Tempest7: Blogger

Working in Hong Kong

I know I've been pretty lazy in Hong Kong. It just seems like one long vacation to everyone else. Summer is about to begin and my goal is to be more active this year in terms of activities. Yeah, it sounds like I want to play more, but actually I just want to experience more of life while I can here. There are some revelations I want to share though about Hong Kong.

Working in Hong Kong is a real pain if you work for a local company. I think Readership is great. Phoebe has been a good boss in my book and she takes care of her employees. She's fair and she's willing to find a win-win situation for all parties involved. This is extremely rare in Hong Kong I have to say. Most local companies, meaning non-multinational companies, will screw you over as soon as they can. I have experience and talked to many people in this area. From my own personal experience I've been working at an educational centre which purposely and repeated takes advantage of their employees. The people working in side at the main school are okay. I get along with them just fine and we try our best to make sure things run well. My problem is with the people who handle the resources and the accounting. At this moment in time I have not been paid for the last two months. This doesn't include the current month which isn't quite over yet but it nearly is so very soon it will be 3 months worth of pay. Granted I'm part time, but the BS excuses they give and the fact that they do not actively attempt to pay on time really pisses me off. I'm leaving anyways so I didn't want to make too big an issue. This is just one perfect example of local businesses in Hong Kong. The company cash flow is all messed up and pretty soon you're working for a company that has shut its doors and you're out several months of pay. It hasn't happened to me yet, but I know of situations in which it has. Our new found Japanese friends work in Jordan for a Japanese Language school. Apparently their school often promises things to them but change their promises without their knowledge. I hear quite a few complaints from them. Education isn't the only field with problems of course, there's plenty of more examples to go around. If you want to work here then be prepared to be screwed over.

But, despite the working environment there's a lot of nice things about being in Hong Kong still. As I said working for a multinational company is fine. There's a lot of foreign companies (American, Japanese, etc) that have good policies and offer good benefits and compensation. As I prepare my resume/CV I've had to adjust it to fit the Hong Kong culture.

1) Personal information. I have to include information like my age, my martial status, and my working status on my resume.
2) Photo. Though optional these days I've decided to use it to my, hopefully, advantage.
3) References. Actually what they do here is they bring the original copies of their certificates, diplomas, and letters of reference with them when ever they interview. This is something I'm not use to and something I never considered bringing with me so I have to make sure that I have all those in order.
4) Resume/CV word order. In North America we like to list things by order of importance. Also we like reverse chronological order. The majority of resumes I've seen here are actually reverse. They tend to list "education" before "work experience" even if their work experience is more important. Also they list things in chronological order which makes it really annoying to find the information that you want to see as an employer. I've decided to just keep the North American fashion.

I've been slow moving but hopefully that will change soon. I'm looking to move down to Hong Kong island as well. Alvin and Tina are apparently moving out soon and I know Celia might be looking for a roommate.

posted by Tempest7 @ 21:45