November 20th marks a holiday that we don’t officially celebrate in Canada…Teacher’s Day.  This is a very significant occasion where all students show their gratitude to their teachers by bringing them gifts.   It’s a seriously big deal in Vietnam.  And although I had only been a teacher for a total of one week at that point, my students still made me feel special by presenting me with a card and ice cream (they know me so well already!).  The school put on a dinner and social as well. I got flowers too but that was from one of the other teachers…a story for another time. But it was nice to be recognized for my efforts all the same.

My GE5 class!

In less than two weeks of our arrival, I found myself standing in front of Vietnamese students in a well-respected Saigon language centre. My job hunt had been fairly straightforward – a combination of luck, skill, preparation and networking landed me at the very school that the Jet Set boys taught at one year ago (an amazing coincidence if you consider how many schools there are here).

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We’ve been in Saigon for two weeks now, and still no luck on the English teaching job front. Honestly, I didn’t really try very hard for the first week and a half. I was soaking it all in, getting massages, and being lazy, because I could. When the realization comes that you need money, and you need it fast, all of a sudden the urge to get a job becomes much stronger (go figure?).

There are a few things I didn’t think about before I left when it came to looking for jobs:
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I am happy to report that one of the Jet Set Zero crew is now employed in Saigon.  As mentioned in my earlier note, “Unemployed in Saigon”, last week I had an interview with the hiring manager of the Cleverlearn English Language Centre and today I had to prove my skills by teaching a mock English class.  Let me be clear that I have no experience doing this so it took my best acting skills to pull it off.  As preparation, I asked for advice from a couple folks currently taking their ESL certification in Saigon (certification which I do not have), youtubed ESL teachers doing their thing and googled ESL tips.  Man, the internet is a great thing.

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The only thing worse than working a job is looking for a job.  Finding employment in a foreign country is rarely easy – you often land not knowing a soul and are unsure of where to start.  There’s also the current economic crunch whose fingers reach farther than you would think.  At home, I have never had a problem getting work…usually, you ask around to people you know and someone knows someone who is looking for an employee.  Problem solved.

I am confident that job hunting will be the most unpleasant part of the whole Jet Set Zero experience for me.  I don’t mind working, but it takes a lot of time and effort to network and apply for positions in a city you are unfamiliar with.  I started my job search by googling language schools in Saigon and sending my resume off indiscriminately.  I spoke with someone who teaches at the university and she told me that although it’s fairly easy to get a teaching job, there is a current oversupply of teachers. Crap. I got in touch with a couple people who are doing local ESL work and they suggested a nearby language centre and gave me a contact name.  This turned out to be an awesome tip as the contact person they know is in charge of deploying teachers for many different schools throughout Saigon, not just the actual language centre (which is good because without TEFL or specific ESL certification I’m not actually qualified to work there).  I was very excited to get a response asking me to come in for an interview.

So I went in this morning to meet Bich, the centre’s HR person, wearing one of my two nice outfits.  It’s strange after working in HR for so long to be on the other side of the table.  I didn’t have to say too much as she spent most of the interview explaining how the schedules and classes operate.  Apparently she liked the way I listened to her because she invited me to do a demo class on Tuesday where I will teach a mock lesson to some of the staff to test my teaching skills.

The only problem with this is that I have no idea what I’m doing.  I’ve never taught before and don’t speak more than a couple words of Vietnamese.  She gave me a sample lesson to use as a guide and I’m supposed to teach for 45 minutes.  So it should be very interesting to see how it goes.  My master plan is to get the job (obviously) and then use my clout to get the other Jet Set members jobs as well.  Wouldn’t that be nice!

I also put up a post on the Saigon group for Couchsurfing which was titled “I NEED A JOB!!!!”  I got a response from someone in Saigon who is looking for an individual to do some web-editing work, and I am currently waiting to hear back about that.  And, like the English teaching, I will have to fake my way through that as well.

Other than that, the other alternative to find teaching work is to walk through the districts and physically go to the schools, flash my white skin and drop off resumes.   I’m really hoping that it doesn’t come to that.

So I will follow up on the site next week in regards to the job search situation!  Vietnam is cheap but my money will not last forever…