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Rooster_2006
Joined: 24 Sep 2007
Posts: 984
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 Posted: Mon Feb 21, 2011 12:37 am Post subject: Statistics Regarding the People Who Applied for My Job |
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I just finished reading through the resumes and sending out replies a day or two ago. This was how the statistics broke down:
----------Things that Most People Seem to Have----------
- Nine applicants applying for a 600 NTD-per-hour/14.5-hour-a-week buxiban position
- 8 out of 9 had bachelor's degrees (the one who didn't had a JFRV and a one-year college diploma)
- 8 out of 9 had teaching experience of some sort (I use this term loosely, in one case I counted four years of nanny experience and in another case, I counted ten years spent as an art teacher at a private studio)
- 6 out of 9 had teaching experience that was specifically English teaching (please note that I did not count the one woman who had been "substitute teaching in Taiwan for one month" in this total)
- 9 out of 9 were currently in Taiwan (I posted the ad on Kaohsiung Living, which probably explains this)
----------Rare Things----------
- ZERO mentioned a 120-hour TEFL certificate. Although one mentioned a 60-hour online TEFL cert, I did not count that in her favor because in my opinion, a 60-hour online cert with no supervised teaching practice is not worth very much.
- ONLY ONE could speak Chinese (he was an Australian-born Chinese).
- ZERO had a bachelor's degree in education
- ONE had an associate's degree in education (by the way, that person also had a bachelor's degree in an unrelated subject)
- ZERO had a DELTA, MA TESOL, or even a generic graduate degree 
Lesson learned?
Experience, especially ELT experience, is extremely common and almost everybody has it. It's nothing special. Experience will not set you apart -- it will only hurt you if you don't have it. I had more than one person with 5+ years of ELT experience apply.
Good TEFL career development programs like CELTA, CELTYL, Trinity CTEFLA, etc. are exceedingly rare among applicants. 0/9
Chinese language skills are exceedingly rare among applicants. 1/9
Conclusion:
Want to work in Taiwan?
Some quick, cheap fixes are to learn some Chinese and earn a CELTA, CELTYL, Trinity CTEFLA, or other on-site 120-hour TEFL cert. Because those are the things the other teachers don't have.
Some more long-term, time- and money-consuming resume fixes are to earn DELTA/an MA TESOL and/or an AA or BA in education -- but I don't expect anyone to do that just for a 14.5-hour-a-week buxiban job.
Experience and a degree are the things that everybody has. You should have them, too, but they won't set you apart.
I just thought this "study" was kind of interesting and thought I'd share. |
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creztor
Joined: 30 Dec 2009
Posts: 476
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| Posted: Mon Feb 21, 2011 1:43 am Post subject: |
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| 9 isn't a very large sample size, but it is better than nothing. Thanks for posting the results, Rooster. |
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Rooster_2006
Joined: 24 Sep 2007
Posts: 984
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| Posted: Mon Feb 21, 2011 1:46 am Post subject: |
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On to append some more possibly interesting information:
FOUR had neutral cover letters/resumes/application approaches that were neither extraordinarily professional, nor extraordinarily unprofessional
TWO had what I would consider "professional" cover letters/resumes (personalized cover letters, nice-looking, well-organized resumes, etc.)
THREE had what I would consider "unprofessional" cover letters/resumes (not attaching a resume at all, typos, treating e-mails to me like correspondence with buddy "using 'Hi' greetings and less polite language), and other bizarre things |
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Rooster_2006
Joined: 24 Sep 2007
Posts: 984
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| Posted: Mon Feb 21, 2011 1:49 am Post subject: |
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| creztor wrote: |
| 9 isn't a very large sample size, but it is better than nothing. |
True, it's a pretty small sample size, but as you said, better than nothing. This is one area in which there are very few current statistics online, and even extremely rough statistics are better than none... This info is definitely better for Taiwan newcomers than shooting in the dark.
