick around for a while could be a good opportunity and you could get experience for some type of career back home.
Thanks Guys.
I thought that.
And Tomas - Niulang! No, I’m more of a sheep herder. haha! No, and they don’t call me Jesus. Amen, brothers and sisters.
Ye, I came to Taiwan to study Chinese. My friends in Beijing say it’s easier there to get a non-teaching job, but I want to stay in Taiwan cos’ my girlfriend is Taiwanese. My Chinese should be good in about 6 months.
I’ve got 3 degrees. Last one is in Computer Science but since I’ve been teaching haven’t done much to progress my skills. Most of my other positions were in the health service in the UK - wow do I miss that.
I was thinking translation/editing seems the most natural for me. How much expereience do they wanna see? I can get experience quite easily:)