Alright, I’m not sure if this is the appropriate forum, but since my end goal is to live in Taiwan, I figured this was close enough.
I’m currently a senior at George Washington University, a double major in Asian Studies and Chinese, and I am looking for a job in Taiwan. I’ve been to Taiwan a total of three times, once as a Rotary exchange student (a year), a second time for my semester abroad during university (6 months), and third time for intensive Chinese language training at NTU (2-3 months). From my first time in Taiwan, I fell in love with the country, and have sought any opportunity to return. Last year I met a lovely Taiwanese university student (NCCU - Russian major), and we’ve been dating for almost a year and a half now. My goal has been, even before meeting my current girlfriend, to return to Taiwan after graduation to work. I think I have the skills to do so: I will (hopefully) have a relevant degree from a decent school by May, I’m fluent in Mandarin (both spoken and written), and have learned quite a deal about Taiwanese culture due to my personal interest and several visits.
The problem? I have no idea how to find a job. I have recently applied to a couple different consulting companies who have branches in Taiwan, but I’ve gotten no reply as of yet, and I’m not sure where I should be looking. My girlfriend has shown me several different job listings on 104.com.tw, but most seemed to be aimed at Taiwanese people, and the ones I have applied to have not replied either. My last resort is teaching English, but as I’ve read in other threads, there is a large influx of new teachers due to the economy, and although I’ve taught before (doing 1 on 1’s and helping out at a high school) I think I could only deal with teaching professionals. I’m not a huge fan of kids.
So, this has pretty much left me very exasperated and desperate. I’m ideally looking for a job where I can utilize my Chinese language abilities. I don’t want to come off as pompous, but my speaking, reading, and writing ability is better than about 90% of the foreigners I’ve met during my various Chinese studies in Taiwan and Beijing. I really believe (or is it blindly hope?) that there are companies out there looking for people with my Chinese language abilities, and that I haven’t found them yet.
If anyone has any ideas about where I should be looking, I would be incredibly grateful. Thank you!
If it were me - I’d come, get a PT teaching job and take it from there. You could probably move into some other field fairly easily once you were here, although you might need to teach for 6 months or a year before you build up the necessary contacts.
Well, it will be hard, but not impossible, to get a regular work visa as you do not have the relevant work experience. Language is merely a tool to do something else - you need to learn the something else. That should be criterion no. 1 for any job - what professional skill will it teach you for your next job? Everyone here speaks Mandarin well, so that is no advantage. However, fewer speak English well.
I was in the same boat when I graduated and I sat down for company exams, (completed in Chinese), to get my first job in a local firm. The work visa was obtained a language skills related loophole for export business. That job gave me the relevate experience and skills to get a better job and I leveraged it from there.
I had taught a little as a student, (illegally), and swore never to do it again once graduated. It won’t help further your career unless education is what you want to do.
But never fear. Rejects from ELSI can go on to attend a top 3 business school; possibly why the world is in its current state.
[quote=“Elegua”]Well, it will be hard, but not impossible, to get a regular work visa as you do not have the relevant work experience. Language is merely a tool to do something else - you need to learn the something else. That should be criterion no. 1 for any job - what professional skill will it teach you for your next job? Everyone here speaks Mandarin well, so that is no advantage. However, fewer speak English well.
I was in the same boat when I graduated and I sat down for company exams, (completed in Chinese), to get my first job in a local firm. The work visa was obtained a language skills related loophole for export business. That job gave me the relevate experience and skills to get a better job and I leveraged it from there.
I had taught a little as a student, (illegally), and swore never to do it again once graduated. It won’t help further your career unless education is what you want to do.
But never fear. Rejects from ELSI can go on to attend a top 3 business school; possibly why the world is in its current state.[/quote]
Well my only other ‘skills’ involve knowledge of Chinese/Taiwanese literature. I’m hoping to eventually go to grad school for something along those lines, I just want to take a few years off and figure out if it’s REALLY what I want to do. One of my contacts suggested looking for publishing companies in Taiwan, but I’m not exactly sure how to even start looking for them. The books I have here that were publishing in Taiwan don’t seem to give any contact info or website for the publishers.
You sound kind of arrogant assuming your Chinese is better than a lot of people living here a long time. As other posters said, Chinese is spoken by almost everybody here, if you spoke another language fluently other than English on the other hand…ironic isn’t it! If you move to Taiwan you’ll have to be flexible …
[quote=“Edaren”]I really believe (or is it blindly hope?) that there are companies out there looking for people with my Chinese language abilities, and that I haven’t found them yet.
