Taiwanese professionals are a lovely bunch of people! I wouldn’t say every interaction I’ve had in my 14 years working here has been positive, although mostly positive for sure. Taiwanese corporate worker bees are always highly regarded by the foreign expats sent here to manage the local entity, with Taiwan often being the highlight of their careers working in lots of different countries. If you were to do a survey of these bosses, you’d hear a lot of these kinds of adjectives being used to describe their Taiwan employees; smart, kind, friendly, hard-working, trustworthy, helpful, warm, diligent, etc. I’ve also seen hundreds of examples of Taiwanese workers moving overseas into foreign markets and succeeding there. So, what does it take for a Taiwanese professional to succeed when moving abroad to work? How can the Taiwanese improve their international competitiveness so that they can potentially move abroad? And how should they aim to get opportunities in the big foreign multinationals in Taiwan? I’m going to give a list of 12 things that I think can help achieve these things! Enjoy!
1. Strengthen language ability
This has to go first on the list. If you want to work abroad or work for a multinational company in Taiwan, your language skills must be as strong as possible. English is the international business language, although of course if your target is Japan or Germany then those specific languages (plus English) are important to improve upon. I can’t stress this enough, language ability is a key factor in job success, both in Taiwan and overseas. It is so important that sometimes I feel companies will choose a favorite candidate solely based on language ability.
One thing that I’ve noticed as a professional recruiter, is that spoken English level is often confused for intelligence. What I mean by this is that candidates with poor English (during an English interview) will be judged as far less intelligent than those with better English, even though there is no correlation between these two things. This is definitely unfair, although it is something to keep in mind. In Taiwan, both the foreign MNCs and the big local Taiwanese companies highly value language ability.
Just imagine being in a meeting with twelve other colleagues and you are forcing everyone to speak their second language because you don’t speak the language of the country you live in. In this example, you are a hindrance, a problem. Be diligent, get a teacher, join a class, and study in your free time.
2. Improve your understanding of the world and different cultures
This is definitely a weakness of the average Taiwanese person. I feel like the geography general knowledge of most Taiwanese is weak. I’ve found Taiwanese have a general understanding of the history, geography, politics and culture of a few Asian countries, although their global basic knowledge of the rest of the world is closer to zero. If you want to become an international talent, improving your understanding of the world is a good idea.
I can explain why this is important with reference to my own story. A lot of Taiwanese people confuse my country (Scotland) with Ireland and England. They have no idea what countries make up the United Kingdom and why. Often the best I will get is an association of whiskey and golf. Fundamentally this isn’t a big issue, although I can tell you for a fact that I will like you more if you talk to me about the more nuanced parts of my history and culture. For example, if you told me that you’d love to attend the Edinburgh fringe, or the old firm derby, or go see the Isle of Mull distillery, I would be much more inclined to like you / hire you. I’ve met several friends in Taiwan who are originally from places like Honduras, Belize and Ethiopia. Their smiles become so much bigger when I show some kind of interest or knowledge about their home country.
3. EQ is just as important as IQ
I would argue that emotional intelligence in the workplace is an extremely valuable skill to possess. All of the best candidates in the market are able to ”read people”, work with different personalities, and understand people’s drives and how to motivate them. I’ve found this to be especially true of the very best people I’ve ever met. This 1% makes you feel special. They listen attentively when you talk and make you feel important, even though they are the ones with the incredible resume.
As someone who has experienced years of trial and error when it comes to sending potential candidates to interviews, I would also argue that being likeable can be the most important factor in a job interview or when gaining a promotion. Being likeable and charming can be as important as your university background, or your previous employer. Ideally, a combination of hard and soft skills are the best factors that drive success (as well as hard work obviously). As a Taiwanese person looking to move abroad or work for the most famous American and European companies, focusing on improving your soft skills could be the key to your success. Charming, funny and likeable people tend to do well in business as well as life in general.
4. Create a unique personality (hobbies)
Whenever I meet with candidates, the topic of hobbies usually comes up. If I ask a Taiwanese candidate what their plan is for the weekend, they will usually say something to me about meeting friends for tea or lunch. Often, people won’t have any plans at all, preferring to rest and chill at home. I’m not trying to say there is anything wrong with this, but it is a bit boring. Having something that you are passionate about outside work and family can be an important part of your identity and something that helps to individualize you and make you more memorable to the people you meet.
My foreign friends in Taiwan place a high emphasis on this kind of thing. For us, we tend to identify ourselves with our passion rather than our jobs. I know lots of people who are talented musicians, climbers, artists, runners and scuba divers. To be honest you don’t even have to be good at these hobbies, just having things that you are passionate about makes you more interesting as a person. Try new things, explore a skill you’ve been curious about but never tried, join a club, take a class, or spend some of your hard-earned money on an expensive tennis racket. It might not sound like this is practical business advice, but it absolutely is. Imagine being in a job interview where towards the end, the conversation moves into small talk about the upcoming weekend. You say you are going windsurfing, then the hiring manager replies that they also love windsurfing. I promise you that their estimation of you just jumped up. Throughout my career in Taiwan, playing golf has been an incredible asset to my business, this is not just a cliché, several golf acquaintances have turned into clients.
