First, I’m not sure if this is the best forum to post this question. If not, please advise where it would be better put.
Ok, so my question is this: I’m planning on going to Taiwan around September to teach English. I’m going through a recruiting company connected to the TESL course I’m going to take, so there should be no problem. As I understand, you sign a contract before you leave and your visa is connected to this.
Here’s the thing: I was offered an interview for a job at an English speaking newspaper, and they won’t interview me over the phone. They will only interview me after I get to Taiwan. So, you see the pickle. Assuming that I do the interview and get this job (which is ideal, since this is the sort of work I’d ultimately like to be doing), is there any way to get out of my teaching contract? I know it would be a dick move to just bail out like that, but sometimes it can’t be helped.
I’ve heard that breaking contracts like that can get you deported. Is this true? I assume that, best case scenario, the school would cancel my visa and I would have to do a visa run to get a new one?
I know that one possible alternative is to not sign a contract before going to Taiwan, to do the interview and if it doesn’t fly, to find an ESL job. But I’d sort of rather have something lined up before heading over, if possible.
Any general advice about the situation would be very helpful.
If you’re coming here anyway, show up & do the newspaper interview first. While waiting to see what happens w/that you can possibly pick up part time (under the table/illegal) English teaching hours to help pay the bills.
If you don’t get the newspaper job, then find a school & sign a contract. Probably more likely to find decent work after arriving anyway than by going w/shitty jobs offered by recruiters - at least that seems to be the general consensus…
…Also, I presume the newspaper job isn’t a reporter/photographer position, where they shouldn’t give a shit what you look like in person, but rather should want writing/work samples, etc. Or maybe they just don’t want the hassle of arranging your work permit/ARC? Weird.
Yeah, I’ve this before too, but I’ve also heard the opposite: that going through a decent recruiter guarantees you a certain level of on-going support, vs. getting ripped off by a shady boss who knows you don’t know shit about contract negotiation, etc.
You better check with the newspaper if you decide to come on the strength of an interview – as far as I know, you’ll need to show the government 2 years’ VERIFIABLE work experience in a related field before they’ll issue a work permit for you.
Don’t sign a contract with any outfit – ESL, newspaper, whatever – until you see the place. You’ll be contractually binding yourself for a year; that’s worth a little investigation, no?
I think it depends upon how badly you want security versus how badly you want a good job. Think of it from the other angle first. Why would someone hire you sight unseen in a field you’re probably not qualified in (I’m guessing you’re not qualified in either journalism or ESL, and I’m not talking about some one month course)? What sort of operation do you think they would be running? How do you think that would extend to you, and would that really be your ideal job (for either of these jobs)? As such, in all likelihood, you’d probably be trading a lot for security. The nature of Taiwan is that it’s still relatively easy to get a job that doesn’t require much other than a white face and a pulse, but that means employers also treat foreigners as dime-a-dozen monkeys. The good jobs don’t exactly present themselves readily.
On the other hand, coming over here and having a look around first, including at the journalism job (which might be a decent job – though why wouldn’t they recruit from a fairly large pool of such people already in the country?) would probably land you a better job if you got a job, although you’d also require a certain understanding of how things work here combined with general street smarts and negotiating skills. All that aside, there’s the problem though: you wouldn’t be guaranteed a job just by landing here and looking around.
As for recruiters in general, there are mixed reviews. You’d probably want to look at the recruiter specifically and find out as much about the sorts of jobs they’ve given people in the past and the level of satisfaction with those jobs.
“Don’t sign a contract with any outfit – ESL, newspaper, whatever – until you see the place. You’ll be contractually binding yourself for a year; that’s worth a little investigation, no?”
You better check with the newspaper if you decide to come on the strength of an interview – as far as I know, you’ll need to show the government 2 years’ VERIFIABLE work experience in a related field before they’ll issue a work permit for you.[/quote]
Well, I sent the newspaper my resume which included all my work experience–I’m assuming they thought it was legit if they offered me an interview?
You better check with the newspaper if you decide to come on the strength of an interview – as far as I know, you’ll need to show the government 2 years’ VERIFIABLE work experience in a related field before they’ll issue a work permit for you.[/quote]
Well, I sent the newspaper my resume which included all my work experience–I’m assuming they thought it was legit if they offered me an interview?[/quote]
That would be an unwise assumption. They’re not the ones who issue the work permit and the government can be quite strict about that rule.
What happens if you break a contract?[/quote]
Maybe nothing; maybe you get blacklisted or fined. Maybe you get browbeaten and spooked into working for the place you signed with, only you’ll be bitter and they’ll be hostile, and won’t that be fun.
It depends upon how you break a contract. I think you do have to give a certain amount of notice (i.e. you can’t do a runner). I think it also depends upon whether you left under amicable circumstances or not.
I wouldn’t worry too much about being blacklisted, other than not doing a runner. Doing a runner would get you blacklisted with the government and could jeopardise your ability to get an ARC in the future. Other employers probably won’t even know, and given the turnover in staff here, it probably doesn’t mean a lot to be leaving a job. It’s not like in the West where if you had four jobs in a year, you’d be putting the kiss of death on yourself. Here you can spin it as having more experience. You have to be mercenary because they’re mercenary. They will drop you like a hot potato (either directly or by gradually making it less and less bearable until you quit) if they get a better offer, or they may very well give you less than what’s in the contract if it suits them or if business isn’t going well. You need to take the same approach. Doesn’t that just make it the tragedy of the commons? Yes, but you almost certainly won’t change that, so you do have to look out for yourself, first and foremost. Here in Taiwan, there is no morality and no loyalty, only screw or be screwed.
