Ask Slashdot: Find a Job In China For Non-native Speaker? 402
An anonymous reader writes "My fiancée has recently been accepted into a Chinese university into their Ph.D. program, and I've been looking at jobs in China (specifically the Beijing area) and not having any success. I'm a developer with 8 years of experience (java), mostly on the server side, so I'm not lacking in the general experience, but the problem is I don't speak Mandarin or Cantonese. I am a native English speaker from Canada though. The only jobs I've had any responses from were teaching positions for simple English which isn't exactly my first choice. Has anyone had any experience or success as a programmer finding a job in China, without being able to speak the native language? Any websites I should be focusing on?"
Look for multi-nationals (Score:5, Informative)
article title fail (Score:1, Informative)
The guy is not a "non-native speaker". He's a non-speaker. "Non-native speaker" means that he speaks the language, but not natively. The question is from someone who does not speak the language.
expat forums (Score:3, Informative)
maybe you can try the hundreds of different expat forums?
I've spent a year traveling and working in china (Score:5, Informative)
I spent almost a year traveling China and working as a software developer / Business guy. Looking for jobs in china is extremely different in China then it is in the US. Here is the US you can call head hunters or work the job boards... China is all about who you know. I would say that your best bet is to go over with your fiancée and immediately start networking with the professors. Ask them out for dinner (this is normal) and start talking to them about what are come good companies in town. Make sure to pay for dinner and always have a small fun gift for second and third meetups.
After meeting a couple good business people around town I had almost an endless supply of work where people wanted me to come and do contracting for a couple months. During the day I would code or do project management and then at night I would drink and do dinner with my bosses. (NOTE: Never turn down dinner or drinks with fellow workers or bosses... Socializing is a HUGE part of business over there)
My experience (Score:2, Informative)
I don't think you will have ANY luck with a website here. They are all garbage. Your best luck is just *going* there, going out, networking, bars, friends, and finding some good local recruiters. It's not like MS is advertising on 51job or chinajobs. As usual, your best luck is relationships, and those are nigh-impossible to make without being there.
I have a recruiter friend here in shanghai (who does a different industry) and he set me up a few friends. Nothing worked out (not much work in shanghai for me). I found the one that I have from someone I met a hostel who did an internship there. Got another at the hostel in shanghai, for a company in hangzhou. Another I possibility came from someone in the local pool league, but that was in a different country. A lot of chinese live at hostels when they are starting/looking for jobs, and two of my friends were fresh grad law masters looking for jobs in the ¥4K range. All in all it took 3 months. You will probably have much better luck in beijing, where most of the tech work is.
So, go there, give it three months, see what happens -
- go out, business functions, pool leagues, IT areas
- find some local recruiters (won't be hard), just start asking around
- look for chinese companies that also operate in the west/australia with international products
- stay at a non-tourist-kid-centric hostel, but still busy
One of my best opportunities (that I didn't take, i got the job first) was to teach english to a bunch of recuriters a few hours a day, a few days a week. In that case they said they would hook me up with jobs, and pay a little for the classes. Recruiters get a large fee for finding someone, if that person stays on for more than a few months. Usually in the range of 2 months salary, I think, so the incentive is still very much there to find you a job.
Be aware that they can find java programmers in china quite easily here, even if they are terrible at the job. Chinese managment sees the $ first, and not the quality, so I don't have anyone good working for me in this office. That sometimes changes when they start to fail, but in a lot of places pay for a mid-level java dev is around ¥7-8000 (and their mid is our junior). You are better off aiming for management in the application/resume etc. You will end up doing coding anyway, but at least have some power to fix the crap you see.
Re:Language consultant (Score:5, Informative)
Culinary Institute of America, the other CIA
www.ciachef.edu
Re:Construction or landscaping (Score:5, Informative)
I just came back from China on a vacation last month but the visa application was way more stringent than before. I had to give them proof of my Canadian citizenship and also send them a resume (wtf!). They obviously thought I was going to try and find a job there against a tourist visa, so definitely something's up.
As to your problem about finding a specific job, without language skill the OP is right, it's labour for you, and there are already (too) many backs in China that can do that. Learn the language first.
Re:Construction or landscaping (Score:5, Informative)
I had to give them proof of my Canadian citizenship and also send them a resume (wtf!).
