I am a Nigerian with bachelor’s degree and six years professional experience in HR/Admin. I’m planning to move to Taiwan on a business visa after this global pandemic.
I dont want to work with general knowledge we have on the internet as most of them are misleading. Hands-on information from people with actual experienced as obvious on this forum is preferable.
I have read so much about converting visitor visa to residence/work and guess I’m good to go.
From your experiences, what is the ease of getting a job in Taiwan (not necessary in my stated field, I’m open for other options). And how is the salary (in dollar)?
My trip depends solely on your sincere and direct information. It would be better to squash my plan if the trip is not worth it.
Feel free to email me (oriaend@gmail.com) for private info or advice.
Like I wrote earlier, my job options are not limited to HR. I know cultural differences play a role in employment so I can take other job. Secondly, whether HR or not, there’s no way I won’t take Chinese language lesson.
Does Nigeria have English as an official language? I know tons of people there speak it, but if it’s official then you could teach English. Problem with Taiwan’s law is that foreign teachers can only teach the language of their passport-holding country (which continues to technically exclude the USA, since there’s no official language in then US, but doesn’t.)
Edit: the internet says English is the official language of Nigeria. So by law you could teach English here. Depends on whether you want to.
Let’s face it, a Nigerian isn’t going to have an easy time finding a cram-school teaching job in Taiwan no matter what his official language is. This is especially the case for somebody who is new to the English teaching game and can’t hold up an impressive CV in their favour.
@Endura if you have a technical background, your best bet is to find a job in IT or some kind of technical field. Employers in these fields are more likely to employ you based on your skills and experience more than your ethnicity and accent. And, in many cases, you don’t need to know Chinese.
This is what I used to believe until I started teaching a lot of overseas students from various African countries (but mainly Eswatini). They are all teaching English and they are all pulling in 600-700NTD an hour. They send money home. I’m not sure how the buxiban bosses explain it to the parents, probably say they’re Americans.
Getting an ESL job as a Nigerian is like rocket science as many countries and institutions don’t recognize Nigeria as an English speaking country. I’ve tried here in turkey but the feeling is the same. Some Nigerians breakthrough only but a few.
You haven’t really thought this through very well.
Think for a second: what are Taiwan’s top exports? Tech. Find a way to leverage your connections in Nigeria with what Taiwan exports.
You might be able to pull something off with localization of products, but unless you come here with a pretty solid understanding of the country and its industries I don’t foresee this working very well.
What’s your long term plan? What’s the purpose of you moving to Taiwan? Staying long term?
It won’t be easy to be working in Taiwan with your background since it’ll take you a year or longer to be fluent in Chinese and it doesn’t seem like you’re in a technical field where language ability isn’t an issue. Really depends if you think it’s worth going through all the effort to get a salary that’s probably not amazing on a global scale, but then again not sure how that compares against your current situation.
For me, when I was living in Taiwan, I spoke decent Chinese but horrible at reading and writing but I got headhunted into a Finance/Accounting role for a multinational after putting up my CV on 104, basically cause I had the skills, qualifications and experience they needed. Things just fell into place and I ended up working a few years.
How easy is it get a job here as a foreigner ? A cakewalk. A doodle. As easy as walking in a place, asking to see the boss and signing a contract. Just be prepared for the possibility the first job here will be shit. I naively accepted a job abroad that wasn’t exactly what is what promised. I recommend you don’t do this as its very easy to get work on the ground here.
It was a rough 4 or 5 months here, during which I had many chances to leave for bigger and better things but didn’t for some misguided sense of loyalty.
Eventually I woke the hell up, walked into a few different places on the same day and got about 5 offers in 2 days. Signed one for a kindy place which offered 69 000 a month which is pretty good considering there is no lesson planning going on. Just freeballing every day. Problem is I’m TOO comfortable now. Need a harder challenge. I should probably write an expose on what kindy is actually like in TW now that I think about it. It might surprise people, especially those who send their kids to them.
Oh, and I know a few black guys who worked here also teaching esl. They had work; privates, buxibans etc and got by just fine. They do get paid a little less than Johnny blue eyes but they seem cool with it. The racism and discrimination annoys then in Taiwan but from their accounts its nothing compared to what they’ve experienced in other places. Which is either a good reflection on Taiwan or a bad one, I’ve yet to decide.