Generally speaking, without considering the expat-community in Taipei, many foreigners teach English, Japanese or other languages in or around the big cities. Some people end up doing some kind of translation, editing or proofreading job. Others find positions as “foreign consultants” or other kinds of marketing jobs. Other jobs would include modeling, …
Now if you start looking around, what do you do?
*How do you look around?
-Speaking Chinese (and/or Taiwanese) is surely a major asset, taking in mind that the language is an essential key to this culture.
-Do you make cold direct phone calls to foreign companies in Taiwan?
-Do you send your resume to every foreign company you may come accross?
*How do you promote yourself?
-Namecards are essential. Note: One of my friends put several versions of his resume online and mentioned the URL’s on his namecards.
*How do you know what is the perfect kind of job you might be looking for?
=How do you define your objectives?
If you find your dream job, do let us know. Some of us are still looking .
Practically speaking, I think you need to come here and do some reconnaissance first. Pull out all your connections here and hit them up for help and accept any form of help. I believe a good number of folks here had help from friends already in Taiwan to land a job here. I was one of the fortunate ones who had that kind of help. Some of the English teacher types here just walked around and asked schools and got jobs that away, so pounding the pavement does work.
Finding your dream job in Taiwan is unlikely. The market is simply too small and there’s a large labor oversupply in most areas. Unless you speak fluent Mandarin (or at least enough to work professionally), you’re stuck doing technical writing at best.
Cold calling and randomly sending your resume isn’t going to get you very far. Most Taiwanese companies are very inflexible in their thinking and unless you’re applying to a particular position, your resume is circcular-filed.
I believe that newspaper ads are actually a fairly good way to find a job. However, that’s assuming you’ve already identified your “dream job”(that’s a whole different story). I regularly browse the ads and find that companies are often looking for people with native English skills.
100% agree. Without it you are doomed. Even with great Chinese, guanxi is still the best ‘in’, just like it is anywhere in the world.
I have friends, contacts etc, some with awesome Chinese, quals up the whazzoo and cant get anywhere and then others who can barely pronounce Ni Hao and are making NT$150k a month as equity analysts.
Aside from the obvious, the factor seperating them is/was guanxi and I have seen it happen time and time again. I guess thats how Lien Chans law school failure son got into Morgan Stanley etc, and how George W got into HBS.
Disagree that the Taiwan market is too small. Perhaps I am too demanding and optimistic but there is always room for good people, anywhere. Smart bosses can see it and will capitalise on any opportunity. These are the companies where dream jobs occur.
Work for an oversea company rather than Taiwanese (not only better money, but your boss is miles away ). Know your ‘value proposition’.
Play the same nationality game… find businesses from your home country that are looking to do business in Taiwan/Asia. Being able to represent them and being on the ground here is a great value proposition=$$ in the bank, being the same nationality helps on the trust side right out of the gate.
Network, network, network… the more people you know the more opportunities you will potentially hear about.
It depends on what your dream job is, and if you’re qualified for it. If you’re not qualified for your dream job in your home country, you almost certainly won’t land it here.
I love me job. I usually actually look forward to going to work. But, I worked for it. I got the degrees, I worked some shit jobs, and I kept good relations even when I wanted to tell people to fuck off.
I don’t think there’s such a thing as a ‘dream job’. It is somewhat of an oxymoron. But, if you know what kind of work you want to do, and you’re qualified to do it (determined by a combination of education and experience) Taiwan is a great place to look for it.
If you’re not qualified and you for some reason have this illusion that Taiwan is a place that you can get some great job you can’t get at home, you’ll be very disappointed.
It took me a while to find my job. I had to suffer through a few that I didn’t like (‘paying the dues’ I believe it’s called), and I eventually found my job by being aggressive - mailing complete resume, cover letter, document package to many places. It paid off.
One more comment about the ‘dream job’, it is temporary. Whatever conditions make it so great will change. A new boss will take over, or departments will get reorganized. I’m enjoying my job for what it is now, hoping the conditions will last a long time. But I hold no illusions. Nothing is permanent (ooooh, ahhhh.)
There is no dream job. There’s just busting your ass, getting a clear idea of what kind of job you want, preparing for it, and lucking into it. But mostly, you must have at least some passion about what you’re doing.
Everybody, thanks for these interesting suggestions and helpful comments.
Here is some feedback on it.
Being in Taiwan surely helps. Taiwanese or either foreign connections (guanxi in Chinese) help you to get whatever you may need. Teaching English is easy money, but after a certain period of time (let
104 and 1111 seem to have ads for expats too. Of course, I’m pretty sure they don’t get too many responses. One last thing to keep in mind is that your “dream job” isn’t going to give you “dream pay”. If you’re hired in Taiwan, chances are pretty small that you’ll be making a huge amount(ie 2-3 times) more than your co-workers. It’s probably more than enough to live by, but it’s going to make retiring somewhere else difficult.
I’d like to also add there’s a difference between a job and a career. I think most people can find a job, that’s not hard. A career, and a meaningful one at that, is what’s challenging.
Being in my thirties now and trying to downplay age as much as possible I hate giving this advice, but here it is anyway. If you’re in your early to mid twenties, I would say just buy a ticket and get here (if you’re not here already), work any job you can find, and if you’re always on the look out, things will pop up and in the end (if you continue to be a bit aggressive) things will work out. There are so many stories of guys coming to Asia with a degree in history and ending up as a financial analyst or a journalist, etc.
If you’re a bit older, I would say it would be best to have an idea of what exactly you want to do. I fall in this category. I just sent emails out to the companies in my field, I set up interviews for those that gave a positive response, was satisfied with one of the companies that gave me an offer, yada yada yada, and here I am.
If you’re in the first category, the moral of the story is go ahead and have your fun, but get a little serious in the meantime. Feel free to call me shr fu.
We’re a few days further down the road.
Job-hunting can be quite an interesting experience.
I’m calling a few foreign companies in/around Taipei right now.
I get their e-mail, send them my resume, cover letter, …
and hope for a positive result of course.
Has anyone really had luck job hunting through Oriented? In MY (yes mine ONLY) experience I have found the majority of people there are in the same boat as each other. Very few people with hiring power are there. I have been to these events in Taiwan, Sydney, San Fran and Shanghai.
You don’t go there to meet people with hiring power…you go there to find out what people do and whether they know of openings. The people with hiring power are usually much too busy to attend these things.
