Job Discussion Forums

[just_a_mirage]

The Vice Minister of Security in Ecuador has enacted new rules effective yesterday (July 20, 2011) that may make it more difficult for foreigners wanting to work here.
First, everyone applying for a visa must now submit a police background check with their visa application.
Second, and this may be a big issue for those wanting work visas; the new regulations require companies that want to hire foreign workers to fork over $25,000 dollars. In the seven years I�ve been here, Ive not seen many people with actual work visas, but with this new rule, I dont believe their will be many companies willing to cough up that much cash just to hire foreign workers. Whether any exemption will be made for teachers, I dont know.
Also if you are looking to marry an Ecuadorian, you must now be in the country for 12 months prior to the wedding, versus the 75 days previously required.

[naturegirl321]

That really stinks. What kind of police check: national or local? Apostillised? How old can it be?

Re: the wedding thing, maybe peopel will start getting married elsewhere.

[Globetrotting Teacher]

I just got back my state (of North Carolina) criminal background check and it said that my record was entirely clean. Obviously, this was a relief as back in May I was offered a well-paying job in .... Albania of all places.

That having been said, I loved Ecuador (I was almost exclusively in Quito, with the exception of a 1.5 day jaunt to Atacames and Esmeralda) and will go back there, most likely in the summer of 2012.

I am planning on finishing my PhD by February of 2012, but if it takes longer than that, I am confident that I will have it done by this time (the summer) next year.

I currently have an MA and two BAs (will get my TEFL certificate soon) but when I was in Ecuador, I didn't get any additional offers made to me (outside of my job teaching there in a private elementary school-middle school-high school.)

My dream is to teach in a 4-year university (after getting my MA, I taught for 1 semester in a US community college, but didn't like it too much,) and Latin America -- and quite possibly Ecuador in particular -- really, really appeals to me now for such a job opportunity (In spite of my planned 10 month stay as a teacher in Albania, a country that I've never been to before.)

I wonder if I could get a university teaching job in Ecuador; plenty of people told me that I could with just my MA (or even my BAs) but I didn't get to do too, too much looking while I was there. (I was busy working, writing my doctoral dissertation, taking Spanish classes, etc.)

This whole situation with the criminal background check is interesting; last year, I got one done through a private company based out of Canada (footprints recruiting was going to send me to The Republic of Georgia) and my "failure to appear" misdemeanor conviction (and associated $300 fine) from October of 2004 in Connecticut appeared on the background check and prevented me from getting that job. (But then I ended up going to Ecuador which, I believe, was for the best.) That criminal background check was performed about 5 years, 11.5 months after that one exceedingly minor misdemeanor conviction, while the one whose "clean" results I got back today was processed / performed about 6 years 9 months after that conviction.

I wonder why nothing appeared ... is it because such minor things get expunged from your record 6 years after convictions (elsewhere, I've heard 7 years) ? Or is it more likely because I got a STATE (of North Carolina) criminal background check performed and this one misdemeanor conviction of mine was from the state of Connecticut ?

Obviously, I'm very happy about this .... and as you two have both been so consistently helpful in the past with so many different matters, I'm wondering if you could share your wisdom with me vis-a-vis my several different questions here.