Job Discussion Forums

[sam12345]

HI im an MBA in finance from an Islamic country, I have three years work experience in my field. Im looking to go to Turkey to more or les settle there. Any advice on how I can break into the English Teaching field? I'm not from a native English speaking country, but I speak the language fluently.Im young, very hardworking, and willing to start at the bottom. I was a professor's assistant at university, and taught college level students. I've taught GMAT/SATs privately too, so I do have some teaching experience, and I'm a great teacher.
Ofcourse, I would prefer to work in my field, finance ( i have experience), but I guess the chance of finding my first job (in Turkey) in that field is virtually zero? Any advice for me?

[Qaaolchoura]

Are you perchance Syrian? I live in Gaziantep, and every week my school gets a Syrian or two with an MA in TESOL, English, or some other related field. I have to explain that we can't hire them, because my company actually gets work permits for its employees, and the Y�K will only let companies bring in foreign English teachers if they have a passport from an Anglophone country. (What I don't mention to their face is that, while certainly quite good, usually their level of English is no better than our least-fluent Turkish teacher, and the Turkish teachers have the advantage of speaking the students' first language.)

Any rate, I'd say that your chances of getting a job teaching English in Turkey, as a non-native speaker without an English-related qualification, are less than zero, unless the "Islamic country" you come from is Azerbaijan or Turkmenistan. (Turks are willing to look the other way concerning immigration when other Turkish-speakers are concerned, but not so much for Arabs.)

If you are Syrian (or from any Arab country for that matter), I'd strongly recommend looking elsewhere for work. I suspect you'd have an easier job getting legal work in the US than in Turkey, given the very Turks are very vocally and unabashedly anti-Arab (at least in this part of Turkey), to a degree I could never have imagined if I hadn't seen it. In fact if you're from pretty much any Muslim country in Asia, with an MBA in finance, you would to better to look for a job in a Western country, where there's a high demand in many multinational companies for bilinguals in Arabic, Farsi, Urdu, and Indonesian. (If you're from Subsaharan Africa or Albania that's a different matter, unfortunately.) An MBA puts you in a far better position than the job-seekers I mentioned earlier, but not, unfortunately, in Turkey.

Regards,
~Q

[sam12345]

Thank you for your reply, I'm actually a Pakistani. I suppose the best way for me is to look for a job while I'm there in Turkey? Perhaps I will have a better chance once I settle there and make local friends (I want to move to Turkey for several personal reasons). I'm taking Turkish classes in order to learn the language.

I have lived in a native English speaking country, but I'm not a citizen, unfortunately.

Anyway, I guess I will just have to work really hard once I'm there in order to find a job. It doesn't even have to be English teaching, it can be a job teaching finance, economics, anything. Any advice you guys might have for me would be great!

Regards,
M