Job Discussion Forums

chocolatechipcharlie · Joined: 29 May 2006 Posts: 3

I'm planning to move from South Korea to Hanoi finding work in January or February. Is it harder to find work during this period? Would the Tet celebrations make it harder to find work? Are there prime recruiting periods? I have a degree, a CELTA, and coming up to two years of experience teaching university students, in-house business classes, and children.

Many thanks for your help.

lizarddoctor · Joined: 11 Aug 2004 Posts: 141 Location: HCMC, Vietnam

As my experience was learned the hard way my first months leading to my first Tet holiday... if you do not have work secured at the start or before December, you will probably be unemployed until the second week of March.

All schools close at Tet time and the language schools shut down for nearly a month until all of the students start returning to their class schedules in the public schools. I went nearly 3 months with no work (Dec - Feb) and dropped off probably 70 resumes during that span and picked up a total of 4 hours a week for only a couple weeks since the school lost a teacher early. Once the second week of March rolled in, my phone rang off the hook and I was turning down 3-5 jobs a week for the next month.

Jan and Feb are the worst times to come to Vietnam looking for ESL work. March may take a few weeks until the flood of openings present themselves. Summer time is prime time (right now still as I have 43 hours of work this week alone) and in November the long term teachers gobble up all available hours they can get and hold on to them for dear life until Tet hits and the bank account can support them for the month off and/or travel expenses.

Not to say that you won't find anything temporary, but be prepared to wait out the drought until after Tet or just take some travel time for yourself for a month or so to avoid just sitting around waiting for a school to open back up and get some students.

spycatcher reincarnated · Joined: 19 May 2005 Posts: 236

I can't comment on Lizard's experiences, but I very much disagree with how negative he is on the job scene in Vietnam during this time, however, there have been several posts similar to your in the past and most respondees agree with Lizard more than myself on this.

I believe that this is a relatively easy time of year to find work. It is always easy to find work in Vietnam, just depends how good the work is and what kind of work you want.

Believe Tet starts around the 7th of Feb next year. The dates will be the same as China�s next year.

December (know you didn't mention this month)

Kids teaching goes on all year around and it doesn't slacken off in December.
Adult teaching does slow down before Tet and I would say that by late December (18-20th) things are slowing.
Many teachers leave Vietnam in December to go back to their families, either for good or just for a break so I would say there is an under supply of teachers in Vietnam around this time, but this is probably more skewed towards children's classes.

Christmas Day is not a national holiday in Vietnam. Christmas Eve is a much bigger event and hardly any classes run in the evening.

January

Kids teaching will go on as normal. Adults teaching will show a bigger downturn. There will still be a lack of teachers because of all the teachers that returned home in December.

February

Kids teaching will remain the same up until Tet. Adults teaching will continue to trail off and most levels/classes that finish that would normally role over to new levels/classes won't open again until about 1-2 weeks after Tet.
There will still be a lack of kids� teachers
Most schools close for about 2 weeks during and after Tet, but some only close for a week or so.

Year on year one can see that Tet is becoming less and less of an issue and there have been articles in some newspapers over the last few years suggesting the abolition of Tet. Don't see this happening in the short to medium term however.

At Tet many adults make New Year�s resolutions and then sign up for classes which start 2-4 weeks after Tet. Teachers going around schools sortly before and after Tet are often strung along by schools with promises of work which they can only keep if enough students sign up. As a rule of thumb I would doubt what most schools promise after Tet for teaching adults as they usually have no idea how many students they are going to recruit.

chocolatechipcharlie · Joined: 29 May 2006 Posts: 3

Thank you very much for your quick and detailed replies, I appreciate it. I will think about delaying my visit and doing a bit of travelling before then. Thank you again.

TimkinMS · Joined: 18 Oct 2005 Posts: 86

lizarddoctor · Joined: 11 Aug 2004 Posts: 141 Location: HCMC, Vietnam

TimkinMS · Joined: 18 Oct 2005 Posts: 86

chocolatechipcharlie · Joined: 29 May 2006 Posts: 3

So, based on this info a good time to come might be mid-Feb, so I can explore, find a place in the city, meet some other teachers, get some CVs ready and out in Feb, and get set up for serious job hunting in March?

If I just drop into the city then does anybody recommend first ports of call for finding accommodation? Are there any cafes which advertise house-shares, or something similar?

Thanks again for the replies people.