How long did it take to get your first teaching job

[ThreadKiller]

Had my job lined up before I came over in 2000. Not the best job, but good enough to stay in for a few years.

[Abacus]

It took me two weeks last year as a teaching newb in Kaohsiung and I'm lazy. FWIW (and it's important) - I'm a 32 yr old white male from the US. I'm also nicely groomed and professionally dressed. I did take a job where I worked Saturdays and was only able to avg 16 hrs/wk but everything else at the school was very good. It wasn't a perfect job but maybe the internet scared me into thinking there weren't any good jobs out there.

[Whole Lotta Lotta]

Take a survival job. I am currently getting out of one survival job and into another one that will help me to survive a little better. If I told people about some of the pay and conditions, they would say, 'What the heck? Why are you putting up with that?" I would answer that it is about survival. The survival jobs may help me to last long enough to get something decent.

[BernardT]

Well I've been in Taipei since Nov 2010 and have been looking for a gig teaching business English to adults but have had no luck. I've been offered kindy classes but am not interested in that. Luckily, I don't need a survival job (yet). Perhaps I'll have better luck and the market will open up a bit after CNY.

Do you guys think cities outside of Taipei will be better ?

[Feiren]

I don't teach anymore unfortunately, but I am under the distinct impression that whatever adult teaching gigs are left in Taiwan, they will be in Taipei or Hsinchu. That's probably even more true for teaching business English. These are dying markets.

[danrunsfast614]

Took me about 3 days from when I started to look to when I got my job, but this was back in 2008. Luckily I am still there, with the market as it is now, and all the horror stories I hear about.

[Charlie Jack]

I just tried to figure it out by looking at a 2002 calendar. I came here from Korea in 2002, and in the few days before I left Korea, I e-mailed resumes and so on to try and get the ball rolling. I was 48 years old then (and looked every bit of it). I'm a white North American (although with a somewhat dark complexion, and facial features that sometimes cause confusion as to my ethnicity/country of origin), but I was (and am) not very attractive, upbeat, or energetic-looking at all. Also, I'm not much of a "people person," I'm not much of a salesman/self-marketer, and I don't usually come across as Mr. Confident. In other words, I think by the criteria usually applied here, I didn't look or act like anything to write home about. From the day I landed here, I think it took a few interviews, maybe three demos, and ten or eleven days for me to get hired.

A little side anecdote: Some years ago, when I was being interviewed by a university department head while applying to enter a certain graduate program, I asked the department head whether he could give me an idea of the odds of my being admitted. He answered, "Got a pulse?"

I think that department head's answer could be applied pretty well to the cram school employment outlook when I came here in 2002. I don't know what things are like now, though.

[housecat]

November 16, 2010 I was officially unemployed. I just got hired today.

It took three and a half months from graduation until I got my first teaching job in the States. Of course I graduated at the begging of the summer break, so it's not really the same. In other words, this is the longest I've ever been unintentionally unemployed.

*Edit: I should add that I was offered other jobs that I simply could not accept because of wages or hours that were unsuitable to me as a single mom.

[Abacus]

Well I've been in Taipei since Nov 2010 and have been looking for a gig teaching business English to adults but have had no luck. I've been offered kindy classes but am not interested in that. Luckily, I don't need a survival job (yet). Perhaps I'll have better luck and the market will open up a bit after CNY.

Do you guys think cities outside of Taipei will be better ?

I think it's going to be very difficult to find a job teaching adults. And even if you do find one I doubt it would be enough hours.

[Whole Lotta Lotta]

So, there you have it. Two months. Of course I think much of this depends on what level you want to be employed at. A friend of mine just got fired today. He thinks it will be easier to find a job in the country than in the city.