Easy to get jobs in SE asia? - TravelPUNK Backpacker College Student Budget Travel Message Boards!

rjt98 · 04-11-2005, 11:43 PM

Was thinking about doing a trip to SE asia for a long period of time and seeing all the different places. Was just wondering how it is to get jobs in each place and are certain visa's required for most work.

It seems allot of people from this site go over there and get jobs teaching, how does that work? you just get the teaching certification and start applying for jobs everywhere?

Thanks for any help.

**TheWills** · 04-12-2005, 01:44 AM

unless you are teaching english getting a job over there isnt a good idea, simply cuase you will be working for about 3 dollars a day! I met a guy who was married to a thai girl and was teachin english, he said he was so happy with life and would never go back to the UK, his advice also was unless your doing english especially short term nothing else is gonna pay you enough to make it worth it , you can live off several hundred a month if you want to, so just save up a ton of cash and budget about 500-700 us a month and determine how long oyu can stay!
wills

**TimmyJames1976** · 04-12-2005, 05:41 AM

Dave's ESL Cafe

Big ESL website

**LiveFreeorDie** · 04-12-2005, 09:40 AM

To add on to what Wills said...it is actually nearly impossible to get any other job other than teaching or perhaps SCUBA instructor. You will not get a bar job over there most likely...there is extreme preference for locals. Also, those jobs pay maybe $3-5 dollars a day (at least in Thailand and other poorer SEA countries) and you only usually get 2 days off a month. Teaching is the way many foreigners stay in SEA...generally you need a teaching certifcate, like TEFL, or the like. They will give you a work permit. Do some searches, there is a ton of info on teaching in SEA. This is what I know from research, not first hand experience about general teaching climate:

-Thailand - pays the least and has a huge demnd of people looking for teaching work as everyone wants to stay in Thailand. You might have a hard time living at even close to a western standard of living in Thailand on an average monthly salary of 35,000 baht.
-Japan - pays very well - weather a little cold, Japan is also an expensive place to live.
-Korea - pays well, but most things I have read indicated most people did not like Korea for teaching english. Too cold in the winter and people generally unfriendly towards foreigners.
-Taiwan - pays pretty well. Weather is decent. Cost of living is moderate. I have been to Taiwan a lot for work and Taipei is a decent city - weather is good, many western conveniences - not a bad place to live. People are friendly, there is a moderate sized expat community. Also, you could always hop to Hong Kong (1 hour flight) or Thailand (3.5 hour flight) for vacations/weekends.

Sites on teaching in Thailand:

Stickman (this site also has info on the..ummm...."nightlife" of Thailand)
Ajarn.com

There are similar sites for a lot of the asian countries with English teaching needs.

Good luck!

**TimmyJames1976** · 04-12-2005, 09:57 AM

If you have a 4 year college degree, asia is one of the places where you do not need a TEFL or CELTA or TESOL...your 4 year degree is enough for you to legally work there....the more experience and a cert will of course give you more options as to which scholls you can work at, but most just require a 4 year degree, and that is because it is so you can get a work visa....

Korea if pretty simple to get a job in....Japan more difficult...Taiwan is in the middle

here is a good site just on Taiwan:

TEALIT

rjt98 · 04-12-2005, 10:46 PM

Hmm, thanks for all the info. So if I wanted to get a english teaching cert, just so I can travel and live over there teaching for a few years. Is there easy certs to get like just taking a short course and passing a test? or do they require more schooling?

Thanks for the help.

Randy

**LiveFreeorDie** · 04-13-2005, 09:33 AM

I beleive they have these crash courses that are maybe 4 weeks. Supposed to pretty intense and cost maybe $1,500. Here is a website about a program in Thailand TEFL Thailand

Different countries have different job markets which drive whether they will hire people with or without certificates and 4 year degrees. Good luck.

**TimmyJames1976** · 04-13-2005, 09:36 AM

If you research the first link, Dave's ESL cafe, they have country specific forums which pretty much answer any possible question you could come up with.

**bluepea** · 04-13-2005, 03:50 PM

We have researched this a lot as an option for the future. Just thought I'd add what I learned from people who had actually done this.

Except Thailand and China, you need a four year degree to get a work permit. While you can get by this by working on a holiday visa or whatever, you need to leave the country once every 3 months and it's technically illegal. Your employer has to be up for it as well.

If you don't have your four year degree, you can get what is called a "bachelors of learning" or something. While it's not a real bachelors, it works there because it's technially verifiable with references and transcripts. There was a guy on here that worked there for a few years (SEA) and is going to Saudi Arabia and this is his "education." They start around $200 (US) I think and you can buy online. Guess it depends on whether or not you find it ethical.

You don't necessarily need to have your TEFL though most schools that you would enjoy working for require it. You can get TEFL certified online for a couple hundred. It's a lot more spendy to get it in like a school or whatever, but you get real teaching experience which a lot of schools like.

You can line up work ahead of time through companies (I can PM you a bunch of sites/job boards if you'd like - I've just been collecting) or you can end up there and usually easily get a job.

Yes, you're wages will seem low in comparison to the US, but if you look at their cost of living, it's not as astonishing as you may think. English teachers are livin it up.

You can find work doing other things, but usually in the technology field from what I found. You can look for that work online as well. Just look for SEA job boards and such.

Hope this helps.