I also get the distinct impression that the reviewers sometimes aren’t that…careful with reading through the submitted documentation. A couple of the points made by the reviewer for my initial application were incorrect (asking for things I’d already submitted, or incorrectly calculating how many years of experience I had despite me fully explaining that in a cover letter, which I suspect they didn’t bother looking at, and including proof), and I’ve heard something similar from a friend who applied recently (overlooking multiple documents he’d already submitted). I think some of the points made in the response letters might be from a template or something as they seem to come up quite frequently.
I can’t imagine this situation will improve in the near future given how many applications they have to work through at the moment, so might be better for future applicants to keep things simple and clear, e.g., by not submitting long-winded cover letters etc. (like I did).
Received a fantastic email from the TRO in London today. I was originally told that I would only get a certificate in the UK and pick up the physical card in Taiwan upon arrival (after my 14 days in quarantine) This afternoon, an email came that said my card was now waiting for me in the London TRO office! With that news, it saved me almost $350 in a next day testing to get into Taiwan. Woot!
Has anyone applied for a Gold Card using a “Notice of Assessment” from Canada’s tax man? The problem my friend is having is his salary was paid by a foreign company while living in Canada so they didn’t fill out a T4.
@jephhy, I had the same issue—called the NIA customer service line and got someone who didn’t speak English.
Then I decided to email Mrs Chien. As with @Awvelo, she told me that if my documents do not appear in my submission, I can email them to her. Phew!
@fifieldt, I think sometimes you give feedback to the government on the process, right? One thing that would be very helpful would be live chat or email tech support for the application portal. My Chinese is good enough that I can communicate about technical issues in a written chat but not good enough to talk through the issues on the phone. I would wager that the same is true for a lot of applicants.
Part of our relocation involved an orientation we attended (today, actually) remotely from our quarantine hotel. The trainer is an expat living in Taipei, and he suggested I look into the gold card.
I am the trailing spouse this time around. Last time, she followed me to Switzerland for a long term assignment.
I am a materials scientist / engineer, with experience in glass, ceramics, and rare earth powder metallurgy (specifically magnetic RE alloys). I’ve also have contributed to a handful of published papers, and scored a patent within the same research group.
That said, it seems like they are only looking for Nobel Laureates in the Science & Tech category.
I’m going to be a bit sore at the Mrs if I can’t work for the next 3 years.
When actually employed in my field I was earning nearly twice that, but that was also ~5 years ago. The last 4 years were largely spent with the wrong startup…
Yes I think the limit is 3 years for meeting the salary requirement. Although a gold card would be convenient, not having one does not limit you to teaching English. I am.not an expert, but I think you could accept any job that gives you a work permit. And there are other types of visa, such as entrepreneurship. I am not sure of the rules for working remotely (eg, for an overseas company) if you don’t have a work permit.
Don’t worry, teaching English is the safest and most straight-forward way to secure an ARC. Cram school (補習班) staff and NIA officials are used to dealing with this category of foreigners. Just let them do the paperwork and relax You will have time to settle in Taiwan and find new ideas, maybe even open a business!
Taiwanese companies and unfortunately NIA/CLA/etc themselves are afraid of the unknown. English teachers or foreign labour are the comfort zone, but when it comes to a professional, even the best in the world, that does not belong to the two categories they will
I have the ARC already, and may talk my wife into getting the gold card as she thoroughly qualifies. I have seen several adverts on LinkedIn for English speaking engineering roles/contracts, so will just have to see
Just to add to this, at the weekend I was also speaking to another friend who applied for the gold card back in May-ish.
He’d apparently called them this week to check on the status, at which point he was informed that it had already been assessed 3 weeks ago and he needed to submit additional documents regarding his previous employment, despite him not having been notified of that and checking the application status on the system daily.
I’m willing to concede it might just be bad luck, but out of me and the only two other people I know in real life who’ve applied for the gold card, all three of us have had these kind of disorganised/admin issues with our applications. Might be relevant to others who haven’t heard anything back after a while.
Just want to share my experience so far with the Gold Card application:
Applied June 20th in the Technology category, currently living in Taipei on USA visa-exempt status since March. I have a decade of experience as a software engineer, most recently in the San Francisco Bay Area, and meet the salary requirements. I submitted income verification, along with links to some of my Github contributions and articles I’ve written.
After sitting in the Professional Review by Workforce Development Agency state for about a month, I called Mr. Huang to verify status and ask if I should change to the “Economy” category. Due to the time and comments here, I was becoming concerned that I would get rejected in the “Technology” category. I sat on hold for over an hour, and was then disconnected around 5:00 PM.
A few days later, I had a Taiwanese friend try again, and she was able to get through to an English-speaker. He advised me that my application would likely be gotten to in the following week, and that I should probably wait to see before changing anything.
Friday the following week, (24-07-2020, 34 days after application) I received a request for additional documents:
The paystub I submitted was not acceptable, and they wanted a W2.
They wanted proof of a patent, published academic research, or some kind of awards to prove my technology chops.
This second requirement is an issue, since I don’t have any software patents (nor would I want them), and I’m not an academic - I’m an engineer; I don’t publish papers, I write software. So the requirements to have a patent or the like are functionally an application rejection.
I called them up again today and got to an English-speaking human quickly, who confirmed to me both the W2 requirement and the fact that I can change my application category. Note: the information update screen does not reflect application category changes you make, but the do in fact go through! I’ve changed to the “Economy” category, and am hoping to be reviewed quickly and not after another month+.
You will have time to settle in Taiwan and find new ideas, maybe even open a business!
