1. This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this site, you are agreeing to our use of cookies. Learn More.

Jobs for a Westerner in Manila without specific skill?

Discussion in 'General Chit Chat' started by Boozi, Feb 8, 2018.

  1. Boozi
    Offline

    Boozi New Member

    Hey

    Can't find a job/work sub-forum

    Here's what I posted on Thai expat group a couple years back. Does the same really apply in the Philippines

    "I have a BSc Hons Degree in Health Promotion and Fitness Management with CYQ Level 3 Personal Training.

    I work for an insurance company in England which has a Philippine office. I hear its very hard for a westerner to get an office job especially since I'm only doing general admin.

    What are the options? Work in Leisure or Teach English / Physical Education as native tongue?

    Is there more of a chance that if I prove myself in a UK office that transfers are more likely?

    Thanks if you have some personal experiences to share."
  2. PorkAdobo
    Offline

    PorkAdobo Active Member

    Not impossible, but obviously challenging for a Westerner to get a job in a developing country with a wage you would consider appropriate. TEFL jobs and call centre supervisory roles are available. Consider though the long term effects this would have on your overall career prospects if you are still young.

    Have you looked at jobs in Hong Kong, Singapore or Dubai? Would not be that hard for your crush to get a working visa for those countries.
    • Like Like x 2
  3. Bootsonground
    Offline

    Bootsonground Guest

    Forget getting a job here in an office..The money is ****e and you will need an employment visa which I doubt you can obtain if it looks like the job you will be doing could be done by a Filipino..
    Best option IMO is teaching English (as a native English teacher) to Koreans and Chinese etc.
    Might be best to start doing this online from the UK and see what you can earn in lets say 6 months from now..If you can make between 500.00 to 1000.00 Quid a month then you are on to something.. Might even be worth getting a few more English teaching qualifications to raise your fees..
    Then all you need is a cheaper province with decent internet here which can often be the hard part!
    I know of a few people doing this here and they seem happy enough.
    • Like Like x 1
  4. Stellar
    Offline

    Stellar BANNED AGAIN

    getting a reliable wage doing online English teaching is difficult. It's just not a consistent income source and it is not really a proper job like standing in front of a real class is. Many foreigners that are doing it brag that they are making ridiculous amounts of cash, but it usually seems to me to turn out to be very haphazard earner.

    there is call center work available in Manila and even Cebu now, with some call center jobs like Caption Calling it is a great advantage if you are a native speaker, and in particular an American, as the work is beyond the English speaking capabilities of most Filipinos, even experienced Filipino call center agents. Not only do you need to be able to understand American dialects, but you also need to have knowledge of American culture, place names and so on, to boost up your accuracy. You need exceptional audial and to a lesser extent speaking skill to pass the basic Caption Calling proficiency test to get on the training course and start getting paid, only 1 in 20 even native speaker applicants are able to get the 93% accuracy required to pass the initial proficiency test, which if you pass it, will enable you to get the job. In fact, being able to pass that test, is the only requirement you need, they don't care about your background, or even if you have never worked in a call center before, as long as you pass the test. With Filipinos, only 1 in 200 applicants are able to pass the test. With caption calling the advantage of being a native speaker is such that it is judged, even though Filipinos do pass the test, that as a foreigner you can do a job that hardly any Filipinos, can do. So the immigration will issue work visas/permits if the call center employer recommends you. Caption calling pay is considerably higher than it is for ordinary call center agents and among Filipinos it is a very desirable job indeed, but it is still only 45k in the IT Park Cebu call center and 55k in the Quezon city one. That is as good as an office job in the Philippines can possibly get at a non-managerial level.
    Last edited: Feb 9, 2018
    • Informative Informative x 3
  5. Boozi
    Offline

    Boozi New Member

    Some nice replies actually.

    I believe I'd only commit to working in my country or the country of my lady. I don't believe that I fell in love with the Philippines because I want to work in HK or Dubai lol. But all pretty good ideas to make things possible.

    Link to Caption calling? Is that the company name or the type of calls?
  6. Stellar
    Offline

    Stellar BANNED AGAIN

    https://www.facebook.com/StellarPhilippines/

    you can ring them up and as a native speaker they'd let you walk in the office, arrange a little practice for an hour or two, and take the test the very next day. They are recruiting constantly. You'd have to be based in or very near to the call center in Eastwood, Quezon city.

    what you have to do is repeat every word or phrase that comes over your headset from the non-assisted user in such a way that the speech recognition software is able to make accurate captions that come up to be viewed by the assisted user, a deaf or hard-of-hearing person in the United States, and so enable them to take part in telephone conversations, that they otherwise wouldn't.

    it is very tricky, especially when the non-assisted users are from the Rocky Mountain/Appalachian states and also with some black Americans it can be very difficult to understand what they have said. Their accents are very difficult to caption, even for many Americans. The company have a total of about 60 out of 500 communications agents in their two call centers that are foreigners and of that 60 only 3 or 4 of them are not Americans, it is a massive advantage if you are American. But if you are in Manila or Cebu and looking for a job, why don't you try it. If you pass the test, you'll get the job. It's as simple as that.

    You don't need any call center experience really, it is just a kind of knack, that some people have, and some people don't but you need to be able to build on it to train the software and speak in such away as to boost the accuracy of your captions. Hours are variable you don't necessarily know what shift you will be given, it might be 5am-1.30pm or it might be a graveyard 10pm-6am shift. It's a good company. You get full medical cover, 13th month and more benefits than most Philippines jobs offer.
    • Like Like x 2
    • Informative Informative x 2
  7. John Surrey
    Offline

    John Surrey Well-Known Member

    Had to look it up myself as I'd never heard of it either!