If anyone has any ideas about where I should be looking, I would be incredibly grateful. Thank you![/quote]
There are no doubt companies, such as trading companies and tech manufacturers, that might hire someone with your background to work as an English editor for their correspondence with clients abroad, but the pay is not likely to be great.
Have you considered applying to grad school in Taiwan? Scholarships are widely available to foreign grad students, and I’ve heard that scholarships in the neighborhood of NT$20,000 a month are being handed out on a fairly routine basis these days. Once you’ve been accepted, you can apply for a part-time work permit based on your student status and get a bit of extra income that way. (And the best way to figure out whether you really want to go to grad school may just be by going ahead and doing it to find out.)
If you read my original post, I said my Chinese is better than 90% of the foreigners that I’ve met. From the posts I’ve read I would guess there are a lot of long-term expats here who have much better Chinese than mine. You may think I’m arrogant but I’ve spent a lot of time studying Chinese (5ish years at this point), and a decent amount of that has been devoted to Classical Chinese, and modern literature. I spent last semester studying literature with other Chinese students at Beijing Normal University, and from my experiences, there are very few things I can’t do with my Chinese. Perhaps I do come off as arrogant, but I have devoted a lot of time to studying Chinese, and it’s a point of pride for me.
[quote=“Rotalsnart”][quote=“Edaren”]I really believe (or is it blindly hope?) that there are companies out there looking for people with my Chinese language abilities, and that I haven’t found them yet.
If anyone has any ideas about where I should be looking, I would be incredibly grateful. Thank you![/quote]
There are no doubt companies, such as trading companies and tech manufacturers, that might hire someone with your background to work as an English editor for their correspondence with clients abroad, but the pay is not likely to be great.
Have you considered applying to grad school in Taiwan? Scholarships are widely available to foreign grad students, and I’ve heard that scholarships in the neighborhood of NT$20,000 a month are being handed out on a fairly routine basis these days. Once you’ve been accepted, you can apply for a part-time work permit based on your student status and get a bit of extra income that way. (And the best way to figure out whether you really want to go to grad school may just be by going ahead and doing it to find out.)[/quote]
I’m actually pretty sick of school right now, and although I do plan on going to grad school, it would likely be for my PHd in Chinese lit, and a diploma from an American university would ultimately be more useful than one from NTU or NCCU, despite the quality of education they have there. I am hoping to find something that I can do for a few years while I figure out exactly what I want to do. But who knows? I may find that I really like working and don’t want to return to grad school. At this point I’m pretty clueless about exactly what I want to do.
Have you uploaded your own resume to 104.com.tw? If not, do it now. A lot of companies look for people on that site and there aren’t many foreigners’ resumes on there.
Just cos you don’t see a company advertising there doesn’t mean they aren’t looking.
Have you uploaded your own resume to 104.com.tw? If not, do it now. A lot of companies look for people on that site and there aren’t many foreigners’ resumes on there.
Just cos you don’t see a company advertising there doesn’t mean they aren’t looking.[/quote]
My girlfriend says there is a way to upload it, but I can’t figure out how! The website layout frustrates me, and I’ve complete their online work experience form, I will devote some time to uploading my resume now. Thanks for the advice!
[quote=“StuartCa”]if your Chinese is as good as you say it is you could do worse than look at working for a translation house and get into editing.
Do a search on this forum for their details[/quote]
I posted a month or two ago about trying to find translation work in Taipei, but I remember not finding any opportunities. Hopefully when I have more time (full time student and working 20-30 hours a week currently), I’ll do a better search of the forums and see what I come up with. Thanks for the advice!
First of all, most editing and university teaching jobs are asking for MAs or PhDs. The higher your qualifications, the better the opportunities. Experience and good references are a must.
Aside from teaching, editing and translating can be done for government agencies, language teaching magazines, teaching materials publishing companies, trading companies, shipping companies, high-tech factories, etc… With decent Chinese, you should be able to find something you like. Yet see point 1.
Teaching at a school for adults isn’t too bad, and if you want some more info about them, I have had experience with many adult schools in Taichung and Taipei.
Editing work is really nice, regular day job, but you need two years of work experience after university in order to qualify for an ARC with these companies.
However, fewer speak English well.