Standard for many countries. The resume is to show you have a reasonable work history and can support yourself. In other words you are not an economic migrant. My girlfriend is having to do the same, and show them some of my pay slips to prove she will have somewhere to stay and enough money when she visits the UK for a holiday.
I have not noticed any anti-foreigner sentiment, or at least no more than any other country. Tourism brings in a lot of money. If you want to work there though that is different, you will be expected to integrate with Chinese society.
Outsourcing (Score:4, Informative)
I did this. I found a job in Shenzhen China, spending 2 years writing software at an outsourcing company. (PHP, Java, and (cringe) Oracle Forms Apps) I found the job in the US before I went overseas, via some odd connections, so I can't speak much about how you should get the job, but maybe the reports from some of my experiences could help you.
First, one of the things that makes it hard for you to find a job is that they assume that you'll want an expensive American salary. At my job, I agreed to work for slightly higher than a standard Chinese native would make, but significantly lower than a standard American salary (I made about 12K USD per year, which was plenty). It might be worth mentioning in any cover letter/resume/etc what your salary expectation would be.
Second, I don't know about all outsourcing companies, but where I worked, because most of our customers were in the US, there was an expectation that every employee needed to speak at least a little English. In reality, most people's English was pretty poor, but it meant that they were willing to hire someone like me with no Mandarin skills. So it might be worth focusing on companies that service US customers. They loved having me around for phone calls with the customers. (Realistically, I eventually ended up spending half of my time doing project management work because of my ability to easily communicate with our customers)
Really, particularly in the outsourcing business, me being a token white american was valuable for the company. They could claim that they had a native English-speaker to help with customer communication, etc. As long as your salary doesn't price you out of their range, you could really sell your native North-American English skills as a positive. And (unfortunately) depending on your race, a white face can still open doors and opportunities in China (at least in Shenzhen it could). (it was really odd getting so much positive attention just because I looked like a stereotypical white american). When big important people came to visit the company, I'd always get introduced to them, even when it really made no sense based on my position -- they just wanted to show me off.
So don't be discouraged by all the nay-sayers here. It's definitely possible to find software development jobs in China.
That all being said, there were definitely some frustrating aspects of the job. For one thing, it ended up being fairly lonely, as it was harder to socialize with people that don't speak your language. While I eventually learned enough Mandarin to communicate, and they knew enough English, it was certainly harder to really be friends with your coworkers. And a lonely workplace is a bit discouraging.
Either way, good luck, I hope you find something!
Re:Look for multi-nationals/White guy in a suit (Score:5, Informative)
You could rent yourself out as a white guy in a suit.
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/07/rent-a-white-guy/8119/ [theatlantic.com]
Re:Maybe a local job isn't the best? (Score:2, Informative)
I think the OP is going about this the wrong way. I have worked for companies which have had medium sized international presences (small to medium offices in 10+ non-North American companies). Our biggest issues there were with language barriers. When you have heavily accented folks on an international conference call alot of things get misunderstood, however when you are face to face the misunderstandings are fewer and farther between... So I would attack this problem in reverse. Target Canadian or US companies with presences in Bejing, then start submitting your resume and explain to them that even if they don't have an open position that you would bring alot of value as a intermediary of sorts. So based on your skillset (you said software dev) you might be able to be a Dev Mgr, or Dev Lead, or perhaps just a lowly IT grunt. If you work with the English speaking-side first you can better define where you would fit best. The culture lends itself relatively well to top-down decisions (though not as well as India) but another thing to keep in mind that a company is multiple separate legal entities when operating internationally, and as such the Chinese company could be operated completely independently, so make sure you understand the legal structure, so that you don't get yourself fired on day 1.
Also FYI they have Ph.D. programs in Canada too! And they speak english there as well (what is that aboot).
Re:Construction or landscaping (Score:2, Informative)
WTF isn't politically correct about pointing out that people who can't speak English do landscaping and construction. They also wash dishes and mop floors. You people really are mentally stunted if you see that as 'racist' or 'incorrect'. It's just the facts on the ground. What a bunch of retards.
Re:Remote work (Score:4, Informative)
You can VPN from China into Western servers. That's how people in China get around the Great Firewall.
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Start Studying - I did it (Score:5, Informative)
I moved to China two years ago with no background in the language at all.
Total, 100% immersion + whatever training material I could get my hands on.
Now, I'm pretty fluent. But, 3 months in? Forget it. I couldn't even talk to a taxi driver with any consistency. Forget ordering food from a normal menu. Picture menu or nothing.