Job Discussion Forums

[Guiza]

Dear all,

I spend hours of my life reading topics here and beyond, intent on finding guidance on what to do with my career.

I have taught English abroad for 2.5 years and I have a CELTA. I am pretty sure I want to remain in education, at least it's a fine line between that and not being able to see a better career elsewhere. I'd be happy to be some kind of teacher forever, but I want to progress.

I won't bore you with my potential career options as a teacher - you know them all already.

I will be married soon. My wife is not a native English speaker. She mainly works as an English tutor, has no teaching certificates and is not particularly well qualified in anything other than having a degree.


The point of the thread is this:

The jobs I see at universities or the British Council, well-paid jobs, mention that spouses are taken care of with regards to visas and flights etc.

Do people actually know how employers look upon applicants with spouses, and in particular spouses who are from countries (e.g. Vietnam) that have difficulties in acquiring visas for travel?

Does it make it your application less appealing to the employer if your spouse is from Bangladesh / Vietnam / Haiti / Mars rather than USA / UK / France etc?

This goes for jobs at universities in the Middle East, International School jobs in SE Asia and beyond and British Council jobs all over the world.

I'm worried about going full throttle down Education Avenue if my personal life might prove to be an obstacle to getting the jobs I need to support myself and future family.

Thank you for reading I appreciate any comments or advice

[nomad soul]

Generally (especially for the Mid East), jobs with the best salaries and richest benefits (covering dependents) go to those teachers with solid qualifications/experience such as a TEFL-related MA + several years of teaching experience. So it wouldn't be your personal life that may or may not be an obstacle to getting into one of these positions---it comes down to your nationality and the strength of your qualifications. Besides, a spouse is essentially considered a dependent unless he/she is also applying for a position.

[Guiza]

It's hard for Vietnamese to get visas. Does the fact that I am British and can get visas easily then make it easy for my spouse to get a visa?

If she was on her own getting a visa for many countries is not easy.

[nomad soul]

The employer or a visa agency would help with visas for trailing spouses/dependents. Anyway, I suggest you look first at the countries you're interested in, see which positions you qualify for (those with dependent benefits), and then do an Internet search on "Vietnamese community (insert country name)." For example, a search on the Vietnamese community in Saudi Arabia yielded an expat site with several Vietnamese women (trailing spouses) listed as members. In fact, it's not uncommon to see Asian wives of western men in this region.

[Guiza]

Thanks for that. If I can give a situation:

3 identical CVs. Person A is single. Person B is married to an American. Person C is married to a Vietnamese.

Does anyone know better than I do about whether, given these 3 candidates, would an employer (say, the BC) be more likely to offer an interview to one candidate over the other, purely based on their marital status and the nationality of the person they are married too and the subsequent difficulties that may bring in terms of visas?

[MotherF]

I've worked on hiring for many years and I've never had three identical (in experience and training) CVs. But I will say, we often weigh, "Who is most likely to stay here?" more than we probably would like to. And the answer to that question is the single person. We'd start introducing them to potential local partners shortly after arrival.
Besides idle spouses are more likely to get bored in our small city.
For what it's worth, I do not work in the Middle East. I believe (maybe wrongly so) that schools from the Middle East would be less likely to assume a single person would find a local long term relationship than schools in Latin America do. And in our case, getting your wife her visa would be your responsibility not ours.

[Guiza]

so you're sort of suggesting that (maybe) in the ME a married candidate would be considered a safer long term investment for an employer?

Looking through some BC job ads, some are accompanied and others not.

The ones that I've just looked at talk about spouse and accompanying family members being able to be sponsored. They don't explicitly say whether the employer will help to arrange the spouse visa, some talk about the difficulties of getting visas for non-eu nationals.

A quick look at some jobs in the ME, they offer flights home for dependents but don't really mention their visas - which ties in with what you said about teachers having to arrange their spouses visas independent of the school.

And if they are from Vietnam maybe they won't even get the visa...

Other jobs in the same region don't mention at all about accompanying spouses. In those situations, I would get my visa and then apply for a tourist visa for my wife with a view to getting a residency permit once we got there...? Has anyone got experience with any of this?

Seems kind of tough to successfully bring a spouse with a non-desirable passport - potentially more work for the employer and risky for the employee.

Maybe we should just stay here

[nomad soul]

For Saudi Arabia, some employers will only provide a single (bachelor) visa, while others, usually the better-paying jobs, will accommodate family members. And yes, there are trailing spouses, wives from Vietnam, who are living with their western husbands in Saudi Arabia.

Perhaps you need to be specific about where in the Middle East you're qualified to teach. The UAE? Qatar? KSA? Kuwait? Oman? Bahrain? Otherwise, apply and if you get an interview, bring up any concerns you may have about your wife joining you. You'll likely find you were worrying over nothing.

[Guiza]

Yeah fair enough, i'm worrying too much too early - I'm not qualified enough yet to get any of the better jobs in the ME.

I am at the point of deciding what quals to get and where to take them, would be a shame to get a masters then find out my job options are not as good as I thought because of personal life.

Anyway, thanks for the direction, I'll look into it more.

[Xie Lin]

Vietnamese wife in Saudi Arabia:

http://forums.eslcafe.com/job/viewtopic.php?t=103100


Vietnamese wife in GCC coutries:

http://forums.eslcafe.com/job/viewtopic.php?t=94189

.

[Guiza]

nice, thank you Xie Lin.

Can't believe i didn't find that earlier