| Quote: |
| Thanks for posting the results, Rooster. |
You're welcome. |
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JZer
Joined: 16 Jan 2005
Posts: 3898
Location: Pittsburgh
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| Posted: Mon Feb 21, 2011 4:53 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
| Some quick, cheap fixes are to learn some Chinese and earn a CELTA, CELTYL, Trinity CTEFLA, or other on-site 120-hour TEFL cert. Because those are the things the other teachers don't have. |
Yes, but to some employers knowing Chinese is unfavorable. Of course it does allow one to pick up jobs from bosses that cannot speak English that may only be advertised in Chinese. |
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lalazart
Joined: 05 Mar 2011
Posts: 17
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| Posted: Fri Apr 01, 2011 11:32 pm Post subject: |
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| I am currently in the US getting my BA in TESOL. I tutored at a university in Taipei, and I also was a private tutor for several families in Taipei for about 8 months. Do you think my chances of finding a job in Taipei are strong when I return in a year?[/i] |
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Rooster_2006
Joined: 24 Sep 2007
Posts: 984
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| Posted: Sat Apr 02, 2011 5:19 am Post subject: |
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| lalazart wrote: |
| I am currently in the US getting my BA in TESOL. I tutored at a university in Taipei, and I also was a private tutor for several families in Taipei for about 8 months. Do you think my chances of finding a job in Taipei are strong when I return in a year?[/i] |
Well, let me explain things this way.
I ended up having 14 people apply to my job in the end, out in Fongshan City (far, far away from Taipei).
However, due to time constraints (I had to find someone quickly), I could only consider about the first seven or eight people who applied. By the time the others began applying, I had already scheduled interviews and teaching demonstrations.
Of those initial seven:
ZERO had a CELTA or CELTYL.
ZERO had a degree in any education-related field (one guy supposedly had an associate's degree in teaching, but his interview revealed that he had lied about many things, like being a native speaker and having been born in Australia, and his demo sucked).
There were tons of people who claimed years and years of experience, but very few people who had any sort of actual academic teaching credential.
The way to to get noticed in this market is not to have 3 - 5 years of experience. Tons of people have that. People with several years of EFL experience are a dime a dozen, especially the South Africans. They just stay in Taiwan for eons and wrack up ten, fifteen, etc. years of experience.
The way to get noticed is to have a degree in education, an MA TESOL, a BA in TESOL, or heck, even a CELTYL or CELTA.
However, even if you have all those things, trying to get into Taipei right off the bat is really risky. I hear that competition rates right now in Taipei are like 50:1 or 100:1 (not sure if that is true or not). Why not widen your search to include most of northern Taiwan? Stay in Taipei, but apply to some "safety jobs" in the greater Taipei/other areas of northern Taiwan region as well.
Your paper qualifications look good, but you may need some experience in Taiwan before you can beat out the other 49 people who apply for a single full-time opening in Taipei. I realize that you have some experience, but the kind of experience I mean is "finishing a one-year contract at a school, with a legal ARC" experience. Tutoring is better than nothing, but is not as good, in my mind, as a completed year at a buxiban or public school. "Tutoring" could mean anything -- it could mean an hour a week. We just don't know. But if you held a work visa and completed a one-year contract, it shows us the following things:
1. You can stick to a contract and don't bail at the first sign of hardship.
2. The government recognizes that you meet the minimum level of qualification to get a teaching visa, because if they didn't, you wouldn't have gotten a visa.
3. You taught at least 14 hours a week (the legal minimum to get a teaching visa). Putting "tutoring" on your resume does not prove this. You could have been tutoring for an hour a week or 20 hours a week, we just don't know one way or the other.
