As a non-White non-Anglophone foreigner what should I prepare before my graduation to increase my chance to be hired?

Indonesian here. I’m doing my master’s degree in Central Taiwan and I’m in my last two semesters.

I have a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, and currently, I’m majoring in Management of Information Systems.

I really want to get into IT auditing or IT consulting or risk management but I’m really lost, I don’t know what should I prepare beforehand.

My mandarin isn’t good enough, so should I enroll in a Chinese language center until I’m good enough? Is that a good investment?

Or should I get an internship? Where can I find internship opportunities in a mainly English speaking company?

I’ve been reading a lot of threads in here and it just hit me all at once that unless I’m a white Anglophone who wants to teach English, then Taiwan isn’t the best place to start your career. To be fair, it’s my fault for not thinking it through before going to Taiwan. I just wanted to escape persecution in my own country & run away to the nearest Asian country where I can be free.

And with the COVID situation going on, I also realized that I only have two options right now, stay in Taiwan, or go back to Indonesia, who isn’t handling the virus well.

I’m just so overwhelmed right now and lost. I’m all ears to any advice you can give.

And I was wondering, if the COVID situation was over, which country would be the best for me to work in? I plan to work my ass off there so I can settle down peacefully.

Thank you so much.

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unfortunately you’re right on this one

are you the kind of learner who learns languages well in a classroom? If you’re answer is not an emphatic ‘yes’ then it’s a waste of money.

As an English speaker you’ll be able to start in an IT department of a firm with an English language culture. Probably in Taipei though, start sending applications!

Your professors don’t have any connection?

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Do I have a headstart/an advantage compared to Taiwanese who live in Taipei? I assume even in English language-based companies, Taiwanese are still more prioritized. And do you know websites or apps that help foreigners search for companies that mainly use English? 104 or 1111 are mainly for local companies.

No. He has been promising me internships “If I find one, I’ll tell you!” since my first semester.

You could do worse than IT. At least you have a chance. Learn Mandarin and actively look for jobs. Don’t worry you will find something sooner or later.
BTW, you would be shit out of luck in other countries with the whole pandemic thing going around anyway.

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Your English is very good. Maybe you should focus your job search on foreign companies in Taiwan that require fluent English speakers (writers)?

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Focus on IT, language skills are not essential, there is lot of demand, you’ll learn English along, 99% of programming languages are based on English anyway. Don’t get too obsessed with audit and consulting, either you will not have enough experience or might get exploited, those are not the nicest place to work, but depends on personality.

Learning Chinese is OK, but never stop learning IT skills, plenty of resources online, get involved in opensource (lots of great pp there).

Covid-19 is not ideal, but computer scientists are not the worse affected, some business are actually accelerating digital transition.

Remember, what you learn at school is not real experience, so your objective is to get experience under your belt, don’t be too picky and listen to feedback. Attitude is everything when looking for job.

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Yeah I know, I was just wondering where’s the best country in the world for immigrants like me to work if there’s no pandemic going on… I heard Germany has just relaxed its immigration law earlier this year.

Thank you very much! But won’t they just hire native speakers? And what app/website do you usually use to find foreign companies?

I’m actually not that good at programming, I picked it as my bachelor’s degree because my parents pressured me to. I mean, I still enjoy the IT world and I understand the flow, the limitations, the ups and downs when you’re coding something, but programming itself was too complicated for me (I think I still can handle front-end web and database programming though). That’s why I “strayed” a bit to Information Systems Management, so I can mediate the business part and the IT part of the company.

I know I lack the experience to be an IT consultant but that’s why I’m looking for internships. But I don’t even know where people get internships in Taiwan. Like, do you have to be recommended by your uni?

Not if English skills weren’t necessary for the job. You’d best sell yourself as an affordable English speaking employee; there’s got to be a niche for you.

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Am not an internship expert, but the way to get one internship, or a job, is to apply to 15 of them. Uni is just one channel, you need to find others (social media, ask alumni from your uni, they probably know better than your teachers, find out where last year students did their internship and apply through them…)

Basically you are the product and you need to figure out where the demand is. From experience a vast majority of project manager or consultant started working on the technical side (being programming, tech support or ERP CRM stuff, …). CS is a highly technical domain, saying that you want to do IT, but you are not really good at the technical part so you want to be on the project or business sides honestly is not an appealing proposition for an employer. You are better of saying you want to start on the technical side to learn, and progress to project/business side of thing in a few years. As it turns out, in many positions, the slightly “not that hard” technical + strong domain knowledge + people skills is what the company really needs.

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Very solid advice. Get a bit more technical knowledge and experience under your belt would be really useful and will get higher up the chain . That’s if you really want to work in IT project management .

But if not don’t stress it, your English is good and you could transition to something in business fairly easily.

As for moving somewhere else…Now is not a great time, just look for something in Taipei first. Many companies are of course very interested in expanding their South East Asia footprint also.

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Ministry of Science and Technology (formally National Science Council). Once in a while relevant jobs will show up here, such as research assistant. This is the English link. The Chinese has more posts, naturally.

No such thing as an objective best and no point sulking over what might have been. Also, even career-wise Taiwan is not as bad as before considering the pandemic pushed European economies back 10 years. Main drawback is work culture. Be positive. Who knows maybe you will be one of the lucky ones and find a company with good coworkers and bosses. If not you can always move on to greener pastures.

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I teach a weekly class at an engineering company in Taipei. They have a bunch of Indonesian engineers and possibly others working there because they do a lot of work in Indonesia. Most of them don’t speak Chinese very well but do speak English and of course Indonesian. I’d say that many of them seem to have graduated just recently. If you’re interested in checking out the company, let me know and I can try and put you into contact with their HR department. No guarantees, but you never know.

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True but most of these opinions are from citizens of US, Canada, UK, Australia… as an Indonesian your perspective is different and Taiwan should be very good.
Best of luck.

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One of the most important part about getting a job and immigrate (not asking asylum) to another country is to never mention about the persecution in home country part.
You are staying to work and contribute to the society. Not an asylum seeker escaping something back home. Never say anything bad about your home country in front of your interviewer (job, visa, etc.)

If you are an asylum seeker then better sell your story straight and giving some prove like, your home being burned, your siblings getting stoned to death or something along that line.

Internship in a windmill manufacturer, Siemens Gamesa.
https://m.104.com.tw/job/6w01g?jobsource=amp_cust_job

As I told that guy earlier there’s actually plenty of opportunities for qualified SEA graduates in Taiwan .
Grass always looks greener somewhere else…Less these days though!
Taiwan needs qualified Indonesians and he needs a job, what’s not to like. Taiwan government even offers many scholarships to SEA students…Not too common around the world eh.

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