A job fair held at the assembly hall of National Yunlin University of Science and Technology (Yuntech) one sunny day has attracted such a crowd that some students are pushed up the stairs to the second floor. Some of the talent-seeking companies who have booked a booth advertise themselves in English, stating explicitly that they hope to recruit Southeast Asian graduates for vacancies in the region.

Yuntech is not the only tertiary education institution to focus on its Southeast Asian graduates with targeted events. In March, National Taiwan University (NTU) and NCKU for the first time held their regular job fairs in conjunction with a recruitment event targeting Southeast Asian talent.

“Taiwanese businesses urgently need Southeast Asian talent,” says Cheng Wei-chih, project manager at the NCKU Research and Services Headquarters, which organized the event. Taiwanese enterprises with factories in Malaysia, Vietnam and Thailand are particularly thirsty for such talent.

This year the southern region job fair held at National Cheng Kung University (NCKU) in Tainan also featured a New Southbound Talent Recruitment Event as Taiwanese investors with manufacturing bases in Southeast Asia hope to hire outstanding graduates from Southeast Asia. (Photo: NCKU website)

Universities and colleges alike feel that Taiwanese employers’ interest in Southeast Asian students has been rising markedly. What is the profile of the most sought-after graduates? To what lengths will employers go to attract promising candidates?

Top Demand for Business Administration, Mechanical Engineering Graduates

As the annual graduation season draws close, Tai Wan-ping, a professor at the Department of International Business, Cheng Shiu University in Kaohsiung, feels increasing pressure. Tai, who doubles as a researcher with the NCKU Center for Southeast Asian Studies, gets e-mails or personal inquiries from enterprises who are looking for Southeast Asian interns or recruits practically every day.

However, finding interested students is not always possible. “If you are looking for Southeast Asian students, you really need to start to position yourself earlier,” remarks Tai.

As the ASEAN economies continue to grow, more Taiwanese companies want to expand into these markets. Statistics by online recruitment site 104 Job Bank show that China-based job opportunities stayed at the same level over the past five years, whereas job openings for Thailand and Vietnam registered a marked increase. Moreover, the job bank figures reflect only a fraction of the actual demand.

Tai says he is usually being approached by small- and medium-sized companies from conventional industries in the South. Since such companies usually need only a few people, they do not necessarily advertise their openings on recruitment websites.

Large companies with established internship systems are opening these opportunities to Southeast Asian students. Taipei Fubon Bank launched a new internship scheme in the fourth quarter of last year targeting Southeast Asian students who speak Chinese and English fluently and are going to graduate this summer. Students were offered a five-day training during the winter break and internship opportunities during the term at an hourly wage of NT$250.

Presently, employers are most eager to hire students with a background in business administration or mechanical engineering. Tai has witnessed how a Cheng Shiu University student was once poached by a machinery maker in Pingtung to serve as sales rep even though he was still working on his master’s thesis in business administration.

There are several reasons behind the rising interest in Southeast Asia. First, manufacturing in China becomes more costly as wages in first- and second-tier cities keep rising. On top of that, many Taiwanese companies in China are relocating production to Southeast Asia to cushion the impact from the trade war between China and the United States. (Read: Eye on Vietnam, The New Electronics Manufacturing Hub)

There they need staff who is familiar with the local language and culture to expand business or manage factories. Against this backdrop, Southeast Asian students who have graduated from a Taiwanese university or college are naturally a hot commodity given that they are native speakers of the local language and familiar with life in Taiwan.

Taiwanese Industry’s Main Force for Conquering the SEA Market

On the other hand, the number of students from ASEAN, including overseas Taiwanese living there, has risen 85 percent from 16,631 in 2014 to 30,825 last year, according to Education Ministry figures.

This trend has been particularly pronounced at universities with a comparably high ratio of international students. Forty percent of the around 200 enterprises that participated in a job fair at National Taiwan University of Science and Technology in March were ready to hire Southeast Asian graduates. (Read: Taiwan Tech, Most Popular University for International Students in Taiwan)

University President Liao Ching-jong notes that quite a number of companies hope to systematically cultivate outstanding students, letting them work in Taiwan for one or two years before they are posted in their home countries in supervisor positions.

Back at the Yuntech assembly hall, two Vietnamese students stand in front of a booth talking to a recruiter’s explanation about job offers. “The jobs will not be in Vietnam but in Hsinchu,” the recruiter explains. The company is not looking to recruit Vietnamese to work as factory managers at home but as sales personnel based in Taiwan.

Job fair at Yuntech (Photo: Felice Wu)

The company in question is hiring entry-level staff from Southeast Asia for the first time this year. At the job, fair multiple openings for Vietnamese, Indonesian and Thai nationals are being advertised. The human resources manager in charge of filling the positions says the company hopes to explore the Southeast Asian market. Therefore, they want to hire sales staff who speak the local languages. Since few people in Taiwan have such language skills, the company decided to recruit among students from Southeast Asia who are studying in Taiwan.

In contrast to sales skills, language skills cannot be acquired quickly, says the human resources manager. Industry colleagues have sent employees to language training only to see them jump ship to apply their newly won skills at another job. Therefore, directly hiring Southeast Asian students is a less costly option.

Internationalization an Inevitable Trend

Such white-collar positions require considerable skills and command a higher salary, says the HR manager. Crucial in job interviews is the ability to communicate in Chinese with coworkers and clients. In companies or departments where English is the dominant working language, applicants must also be fluent in English, on top of their respective mother tongue. For such multilingual candidates who have graduated from a national university in Taiwan, entry level salaries start around NT$37,000 to NT$38,000 for applicants with a bachelor’s degree, and more than NT$40,000 for applicants with a master’s degree.

However, since Malaysia and other countries in the region are heavily investing in infrastructure projects, Southeast Asian graduates who speak Chinese and have lived in Taiwan are also being headhunted in their home countries.

Tai says Chinese language skills and working experience in Taiwan make for a stronger CV. One of his Southeast Asian students who worked in Taiwan for a few years upon graduation was poached by a company from his home country of Thailand, immediately doubling his salary. “Working experience abroad helps them add value to their resume,” the HR manager explains.

CECI Engineering Consultants Inc. Taiwan, which had more than 100 people inquire about opportunities at the NTU job fair in March, began to hire Southeast Asian nationals with roots in Taiwan more than ten years ago.

Since the company has been building a good reputation over the past four or five years after winning design projects in Malaysia and Indonesia, it is an attractive employer for local graduates, says CECI Chairman Chou Li-liang. Even when employees jump ship or are poached by competitors, this is not necessarily bad for business. If both sides maintain their friendship, such connections can help build cooperative relations with local enterprises.

Competition Growing for Taiwanese Students

Two Philippine students Tai knows stayed in Taiwan after graduation to work as engineers. For them, a monthly salary of less than NT$40,000 is an extremely good income. If such employees have good English language skills and prove themselves in their jobs, they constitute competitive rivals for their Taiwanese peers.

The internationalization of the workplace is an unstoppable trend. As some universities enroll more international students and also begin to strengthen ties with alumni associations in the students’ home countries, more business opportunities will be created for Taiwan.

The government and education institutions are tasked with doing their homework, figuring out how existing competitive advantages can be used to create a more international stage on which Taiwanese students can shine.

Translated by Susanne Ganz
Edited by Sharon Tseng