You will find a job, don't worry. Your quals are similar to what mine were when I landed a job in Taiwan. However, I was willing to work outside of Taipei, and, in the end, outside of Kaohsiung City, as well. |
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lalazart
Joined: 05 Mar 2011
Posts: 17
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| Posted: Sat Apr 02, 2011 4:38 pm Post subject: |
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thanks for your detailed response, as I agree with most of everything you said. However, I know it is going to make things a lot more difficult, but I really have no interest in a job that I can't get to by MRT.
I don't believe you are exaggerating, but whenever I read anything about the job market on a TESL forum people always make it sound as if it is nearly impossible to find a decent job in Asia unless you have 10 years of experience, a MA in TESOL and know the right people, or have somewhat lesser of qualifications but you are willing to work in the sticks. When I was living in Taiwan a few months ago I knew people who were fresh college grads and were able to find good jobs right in Taipei after searching for less than a week. I try not to worry myself too much, but this is my major in college and I have been thinking about where I would like to work for several years now, and when I come to these forums and read how hard it is for beginner to find work I get scared as this my chosen area of study of and career path. |
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JZer
Joined: 16 Jan 2005
Posts: 3898
Location: Pittsburgh
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| Posted: Sat Apr 02, 2011 5:07 pm Post subject: |
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| lalazart wrote: |
thanks for your detailed response, as I agree with most of everything you said. However, I know it is going to make things a lot more difficult, but I really have no interest in a job that I can't get to by MRT.
I don't believe you are exaggerating, but whenever I read anything about the job market on a TESL forum people always make it sound as if it is nearly impossible to find a decent job in Asia unless you have 10 years of experience, a MA in TESOL and know the right people, or have somewhat lesser of qualifications but you are willing to work in the sticks. When I was living in Taiwan a few months ago I knew people who were fresh college grads and were able to find good jobs right in Taipei after searching for less than a week. I try not to worry myself too much, but this is my major in college and I have been thinking about where I would like to work for several years now, and when I come to these forums and read how hard it is for beginner to find work I get scared as this my chosen area of study of and career path. |
To be fair, how many English teachers are working in Taiwan? How many come here and say that it is difficult/impossible to find a job?
I think that should give you some idea about the reality of the situation in Taiwan. |
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lalazart
Joined: 05 Mar 2011
Posts: 17
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| Posted: Sat Apr 02, 2011 5:45 pm Post subject: |
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There are a lot of foreign teachers in Taiwan. The few that I have talked to in person say that it is not that difficult to find work. The people on the internet say it is fairly difficult to find work.
That does not give me an idea about the reality of finding work in Taiwan, because the two opinions are contradictory.
My guess would be that it is not as bad as most people make it sound on the internet, but also it is going to take a little bit of work. I think people are trying to make it sound a little difficult, so we don't get a bunch of dum dums thinking "I am unable to find decent work at home, and I hear that anyone can go to asia and make great money just speaking english all day. maybe I'll try that" |
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Rooster_2006
Joined: 24 Sep 2007
Posts: 984
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| Posted: Sun Apr 03, 2011 5:05 am Post subject: |
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| lalazart wrote: |
There are a lot of foreign teachers in Taiwan. The few that I have talked to in person say that it is not that difficult to find work. The people on the internet say it is fairly difficult to find work.
That does not give me an idea about the reality of finding work in Taiwan, because the two opinions are contradictory.
My guess would be that it is not as bad as most people make it sound on the internet, but also it is going to take a little bit of work. I think people are trying to make it sound a little difficult, so we don't get a bunch of dum dums thinking "I am unable to find decent work at home, and I hear that anyone can go to asia and make great money just speaking english all day. maybe I'll try that" |
It is true that many, many people on the Internet exaggerate how hard it is to find a job in country x because they have an agenda. They are trying to protect their own jobs. I encountered this with Japan -- a bunch of people on Dave's told me "it's almost impossible to find a job in Japan right now, and with your CELTA and years of experience, you'll be a low-rung candidate at best." Funny, though -- I landed a job within just 12 days of entering Japan, paying 250K yen a month.