5. Don’t be afraid to show off when necessary
One of the nice things about living in Taiwan is that the Taiwanese are often kind and modest people. However, this factor also holds Taiwanese candidates back when competing against candidates from other countries who aren’t afraid to claim glory or gloat about previous achievements. If you imagine a typical Taiwanese candidate competing for a promotion against a typical American, Singaporean or Hong Kongese candidate, I’m guessing you are imagining the same thing I am: The other loud and confident nationalities overpowering the softly spoken but highly talented Taiwanese candidate. If you want to succeed you need to shake off this modesty.
It is important in job interviews and in the work setting to know when to show off a bit and take the credit you deserve. Start to think less about the potential negative judgement of others and your parents, there is nothing wrong with being proud of yourself. Start to practice telling stories of your past achievements in a way that gives you credit so that when you are in a job interview, you are able to sell yourself. Being modest and humble can be admirable traits in social life, but outside Taiwan are more likely to be seen as weakness and meekness. The reality is that self-confidence plays a huge part in business success.
6. Become able to debate and think independently
I think it would be true to say that Taiwanese don’t like to discuss controversial topics in a public setting, especially at work. However, I value this skill from my British education higher than almost anything else I have. There is huge value in being able to look at something critically, assess from all angles, and argue for various points of view whilst also taking in the pros and cons of the opposition. Being good at this can be generally applied to anything, including success in the workplace.
If you want to improve your competitiveness, learning to have opinions about different topics, and being able to support these opinions, is very important. Foreigners in the West generally quite enjoy debating controversial topics around ethics, religion, sex and politics. Obviously, in a professional work setting you have to be careful what you say, but just being able to discuss these kinds of things in an intelligent and mature manner is something valuable. It is important to add that taking offence or getting upset because someone is criticizing your opinion is something you should learn not to do. It might take practice, but that practice can be quite fun!
7. Choose jobs based on company reputation
The recruitment and job-finding process is one of the most discriminatory challenges you’ll ever face in life. Finding a good job is often compared (by me) to dating. I think there are a lot of similarities, and like the journey of finding a life partner, you enter into the world of rejection and judgement. One of the major things that candidates are judged on is the impressiveness of their previous companies. You might wrongly think that a “Sales Manager” title in one company means that you are qualified to apply to be a “Sales Manager” in another company, although I can tell you that this is not how it works in reality. Companies instead prefer to hire based on the brand names of your previous employers. This means that if you want to get into the top companies, you need to have worked in other big companies. If you go on LinkedIn and look at CV’s of employees in companies like Google, Apple, Amazon and Uber, you’ll notice they often came from other top firms.
This means that Taiwanese employees would be smart to choose job offers based on global company reputation. Navigating your career by building up recognizable company names in your previous working history makes you much more employable overseas and also by the big MNCs in Taiwan. It can be very difficult to find jobs in overseas markets, especially outside Mandarin-speaking countries, so you have to think about how your resume looks at face value to an HR who has never been to Taiwan. Big-name multinationals will be impressive to anyone in any market, so do your best to get hired by them!
8. Be brave, make the move overseas
Staying in a company for 2-3 years is good, but staying in a company for 8 years is not. You have to find a balance between loyalty and selfishness in your career journey. If your current employer is constantly promoting you, changing your job scope and giving you new challenges and responsibilities, then great. But if you become stuck in your comfort zone and end up staying in the same company and in the same role for too long, it will be judged negatively by the hiring managers in other companies. I’m not saying that money should be the main goal of everyone, but just for reference, the average annual salary raise in a company is 1-2%, but when changing jobs it is 15-20%.
The advice I always give to Taiwanese looking to move overseas to work is to just be brave and do it. If you are sending resumes to HR in foreign markets, why would they take the gamble of video interviewing a Taiwanese candidate, giving them an offer, waiting for them to pack up their stuff and buy the plane ticket and then start applying for their working visa? In my opinion, it is close to impossible to get offers overseas if you are applying whilst physically here in Taiwan. I would suggest it is a better idea to gamble and just go to the target country, then start to network and apply for jobs like your life depended on it. Maybe plan a month-long vacation there first to do the same thing. Oh! Also, choose your target country rather than simply being open to anywhere abroad. If you say to me, “I want to work overseas, maybe Singapore, Shanghai, Germany or California.” It might seem as if you have lots of options and therefore more possibilities. However, I feel it is better to choose one target then focus your networking and hunting solely on that place.
9. Keep learning (formally)
Weirdly enough, educational background always seems to matter. You would assume that after a few years of corporate experience people begin to not care about your academic background, but that isn’t true. I’ve even seen examples of clients stating education background was the most important factor when assessing applicants for senior roles….the candidates we were sending were close to 50 years old, which means that their Bachelor’s degrees were from thirty years before. Crazy!
