Seeking job opportunities and internships in Taiwan can be challenging even for local students, but it sure can be a stress to anyone looking for the right company to join. One of the best ways to directly learn about the local job market would be to join a job fair event. Today I would like to share a couple of insights and experiences related to job seeking and job fair participation.
2022 Taipei International Convention Center
On July 19th, 2022 in Taipei International Convention Center an event called Global Talent Job Fair took place. An event organized by ROC’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Taiwan External Trade Development Council, and 104 – Taiwan’s biggest workplace platform. This event was advertised specifically for International Students from Africa, and Central and Eastern Europe. As a result, I felt compelled to participate as a student coming from Poland, how did it turn out?
Learned from NYCU Office of international affairs
I learned about the event from the NYCU Office of international affairs Facebook page, a good source of information about upcoming events (link https://www.facebook.com/NYCUOIA). As stated in the posts description invitation was extended to International Students from Africa, Central, and Eastern Europe and in further description to Taiwanese students with related experiences. In preparation for the event, participants were asked to fill out the information surveys. It was conducted for several reasons. First, information such as a resume could be sent in advance to all participating companies, as well as submitting it specifically to 104’s survey would result in a one-two-one meeting with the company’s representative to evaluate the resume. Since I decided on joining the event early on, I wanted to make the most of this experience, not only did I apply to the companies to have better conversations with them on the fair’s floor, but I also scheduled my resume for review. What are my takeaways from that experience, you might ask? Not only none of the companies were prepared for conversations based on any of the resume submissions, but also the resume evaluation was reorganized after the start of the event and all slots for evaluation were already taken. My takeaway is to just prepare a CV for the specific job listing and not try to curate a resume just to show it for ‘expert’ evaluation – but that’s just an opinion.
Looking for a job
The fair floor was surrounded by tables with companies’ advertisements. The selection covered many different industries and a mix of products, but it showed what is a good example of how the Taiwanese workforce market thinks of non-English teaching foreigners looking for a job. I will not name specific companies, the reason being that the problems stated below are much more common and are not exclusive to the specific participants.
The last of ‘Surprises’ !!!
I spoke with representatives of more than 10 companies which was a majority participants. Here are my observations. First, companies advertising to the wrong audience. Even though job fair clearly described the participants demographics, still majority of companies offer only Chinese speaking jobs with no need for advertising to foreigners specifically. Second, companies in this market are notorious mislabeling the job positions. Please take a guess, what kind of job does the name “Field Intern for restaurants” indicate? If your answer was: waiter, congratulations. Predatory practice of giving minimal wage job in event for graduate foreign students fortunately did not meet with many interested participants. Third, even though this event was advertised to students, only 3 of 20 companies offered internships, all other positions were a full time offers. Taiwanese law only allows 20 hours of week during the semester for work, so the event was at best mislabeled, at worst prepared in complete negligence. For, I think it’s not specific to Taiwanese market, but years of experience in starting position are always a subject to be ridiculed. The last of ‘surprises’ was company posing as a big and recognizable brand, but it was in fact separate company that offered services to that bigger, better-known company. Job fare was a genuinely interesting learning experience. I urge awareness and mindfulness while talking to company representatives in this kind of event.
Disclaimer｜The views expressed in the blogs do not necessarily reflect the views of the GMBA Program for endorsements.
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