Job Needed

[BEACHSURFER]

Hi

Im planning to move to Hong Kong with my partner in the next few months, but I do not as yet have a job lined up as he does. Can anyone give me any ideas where I can look or what to do to start looking.Im currently living in the UK. I currently work it retail but have not degrees, only went to college. Would it be best to look at bar work to begin with I am just about to learn cantonese which will obviously help.

Please if anyone has any ideas that would be great.

Positive replies wanted!!!

[mrstomasis]

Finding a job is not necessarily the problem- getting a work visa approved by the Immigration department can be the hard part. Most bars will only hire those with permanent ID or valid work visas already because it is hard to get a work visa for bar work.

[jimbo]

Your options are very much limited to be honest.

I'm the same as you as I have no degree or x number of diplomas's etc. Just cold hard experience but that is not necessarily enough out here.

If you are a native english speaker then your only option is Teaching English, With a TEFL qualification under your belt you are pretty much guaranteed to get a job here in HK teaching English either at a school or a language centre.

The language centres will sponsor you for a work permit but you may need to blag it and put something on your C.V to say you have had some sort of teaching/training/coaching experience under your belt.

As you work in retail you could easily say you have x number of years good people skills and you have coached new colleagues etc in new the job role

[BEACHSURFER]

How do I go about going on a TEFL course? Im currently in full time employment in the UK and last year earnt 24000 uk pounds so obviously Id be right in saying Im going to take a major drop in pay?

[jimbo]

you can do it online and it takes about 40 hours to complete.

Just do a quick google search for online tefl and you'll get two of the better ones, I used a company called i to i.

money wise well teaching can pay anything from 15 pounds an hour if you're just starting out and with a bit of experience under your belt up to and including 25 pounds an hour, So the pay is good and no you shouldn't be taking a big drop in pay.

[carang]

but, now, without experience teaching, you may find it difficult to get a work visa... the gov't has cottoned on to this and it is getting more and more difficult getting the visa...

you say your "partner" not your husband... if you are not married, then you can't get a dependent visa. the hk gov't does not recognise common law relationships.

if you were married, and your husband got a work visa, then you could get a dependent visa. this would allow you the option of working WITHOUT having to get a work visa.

teaching english is not necessarily a poorly paying job. if your 24,000 pounds sterling is before taxes, then you shouldn't have much trouble earning that much here at all!

[HKNewBi]

But do bear in mind the hourly rates for some of the language schools here - you get paid when you are teaching. Pre class prep and post class tidying up come out of your time. And you may find you are teaching in 3 different centres in HK over the course of a day - travel time comes out of your time too. And if you teach a class from 9 - 10, and then 10:30-11:30, you will only get paid for 2 hours whereas in reality you may have arrived to set up around 8:45, had 30 minutes between the lessons and then finished getting rid of the kids, tidying up etc by 11:45, in fact 3 hours of work.

So you might be commuting or working for 9 hours in a day, but only pick up those rates for 4 or so hours of that time.

Of course there are permanent English teaching roles here for people with little or no English teaching experience, but expect around 1000 pounds a month upwards.

This is only feedback from friends of mine I have in HK that teach english, not my first hand experience. But the point they have made to me is that a rate of, say HK$250 an hour, does not translate into $10,000 a week (ie 40 hours x $250). $5-6k a week would be closer to the mark so probably better to budget on that as the real rate might be nearer to around half the quoted rate for the time you put in.

This may seem obvious to some but I come from an IT background where hourly rate tended to translate into 40 paid hours a week.

Of course there will be others on here with more experience than I have but I thought I would share this with you as it may help your budgeting. If any of you contract teachers out there know of better rates, or schools that do pay high rates for 8 hour days please let me know and I can forward it on to some of my chums.

[z754103]

BTW it's worth noting as a general rule, that things like fiance visas (forget what the actual name for them here) only applies to opposite sex couples. Ditto spousal entry visas - same sex couples with recognised unions in other countries can't get into HK via the dependency visa route.