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Ask Slashdot: Find a Job In China For Non-native Speaker?
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?"
That's what people who can't speak the language do in the US.
Have you considered working as a coder-for-hire at either an established firm, or on a do it yourself basis from one of the many websites available (Google can show you the way)? The pay might even be better, unless you were particularly interested in exploiting your language talents in the local labor market (which it sounds like you may not be).
Any websites I should be focusing on?"
This one.
Maybe instead of trying to find a coding job, find a job along the lines of "conversational english for IT type people"...
Help your fellow coders bring up their communication skills...
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
Had a friend that was in Shanghai for about a year. Worked for Rockwell. So a US/Canana/UK based company that has a Beijing office might be your best shot.
You don't want to go to Beijng. Trust me. I've been there for 3 months until I developed asthma. The air pollution is INCREDIBLY bad, you can't even remotely compare it to the worst cities in the US. That being said, there are a lot of 'western' companies where English is used for every communication. I know, because I worked at three. I strongly suggest that if you go there, look out for those western companies. They pay better and have a much nicer working atmosphere than the local companies. But seriously, If you care about your health at all, or eating manners of your peers, or respect for (animal) life in general, stay in Canada. It's such a wonderful country.
This summer -
Too long have the Chinese taken our good, American jobs. The time has come for Anonymous Coward to go to China...
AND TAKE.
THEM.
BACK.
(Coming to theaters Summer 2012.)
I think your prospects of finding a local job are dim. You are no more likely to be hired there as a programmer there than a non-english-speaking coder would be in the US. It looks like you are an IT programmer, and quality IT programming is all about understanding business requirements well. You can't even read the business requirements, much less understand them. And no company is going to pay somebody to translate for you when they can just hire a local coder instead.
Concentrate your efforts on an English-speaking coding job that will let you work remotely. You may end up on a lot of middle-of-the-night conference calls, but you'll be better off than being an "English Teacher."
Hey, I spent some time in Nanjing last year trying to find a good job. Because I speak Mandarin fluently, I thought it wouldn't be a problem. I didn't want to teach because I still wanted to improve my Mandarin by speaking with colleagues. But the only jobs that were easy to find as a foreigner (even non native) were the English teaching jobs. And most of them are better paid than IT positions in Chinese companies! That's why Chinese people will assume that as a foreigner, you don't even want some other kind of job. That and the fact that English teaching is a big big industry there and they need every foreigner they can get. I finally only spent the time there improving my Chinese. If I ever wanted to find a job there again my new plan would be to find a multinational corporation to work in and then get myself sent to China to work there. That way, the salary is way better and you can still work in IT. Cheers, Murmel
Screw the programming job, I suggest you hire yourself out as a technical manual writer or proofreader. I don't care how much they pay you, you should consider it a service to your native land.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
The only jobs I've had any responses from were teaching positions for simple English which isn't exactly my first choice.
Wrong bzzzzzt. Thats like a CIA trained chef looking for work and applying at McDonalds (which only hires illegals and non-english speakers, so maybe its a closer analogy than you'd think?). A /. analogy would be hiring a CCIE to pull cable.
The way to roll in dough is to download a large chunk of github, write a very short shell script that parses out comments, and develop a curriculum that trains the natives to understand our crappy comments, and possibly how to write non-crappy english language code.
I always laugh when I "view source" on a web page and see its full of hindi comments, or even worse a pitiful attempt at english language comments.
Position yourself where the natives already had "how to ask where is the bathroom in English" classes and they already know java like you claim to know. Now your carefully designed one day / three day / one week seminar will be hired at the local equivalent of $1000/day to teach Chinese java coders how to read english comments and write english comments. Also touch on the comprehension and creation of vaguely english variable and class/object/file names.
You may only get hired a couple times to teach at a couple shops, but you'll make a couple hundred contacts who hopefully will think you know what you're doing, which leads to coding contracts, coding jobs, etc. Also frankly it looks cool on the resume when/if you come home, cooler than yet another "implemented a shopping cart online" blah blah that everyone locally has done a zillion times.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
maybe you can try the hundreds of different expat forums?
