I recently received a job offer but haven’t discussed the salary or hardly any of the terms of the contract yet. I have no real idea of what my services are worth so if anyone has any advice I would really appreciate the help.
A little about my situation:
The job I was offered is mostly related to sales and marketing but will also involve translation, editing, and a possibility for other things. In terms of the sales and marketing, I will be making video and pamphlet advertisements as well as working with the website designer on an English website. Along with that I will be the main person selling to the USA and Europe because the company is small, only 20-30 people work there, and I am the only westerner. There will also be monthly business trips to different countries to participate in exhibitions.
I have no experience in sales and marketing and I am very unfamiliar of what kind of salary a foreign worker should receive for doing this type of work.
Oh dear. Unfortunately, this means you’re not worth a lot, or at least don’t have much of a negotiating position.
If you’re confident you can actually do the job, i.e., bring in some sales, you’ll need to be able to produce some evidence for it. Otherwise, it sounds very much like you’re the Token Foreigner and will be paid accordingly. No worries, suck it up for now and make your best effort to become extremely good at your job. You’ll then be in a much better position when it comes to discussing an end-of-year raise.
Having said that, your employer needs to pay you at least the minimum statutory amount for foreign white-collar jobs (which is about $60K/mo at the moment, I think), and you’ll want to ensure that all costs for your trips abroad will be paid for - I’ve heard of people having to pay out of their own pockets for meals, transport, etc.
Really depends on the company, what else you might bring to the table and so on. perhaps 50~70k a month, just remember if you ask for 50k, they will offer you less, if you want to aim for 50k, ask for 60k.
Then as they say the devil is in the details, will they be guaranteeing an end of year bonus, if so how much? Seems like you will be traveling a lot, they going to be flying you coach everywhere? Where will they put you up, in decent hotel or the cheapest hotel motel they can find? How will they handle your expenses? with all this flying around, it will seem you will end up putting in long hours, I doubt they plan on compensating you for any overtime.
Sounds like you are fluent in Chinese, which is good, the above points are not just for clarification, they are tools for you to negotiate with. Flying someone around business class is going to cost them more than they are paying you for example, hotels are not cheap.
They won’t fly him biz class especially in a small company.
The thing here is to go for 60-70k and added bonus and get some great experience under your belt.
You won’t really have much negotiating power for expenses etc so you’ll probably have to go with the flow.
Almost nobody gets overtime or per Diem these days.
I started in this kind of job took me years to get some decent experience and negotiating power in, it was at least 10 years before I started to have good options and decent income actually . Some people can speed up the career progression but Taiwan is mainly useful for getting a start into a career for a few years.
Actually the first job I started in Taiwan was for the princely sum of 32k/mth in a government institute. I couldn’t survive on that and quit after 6 months. Got a series of jobs around 55-60k. Eventually got up to 90k after maybe 8-10 years and just maxed out in the pay scale of local companies and government institutes. Finally started to work with intl companies and believe I have now pretty much maxed out in salary income in Taiwan except for if I was the general manager.
That’s life here.
Just get started into the job and don’t worry too much as long as you are getting a liveable wage.