I want a job…..in Thailand!

Often younger people, who clicked a few times holiday in Thailand have been, sometimes want to take up the idea of ​​looking for a job in that beautiful country.

Always nice weather, good food, cheap and maybe a romance with a beautiful Thai lady, what more could you want. Below is the story of a personnel manager of a fairly large IT company in Bangkok:

“Almost every day I receive job applications from foreigners, almost all of which, after I've read them, end up straight in the trash. The chance that a “prospective expat” will come and work for us is virtually nil. The main reason for that is that I immediately see that the foreigner wants to work in Thailand first and secondly to work at my company. My company might even come in third, fourth, or fifth, but either way, I only talk to people who are clearly interested in my company. Most candidates will do anything to work in Thailand.

There are two types of “prospective expats”. I call the first category the holidaymakers. These people are the travelers looking for a base to travel around in Thailand and surrounding countries. Bangkok is of course ideal for this, better than, for example, from Amsterdam or Groningen. The cover letter usually contains something like:….”I am very familiar with Thai/Asian/Far Eastern culture, which I have been to several times over the years….blah, blah, blah.”

That's great, but visiting a place or region as a tourist and working there are two completely different things. With a beer in hand at the pool is different from the daily struggle in Bangkok traffic to get to work and to go home. If it is necessary to work through a weekend to meet a deadline of an important project or someone has to come to the office at 3 am for an important meeting with a relation in the USA (time difference), we must be able to rely on them. calculate. That may not be in line with the plans of that employee, who happened to have made other plans, for example to go out or something like that.

In short, these applicants actually want us to sponsor their travel activities and when they are "done" with Thailand, they move to other places. Sorry, I can't use those people, so the letter is ready for the old paper. 

The second category are candidates with a romantic streak. “Dear Sir, I would like to work in Thailand because I recently met a nice Thai lady and we are planning to get married and settle down in Thailand…blah, blah, blah.

Sorry, again such a candidate is not suitable in advance. He may be quite happy with his “Nid”, but how can I know if this will be a long and solid relationship. This is important for my company, because if things go wrong with them after a short period of time, we can start the application procedure again.

Companies in Thailand have to invest considerable time and money in advance when hiring foreign employees, such as a correct visa, work permit, health insurance, housing costs, etc. Once hired, new staff will not immediately be 100% productive, because in the first months he is looking for accommodation, arranges telephone/computer connection, etc., and also needs time for all kinds of other administrative hassle. So, if the IT man returns to his country after the relationship failed, the company will lose time and money. And.. let's face it, I was not hired for that as personnel manager.

An example: I needed someone for a modest position as “support engineer” at one of our relations. An experienced IBM consultant applied and I invited him for an interview. Why did he want the job, I asked and got a vague answer that he had met “some people” in Bangkok and he would like to work there. Gosh,… a few people, more than one? I didn't go straight into that. I decided to take him to the client to show him the environment in which he would be working. At that firm, we sat around a cheap metal desk in a dingy little office, with all sorts of network cabling strewn across the floor. The applicant sat there in his fine tailored suit with an expensive Jim Thompson silk tie, while the staff ran around in jeans, bare tracksuits or with a windbreaker with advertising on the back. Welcome to the reality of an expat workplace. I couldn't imagine why a farang would give up a probably well-paid job in his country to work in Thailand. Just because he "knows some people"?

The letters themselves, something like that. You can often see that the writer simply sends his application to several companies, because the salutation is then “to the IT Manager/HR Manager/CEO”. If you don't bother addressing the letter to anyone personally—in our case, the executives are listed by name on the website—I already know it's nothing. By the way, the nicest salutation is “To whom it may concern” (to whomever this may concern), well, it does not concern us at all. 

I could also become a stamp collector, because the letters come from many countries. How am I supposed to interview those people, by phone? Good, but I often finish faster with someone who already lives here and who can start, so to speak, next Monday. The chances for someone abroad are therefore virtually nil. In addition, if we need someone, we place an advertisement, so sending an unsolicited application letter is pointless.

I'll add a little more to it. The long-term prospects for IT expats are no longer as good as they were 10 years ago. The Thais, who have now graduated from university, speak increasingly better English and also understand IT. Very few Farangs are proficient in the Thai language, listening is sometimes still possible, but one-on-one conversation becomes a problem. There is also the salary level. I can hire 10 Thai IT graduates for the price of 1 Farang IT programmer.

That's the crux of the matter. A foreign IT professional cannot compete on price and language skills of the local population. They only want to work in Thailand, but for the wrong reasons. Okay, the reasons are important to him, of course, but not good enough for our company.

Finally, a positive sound, because the possibility of working here is not entirely impossible. The IT people with a special skill that cannot be found in Thailand stand a chance. People themselves know if they have that special skill and are not just a Java programmer. I will keep those letters with me, in case such a person is needed. The persons who qualify are generally foreigners, who have been married (with a Thai) for a long time, and preferably even have children. That more or less guarantees continuity.

We recently needed a senior IT consultant and advertised for this in the Bangkok Post. It was not possible to apply online, otherwise we would have received applications from all over the world. The ideal candidate was a man in his XNUMXs from Scotland who had “entrenched” in Buriram to build a house for him and his Thai family. He had given up a previous job for this and now wanted to go back to work.

In short, for holidaymakers and romantics there is little or no work to be found in Thailand. Those who have lived here for a long time, possibly speak the language and have sufficient experience, are the ideal candidates.”

Short article (loosely translated) by an anonymous writer on the Stickman website.

About this blogger

Gringo

Bert Gringhuis (1945), born and raised in Almelo in the beautiful Twente. Later lived for many years in Amsterdam and Alkmaar, working in export for various companies. I first came to Thailand in 1980 and immediately fell in love with the country. Been back many times since then and moved to Thailand after my (early) retirement as a widower. I have been living there for 22 years now with my somewhat younger Thai lady Poopae.
My first experiences in Thailand as a kind of newsletter sent to family, friends and acquaintances, which later appeared under the name Gringo on Thailandblog. Many, many articles followed those first stories and that has grown into an almost daily hobby.
In the Netherlands still an avid footballer and football referee, but the years are starting to tell and in Thailand still avid, but the pool billiards is really of inferior quality, ha ha!

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