years ago after graduation I taught English in Taiwan, but my degree certificate wasn’t going to be issued until almost 6 months after I arrived in Taiwan. In anticpation of this casuing a problem with obtaining a work permit, I got a letter from my university stating I was eligible to graduate, had it endorsed by the Taiwan representative office back home and used it to apply for my work permit in Taiwan.
However, I was working at the school while I was awaiting the work permit to be approved, and it actually got rejected, apparently because of the lack of actual degree certificate. I then left Taiwan anyway for other reasons, and that was the end of that.
I now am considering going back for non-English teaching work and so of course will be applying for a work permit etc., all above board of course. Does anyone have experience concerning previous rejections like this negatively affecting future applications, or am I just paranoid?
I’ve no experience in this, but I’d say that in your case it sounds like you’re just being paranoid. I wouldn’t worry about it. It’s not like you got deported or busted for illegal working or got a “naughty boy” stamp in your passport or anything.
Do different ministries still issue different types of work permits? It sounds like your initial work permit application was rejected by the Ministry of Education, but AFAIK if you were returning to work in (say) the securities industry your work permit would have to be approved by the Ministry of Finance.
Or have things changed?
(The point being, of course, that sometimes one hand doesn’t know what the other is doing and that works in your favor. Case in point, the tax authorities not giving a flip whether you’re legal or not, as long as they get paid.)