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)
Unless your going to work in Canton (Guangzhou) and even then it's not the national language. It is a pretty nifty language though. Very flowery with lots of bizarre colloquialisms. But then again maybe I'm offering toilet paper to one urinating.
Sig. Sig. Sputnik
So, to turn this around, if someone came into your place of work looking for a job, didn't speak English, and wasn't yet in the country ... would you be seriously considering this candidate?
At a certain point, if you don't speak the language, what are you offering them?
That's not to say you don't have stuff to offer, and if they have some English speakers you might not be someone who might be a good fit. But from a certain perspective, not having any language skills can be a huge liability in looking for work there.
That, and you might need to find out the legal stuff you might need to account for to work in China. The equivalent of a work visa. The teaching of English might be your only option for a while.
If you haven't already, I'd be trying to understand your legal position and what you'll be able to do when you're there as a visitor. You could find yourself unable to work, limited in what you can do (both legally and linguistically) and sitting around wishing you hadn't gone there in the first place.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Just tell your fiancé not to do it. I am telling you this from experience. My wife and I held getting married because she wanted to finish her studies she went through the whole thing till she got the PHD and I followed her around just like you are planning to do which also changed my plans. Education expenses were none since she made a nice income while doing research for the PhD.
The problem was after she finished. My wife became hormonal and wanted to have kids, and pop up 2. Now all she wants to be is a mom a stay at home mom. And I am not the only one with the same situation. I got about a dozen friends with wifes with expensive education just going to waste because they want to be a house wife.
Also you do not want to live in Beijing the air quality there is horrible.
I have lived and worked in China. As an English language speaker, it is not too difficult to find work in China since many companies use English as their official working language. But if you expect to find a job as a programmer making anything close to a western salary, you can forget it.
Instead, you should consider moving to management. Plenty of companies doing outsourcing want someone on the ground in China who understands western business culture.
You might also consider doing something completely different, like teaching English.
Also, try to learn some Mandarin. You certainly need to know how to say please, thank you, excuse me, etc. You should also learn to say "this", "that", "How much does it cost?", and "Please give me ....". If you learn a few hundred hanzi, that will be a big help in reading street signs, menus, and restroom gender indicators.
Rather than looking for work there, try to find US companies that offshore work to China. Failing that, try applying with a firm that works with US companies, though don't expect to be paid much above what they pay their locals.
My employer has an offshore team in Beijing. Most of the developers there speak pigeon English and would welcome a native speaker to help improve and we'd welcome someone to help bridge the language gap that can be quite difficult over Skype and such. I'd look for companies like us and inquire about whether we'd be willing to hire you to work in the China office. If you've got a good Java background, I'm sure we'd seriously consider hiring you to work at our China office. We might require you to train for a couple of weeks in SF first and come back for a couple weeks a year, but I'd hope that wouldn't be a problem for you. As a bonus, you'd likely not have to deal with getting a Chinese work permit, though you should probably confirm that.
If you're interested, respond to this comment with some way to contact you and I can send your resume to HR.
"Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos!"
Sorry to be blunt but you're very delusional expecting to get a job without speaking the language. Even if you got one you would probably be unable to survive on the salary. Just marry her so she can become a Canadian citizen and go to school there. Why did she apply for a program in China without you first sorting out living/work arrangements anyway?
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!
I had the same situation a few years ago. First, you can totally forget any local programming jobs. Chinese programmers get paid about 2000 RMB / month (a pathetic pittance) and there is a long line to get a starting position.
I found a compromise for the teaching English route; teach IT classes *in* English. Find a university that has a 'learn abroad' exchange program with a university in the USA or UK. Their students there in China will have a requirement to take courses taught in English, preferably by a native speaker, in order to qualify for the exchange program. This is vastly superior to just teaching English and pays better as well. I taught at China Agricultural University which has such an agreement with University of Portsmouth in the UK. There are a lot of others with the same situation. To find them, work backwards: browse the websites of the schools in the UK and US in the foreign exchange section and look for their partner schools in China. If there is a 'you must complete x hours of courses taught in English', apply to that school in China.
Either that, or before you even go set up a "100% work remote" gig with an employer here.
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/
Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.
You can VPN from China into Western servers. That's how people in China get around the Great Firewall.
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.
One word: guanxi http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guanxi