However, my posts on Taiwan are not designed to discourage you from going and applying. I no longer live in Taiwan. I no longer have a job there to protect, and I never intend to live there again.
In my opinion, the job market in Taiwan is absolutely flooded, especially with long-termers with 3+, or heck, even 5+ years of experience. This viewpoint is based on the fact that I needed to attend literally a dozen job interviews over the course of several months before landing anything that paid 30K a month or more and was stable, and this viewpoint is also based on the people who applied for my job before I left Taiwan.
If you look at the job hunt as a scientific numbers game, and can analyze numbers and ratios, I think that you can make extrapolations and enough applications eventually can net you something in Taipei. However, I strongly caution you against only considering Taipei for your first year. What is there in Taipei that there isn't in another Taiwanese city? Even if you live as far away as Kenting, you can still take the HSR to Taipei every weekend or so and sightsee and do Taipei things. One of the beauties of Taiwan is that even if you're out in the middle of nowhere, you're never more than a few hours from the capital because the country is the size of a thimble. I have literally gone from Kaohsiung to Taipei and back to Kaohsiung in a single calendar day.
OP, you will find some job in Taiwan. It's just that if my little cram school in Kaohsiung ended up having 14 applications for a 30K job (to only a single advertisement on Kaohsiung Living), I can't even begin to imagine what the applicant ratios are like in Taipei. |
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Shimokitazawa
Joined: 16 Aug 2009
Posts: 458
Location: Saigon, Vietnam
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| Posted: Sun Apr 03, 2011 11:32 am Post subject: |
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Rooster wrote:
| Quote: |
| It is true that many, many people on the Internet exaggerate how hard it is to find a job in country x because they have an agenda. They are trying to protect their own jobs. I encountered this with Japan -- a bunch of people on Dave's told me "it's almost impossible to find a job in Japan right now, and with your CELTA and years of experience, you'll be a low-rung candidate at best." Funny, though -- I landed a job within just 12 days of entering Japan, paying 250K yen a month. |
Yes, Rooster is correct. One poster in particular on the Japan forum is well known for this. However, he is out of touch with not only eikaiwa hiring but has only ever lived and taught in one small area of Japan. Hardly a source to be going to for accurate information. The bottom line is, be cautious in your assessment of the information put forth by certain posters on the Japan forum. It is always well within your interest to read up on the forums and try and get a sense of what the personalities are like. This is helpful in determining how credible their information is. Unfortunately, it takes a while in order to be able to this. Just keep doing your research for now. |
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lalazart
Joined: 05 Mar 2011
Posts: 17
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| Posted: Sun Apr 03, 2011 8:49 pm Post subject: |
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Rooster_2006 when I recently left Taiwan I thought that even though I loved Taiwan I should try somewhere new, so I decided I would go to Japan after I finished my BA, but after doing some research on this site and a few others it sounded like the job market was so flooded it was not even worth trying. After being back home for a few months I have started to really miss my friends and places that I got to know so well in Taipei. Rather than go to expensive Japan where it sounded as if I would end up failing. I decided I will try my luck in Taipei where it may be a little difficult, but if I give myself a month or two I will most likely find some job that at least gives me an ARC.
I agree that most areas on the small island would be ok to work in, but if I am not going to be able to find a job in Taipei where I have many close friends. I would rather try to find work in a new country all together, for I have seen just about the whole island of taiwan.
If you wouldn't mind commenting on ones chances of finding a job in Taiwan compared to Japan. I would be interested to hear what you thought. |
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Rooster_2006
Joined: 24 Sep 2007
Posts: 984
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| Posted: Mon Apr 04, 2011 3:14 am Post subject: |
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| lalazart wrote: |
Rooster_2006 when I recently left Taiwan I thought that even though I loved Taiwan I should try somewhere new, so I decided I would go to Japan after I finished my BA, but after doing some research on this site and a few others it sounded like the job market was so flooded it was not even worth trying. After being back home for a few months I have started to really miss my friends and places that I got to know so well in Taipei. Rather than go to expensive Japan where it sounded as if I would end up failing. I decided I will try my luck in Taipei where it may be a little difficult, but if I give myself a month or two I will most likely find some job that at least gives me an ARC.