Basically, the point I’m making is that having a solid academic portion of your resume is a good idea, the bigger and brighter, the better! Especially having globally recognized Universities and post-graduate degrees (especially MBAs). I would also encourage any kind of formal learning certificates or programs as you can manage. These days places like Harvard, MIT and Stanford give out certificates for completing 1-2 month courses in areas like “negotiating strategy”. Why not add things like this to your resume? Every HR on the planet will recognize an accreditation from an Ivy League, maybe it will make you stand out when applying for roles in countries where NTU or NCCU degrees aren’t getting you the respect they would in Taiwan. In most other countries, having a degree from a good Taiwanese university will mean absolutely nothing to them. Unfortunately for me, I have had a similar experience, my degree from the University of St. Andrews is not considered as impressive by Asians as it would be in the UK, even though my University often ranks above Oxford and Cambridge. I would maybe even encourage Taiwanese professionals to tell foreign HR that they went to one of the best Universities in Taiwan, lest they lose this advantage they worked so hard for.
10. Improve your communication and directness
I think most people who have experienced working in Taiwan would agree that culturally there are problems with communication. I think in business and families, a lot of problems arise from the Taiwanese inability to directly communicate problems and feelings. If you want to succeed (and improve your relationship with your family) starting to practice being more direct is probably a good idea. I taught a Crossing Magazine workshop last year for 100 people with my friends Christine Orchard and Moja Reader, and in my opinion, the big takeaway was that people weren’t brave enough to ask for what they wanted. A lot of the attendees were frustrated about their salary, lack of career progression, lack of promotion, lack of praise and recognition from the boss, and lack of mobility in terms of geographical relocation or function change. However, when asked if they’d communicated these frustrations internally most people hadn’t been brave or direct enough to do so. In English, we say, “don’t ask, don’t get.”
If you are unable to express your feelings and thoughts within your company, then you are basically a ghost in a chair. Is it really so difficult to ask your boss for a time to meet one-on-one and then tell them you are hoping for a promotion or salary raise within the year? I’ve found a lot of candidates, instead of doing this, will go home and vent their problems to their husband/wife/partner instead…which doesn’t help the situation one bit. I think that a lot of Taiwanese would rather quit than have this type of difficult conversation. This is a bit of a tangent, but I also see a lot of family problems in Taiwan stemming from poor communication. Sometimes, these problems can sit under the surface for years and years, with everyone in the family preferring not to address the issue rather than have a possibly difficult conversation. Yes, difficult conversations can be difficult, but poor communication is not a better solution. All that does is exacerbate and delay a problem, making it grow until it explodes.
11. Focus on building resilience and emotional stability
I wouldn’t say this point is particularly focused on Taiwanese people, unlike the previous number 10 point. The senior-level Taiwanese professionals I’ve met are resilient and emotionally stable. I think the point I’m trying to make is that work is hard. Frustrations are inevitable. How you deal with these challenges and disappointments is incredibly important. Emotional stability develops as you mature, figuring out how to vent and how to release stress and pressure that is unique to yourself is very important. Most people will experience rejection and disappointment, especially during job searches. You have to learn how to be philosophical about your life and get over low moments as quickly as possible. If you make the brave decision to move to London or Sydney to work and you’re finding it really difficult to find a corporate job, being strong and continuing to try hard is going to be a big factor in whether or not you are successful in the long run.
12. Maximize your physical appearance
Ah, this old can of worms! Some people get incredibly sensitive when it comes to discussing the correlation between physical attractiveness and employability. I think this makes me want to talk about it more, to be honest. I can of course understand why people think this might be unfair, and that in a perfect world, looks wouldn’t affect hiring opportunities. Although I’m sure this same group of people would have no problem discriminating purely based on intelligence. Is this better? Hiring someone for their IQ alone, with no other factors coming into play, or is it okay (like in reality) to hire people based on their full package? Anyway, this is a topic for another article I suspect.
What I’m trying to say is that your physical appearance definitely affects how employable you are. This means that maximizing your own appearance will be beneficial to you in your career. Notice that I’m not talking about appearance as if it is a static invariable. On the contrary, there are many things an individual can do to improve their appearance. Clothes are a good place to start, even if it is as simple as buying one perfect outfit for job interviews and important occasions. Learning how to wear makeup well or learning how to groom (shaving, skincare, nails, fragrance) can be important. Haircuts can make a huge difference to physical appearance. If you are someone who struggles in this area, don’t be afraid to ask for help. As the Netflix show Queer Eye has shown everyone, sometimes all you need is five gay men to bring out the hottie that has been lying dormant inside you. Exercise is also a game changer, finding a regular exercise routine can make a massive difference. I’m currently going to the gym four days a week to battle the dad bod I’ve been naturally blessed with (the beer probably not helping). Jia you to me!
Look, I don’t want to make the point too strongly. But from a professional recruiter’s point of view, the better looking you are, the better your chances of being hired are. Harsh, but an unfortunate reality of being a human.
*For the Chinese version, please check 英籍獵頭：如何增進台灣人才的國際競爭力（上）展現你的個性並適度「居功」！
執行編輯：林鈺芩
核稿編輯：林欣蘋
