How to Get a Good Job in a Western Company

So many students study business English mainly to get a good job in a western company. I live in Shanghai and I see what works and what does not for getting an international job. Here are a few important things I’ve noticed.

1. English level is far more important than English test scores.

It’s true that a good TOEIC score might be required by some companies, but often employers really want to know your true English level and don’t care about your test scores. They will speak with you in English. After the interview, they will know your true level.

2. Getting jobs through the people you know is much easier than passing in your CV everywhere.

Most young job searchers care too much about their CV and send them to big companies. Most of these companies get thousands of CV’s per week and don’t even have time to read them all. Get out of your house and meet people. If you can show them that you are worth something, they will recommend you for some good position. This recommendation is huge. So many people I know got great jobs just because they were good at meeting people.

3. Be prepared to explain exactly how you will add value to the company

This is important for both getting a job and also salary negotiation.  Bosses really want people to help them earn money.  That’s really all companies are doing.  If you seem like a smart and capable person, they will invest time, money, and energy into training you into a valuable employee.  It’s important to be able to sell yourself.  Tell them how you can help the company.  Don’t use fake answers and talk about what degrees you have.   It’s not that important.  The biggest question is “WHY YOU?”

4.  Learn western culture!

Learning western culture will help your chances of getting a good job.  You don’t have to agree with the culture, but it’s important you understand it.  You need to understand the jokes, the way of thinking, and the way of doing business in the west.  This is a huge advantage that many ESL students miss big time.

These tips should really help your chances of getting a sweet job.  Remember, most English learners look for jobs in a different way, and that is a good thing.  Be different and be better.

If you want to learn more about business, western culture, and a lot of other stuff that will really help you improve your English, or improve the English of your students (Great for the ESL classroom too as well as individual students), I highly recommend this step by step Mp3 Learning Program

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 23rd, 2010 at 1:29 pm and is filed under Finding a Job. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.