I agree that most areas on the small island would be ok to work in, but if I am not going to be able to find a job in Taipei where I have many close friends. I would rather try to find work in a new country all together, for I have seen just about the whole island of taiwan.
If you wouldn't mind commenting on ones chances of finding a job in Taiwan compared to Japan. I would be interested to hear what you thought. |
I would actually say (based on my limited experience in Japan, so take this with a grain of salt) that it is easier to find a full-time gig in Japan than Taiwan. And at any rate, it is easier to find a rural gig in Japan than a Taipei/Kaohsiung gig.
There is one fellow on the Japan boards who is, shall we say, very glum and gloomy. He's just one guy, but he makes thousands and thousands of posts (not just on Dave's, but on other sites, as well -- over 10,000 in total) and they are mostly "trying to be helpful and give information, but oh, by the way, without an MA TESOL and 10 years of experience, you will be a low-rung candidate and finding a job will be up to luck alone and no other factors." When people argue with him, various sock puppets pop up and defend him. Another one of his favorite lines is, paraphrased -- "experience outside of Japan, CELTA, TESOL certificates, degrees in education, etc. are all WORTHLESS to Japanese employers -- they only care about two things -- whether you already have a working visa and whether you have experience in Japan." This is utterly false. I had neither, but my employer was impressed by my experience in Taiwan, which she told me is why I was hired.
The aforementioned gloomy, glum fellow almost convinced me that Japan wasn't worth the risk until I started to put two and two together and realized that what he was saying couldn't possibly be true. So I struck out on my own and tested the waters for myself, and found they weren't that bad.
There's this prevailing idea among English teachers (especially those in Japan) that "Taiwan is poorer and less developed than Japan, therefore Taiwan must be more desperate for English teachers and their standards of who they will hire must be lower." Actually, I have found the reverse is true. For almost all of my Taiwan job interviews, I had to do a teaching demonstration in addition to a face-to-face interview (the only exception was Hess). In Japan, of the three interviews I did, only one had a teaching demonstration (and even then, no live kids). One interview was conducted over Skype, and that's how I got my job. Yep, I literally got hired over Skype.
You see, Japan is so large, it is physically impossible to access the entire country at once. Most wannabe teachers put themselves in Tokyo, cutting themselves off from the regions of the country with realistically attainable jobs (Kansai, Shikoku, Chuugoku, etc.). I'm sure that Tokyo is competitive (probably 100:1 or higher competition rates to work there), but rural Japan isn't nearly that bad.
Most employers in Japan only want to interview you if you live nearby. I say this because I put myself in Sakai City, Osaka, and lo and behold, the only interview offers I got (all four of them) were in the Kansai Region. Schools in Tokyo, Shikoku, etc. simply ignored my application. However, as I will explain, this is a good thing!
You can use this to your advantage -- DON'T PUT YOURSELF IN TOKYO! Don't be like every other schmuck!
As for Taiwan, I'm confident you can land a job somewhere within reach of the Taipei subway even if it's not downtown Taipei. Good luck. |
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JZer
Joined: 16 Jan 2005
Posts: 3898
Location: Pittsburgh
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| Posted: Mon Apr 04, 2011 4:11 am Post subject: |
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Rooster_2006, I think common sense would lead one to conclude that there are more jobs in Japan. The population of Japan is higher as well as the fact that native English speakers are allowed to work as a teacher in high schools. In Taiwan one is only allowed to work at a cram school.
I also got offered a job a few hours from Tokyo over the phone before finally deciding to come to Taipei. The main reason I came to Taipei as opposed to Japan is that I was tired of living in the country side. |
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