    CaptionCallPhone.jpg

    If I understand Stellar correctly the American says something like "Let's run this one up the flag pole..." and you caption that to "Let's try this..." and the software then does the rest - sending it down the line to appear on the phone screen of someone who is hard of hearing (like me)...
    Last edited: Feb 9, 2018
  8. Stellar
    Offline

    Stellar BANNED AGAIN

    No it's not like that all. You have to caption without delay and caption verbatim. Your job, is simply to repeat everything they say. You are not there, to correct their grammar or 'improve' their message like a smart ass. Often they use swear words and insults which you have to repeat faithfully. Sometimes, you even think the people who's speech you are captioning as best as you can, are assholes. That doesn't matter. You caption them verbatim regardless and it's a difficult job. That's why they pay twice what they do in a conventional call center and six times what they pay in the Jollibee. 45k in pesos doesn't sound like much. But it's about six times the minimum wage in the Philippines, I. E. equovalent to about 40 pounds an hour in the UK. Filipinos would kill for a caption calling job.
  9. Boozi
    Offline

    Boozi New Member

    45k per month right? Not year?
  10. Dave_E
    Offline

    Dave_E Well-Known Member Trusted Member

    45K peso is only £629, is that per day?
  11. bigmac
    Offline

    bigmac Well-Known Member Trusted Member

    £629 a day ? wow--thats about what i get a MONTH for my state pension.
  12. graham59
    Offline

    graham59 Banned

    Per month, I'd assume.
  13. Bootsonground
    Offline

    Bootsonground Guest

    I know a young English guy that earns double that from home here..Not only that,his Filipino Mrs is an online English teacher too..
    If you think about it,a native English tutor charging Koreans and Chinese 350.00 PHP per hour is not even minimum wage in the UK. Bargain!
    I don`t see him often but I`d imagine that he probably charges more now as he has already established a reputable business..
  14. Stellar
    Offline

    Stellar BANNED AGAIN

    there is a lot of people claiming to be getting high returns from online English teaching, but I have seen scant evidence that anybody, or hardly anybody, actually is. Neither have you, by the sounds of it - it seems you hardly know the guy. So what if he's getting 350 pesos an hour - I get 280 but at least I am guaranteed minimum 40 hours a week and that can go up, with overtime. Hardly any online English teachers are getting more than a sporadic few hours of work a week. There can be problems getting paid. I know quite a few people who have tried it and realised after months, that it wasn't worth bothering with. People doing it talk it up as if it's something brilliant. But it's just not a proper job.

    English teachers can do OK when they have proper teaching jobs, in classrooms, with adult Asian students, mostly Koreans but increasingly Chinese and Vietnamese. Schools sometimes want a native English speaker, preferably someone tall, between the ages of 40 and 50, who wears glasses, a suit and tie, and who gets spotted by the students in the corridors, on the stairs or in the commissary if there is one. Most of the actual teachers in these places are Filipino or other Asian, but if there is a foreigner or two around, even if they are total plonkers with spurious teaching skills, then that makes the place look better. I know a couple in Cebu who get 40-50k wages. For a Filipino that is top money. Only about 10% of the workforce of the Philippines gets that kind of pay and above. But for a foreigner, it's enough to get by and no more.
  15. Bootsonground
    Offline

    Bootsonground Guest

    He was one of our tenants so yes I know him pretty well.. They left for two reasons. First reason was they wanted us to provide a faster internet connection for work and second they were about to have their first child and decided they needed a house with garden..
    At that time we were not prepared to get anything faster,so I arranged for them to rent one of my mates houses in another barangay whom I knew was connected to Fiber optic cable..
    About 4 months later we got a message from his mother in the UK that wanted to surprise him with a 3 month visit...She knew how busy they were,especially with a new baby and so that`s what happened..We took her round to the house for the big surprise!!
    So anyway..4 months on and they are still working 8-10 hour shifts .. Last time I saw him about 3 months ago,they had started learning the Beijing dialect Chinese (basic) to help them with their plans to cater directly here with the influx of Chinese that have flooded our island..
    They bought some land here 2 years ago that they are building nice native units on to rent to their students.. They can rent them out for 15K each per month all day long!!
    Anyway..Not trying to be rude or anything,but you are in the wrong game mate!!
    Last edited by a moderator: Feb 10, 2018
    • Agree Agree x 1
  16. Bootsonground
    Offline

    Bootsonground Guest

    Well done!! You have just described the Brit I know to a TEE!!
    I never ask people`s age but my best guess is that he is 28.. His wife I would guesstimate is slightly older..30 perhaps.
  17. Stellar
    Offline

    Stellar BANNED AGAIN

    everyone I have come across doing online English teaching can't make it pay at all. I haven't even met one. When they start, they are full of all this optimism, then when you see them 6 months later they've either quit, or they're talking it down. Of course, to an extent it could be them and that they haven't put enough energy into it but I'm pretty sure, that it isn't just that. Sometimes it's dodgy internet that's a problem, and you definitely can't do it on some provincial island with crappy internet and frequent brownouts, but I think it's more than that. They never get enough hours or customers. They can also struggle to get paid, there were complaints about that. When you've got a job, and you've signed a contract, you're in an office surrounded by about 60 people on the same money as you, that's got to be better than sitting in front of a computer looking at some phantom apparition that may or may not pay you. If you want to be an English teacher, surely it's better to do it in a school.
    • Funny Funny x 1

Share This Page