I was in Taiwan for a week, having stopped there on the way to Cambodia, but only to change flights. Whilst in Taiwan, I did a few touristy things, like going to the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall and the Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall, but I was really there to see if I could live there. I looked for jobs and spoke to many people about working in Taiwan, but decided to return home as I had run out of money and needed a break from being abroad.
My notes on trying to find a job in Taiwan are as follows:
- go to the country that you want to apply for a job in
- get a local SIM card, so that you have a local telephone number. This can be used on your CV and the phone can be used to chase up enquiries cheaply
- give yourself plenty of time
- find someone who can speak and read Chinese. They will need to help with everything, from registering on job-searching websites to understanding what the phone messages say when you ring up your prospective companies
- speak to the consulate (if possible)
- speak to local expatriates (if possible)
- register and apply for jobs on popular job-search websites. The one I had recommended to me repeatedly was: http://www.104.com.tw/. This is the most popular job-searching website in Taiwan and any jobs that require English will be listed in English
- try looking for English-speaking companies that have offices in Taiwan
- consider using teaching as a stop-gap/temporary solution. It may be a case of finding a job that you don’t want to do, in order to allow yourself to get set up and search for a job that you do want to do. The process could take a couple of months.
Many jobs in Taiwan seem to be based on a system of referrals and networking, probably based on the Chinese concept of ‘guanxi‘, but it is possible to find jobs yourself. Bear in mind that I only spent a week job-hunting in Taiwan, so these are the things I learnt in that time.
Whilst in Taiwan I also did some other cool stuff, like visiting the Taipei 101 tower and eating a shaved-ice dessert. The last day I was there was also the national Dragon Boat Festival, so almost everyone had the day off and there were dragon boat races on the Tamsui River. It was very good, but rained a lot.