As to fines, it’s illegal for them to take punitive damages up front. You can find that in the Labor Standards Act. Go to the CLA (Council of Labor Affairs) website and look at their various laws. They’re also available in English. I don’t know whether they can ultimately make you pay a contract breaking fine, but I guess it’s up to them to try to get it out of you. If they take it up front, you can take them to the CLA. I had this issue with Hess at the beginning of last year and I got the CLA involved and dragged it out with meetings and so on so much (counter claiming for all the unpaid work I’d done) that in the end, it would have been a Pyrrhic victory even if they had won. They dropped it. Don’t put up with shit from any employers here.
Have you actually signed the contract yet? Could you hold off signing until after you get here, do the newspaper interview first, and then sign/not sign with the TEFL recruiter?
I’m assuming that the paper in question is the China Slag (Post), since the other two daily papers have a hiring freeze on.
A word of caution: A friend was offered a job as a copy editor there last month. He had two years experience in the media in Taiwan: ie fully qualified for work permit.
They asked him to work an unpaid trial period first.
When he asked how long for they said “from 2 weeks to two months”
The copy desk also works insane hours from what I hear, as they have their own printing press (to around midnight each night).
Their pay practice can also be a bit wierd (paying under the required Foriegner wage, then the editor has to make up the difference to the legal limit by submitting articles) or so I hear, maybe someone else can confirm this.
On the other hand, I think the copy desk starts later on in the day, so you could conceivably work a bushiban job in the morning/early afternoon while you jumped through any hoops such as the above.
Of course you may have a different experience with them, especially if it’s not a copy editor job, but perhaps a reporter position.
But just a heads-up, since you’re considering moving out here possibly on the basis of a vague offer from them.
The CP would possibly be OK as a way of getting a foot in the door to local English-language media, but the problem would come when you had to get the fuck out of there. If you have any kind of media experience at all, you’ll find the CP to be a very, very strange place indeed to work.
I don’t know anything about the slave aspect of it – two weeks unpaid sounds utterly ludicrous to me, let alone two MONTHS! but the insane hours and intense pressure and stress, all for what is essentially a piece-of-shit rag with absolutely NO credibility whatsoever… you’ll soon see how certain English language media organs get lambasted and slated by posters on here. The China Post barely even rates discussion, even in terms of just slagging it off. It’s really just THAT bad!
Thing is, the English language media is an incestuous conglomeration here in Taipei, so if you DO come over, take that job and then run away screaming after a month or three, the other potential employers will hear about it and you might find yourself in the position of being “that guy who bailed on a contract,” which would make it difficult for you to get hired by another paper.
I know several people who have done time there and can’t think of ANYTHING positive they’ve had to say about the place.
Oh, and this part is just hearsay, but I believe the CP is also far and away the most moribund of them all in terms of management style – describing it as stuck in the 1950s would actually be a compliment. Or so I’ve heard.
Think on this: There’s a good reason the paper (if indeed it IS the CP – it might be some other publication) is attempting to get fresh meat from overseas. Its reputation here precedes it, and the people it would LIKE to hire – those who can actually DO the job – generally wouldn’t touch it with a 10-foot pole, leaving them with an employment pool of underqualified, inexperienced tenderfoots, mostly people struggling to get out of ESL teaching for whatever reason. God knows why anyone would want to though – the ESL teachers I know all make FAR more money that I do. FAR, FAR more, those bastards.
Thanks to everyone for the replies. The paper is indeed China Post, copy-editing position. It sucks to hear from you guys that the paper well, sucks. I don’t care about its stature, but of course I don’t want to slave away without compensate remuneration, and I don’t want to commit to any “trial periods”.
sandman,
Are you in the English-media industry? Do you know for a fact that copy-editors’ hours are insane and that the job is stressful? I was surprised to hear you say that ESL teachers make far more money–again, do you know this for a fact?
cfimages,
That is good advice, re: holding off on signing anything until I get over there. I don’t see why my recruiter couldn’t accommodate this.
Incidentally, is anyone here familiar with Oxford Seminars’ in-house recruiting firm?
[quote]Are you in the English-media industry? Do you know for a fact that copy-editors’ hours are insane and that the job is stressful? I was surprised to hear you say that ESL teachers make far more money–again, do you know this for a fact?
[/quote]
Yes
Maybe not actually insane, but yeah, they’ll totally preclude you from having much in the way of a social life. You won’t be out of there much before midnight.
Its stressful in that many of your coworkers will be incompetent, while the management is (apparently) frustratingly inept.
Are you kidding? An ESL teacher with a reasonably full schedule makes a lot more money than a copy editor and for a lot fewer hours. Which is actually fair enough, as copyediting here is a fairly braindead occupation and far, far easier than teaching.
I had an interview and did a test edit (horrible Chinglish to English) with the China Post. The main attraction for me would be that I can walk there from where I live in less than 10 minutes. I had seven years’ media experience in Taiwan already and I speak fluent Chinese. They never got back to me at all. So being offered an interview by the China Post doesn’t mean very much. Besides, I heard the pay is dismal. (I never got as far as discussing that.)
The foreigners and sort-of foreigners (for eg., Filipinos whose English is better than the average Taiwanese, but hardly native, and ABCs or CBCs) who work at the China Post envy people who work for the other papers. It is seriously understaffed, with antiquated computers. The owners and managers are idiots; anyone who can will screw you - for eg., I got docked two hours pay once for being 5 minutes late after dinner, on a day when I worked hours of unpaid overtime. The owners spent thousands of dollars on fish bowls and elephant statues on the advice of a fengshui expert - but how dying, then dead, and then rotting fish were supposed to improve the ambiance of the place, I never understood.
They hire and fire people there like a revolving door, so two weeks of unpaid work might be all you’d get.
