Stephen Roper

    A SERIES of life decisions led me to an epiphany recently about expats living in Shenzhen looking for work. Ambiguous enough for you? Let me explain.

    It all began when I decided — for reasons we won’t get into here — that after two years of teaching, it was time for me to find a different line of work. With that decided, I then pondered whether or not I wanted to stay in Shenzhen and, ultimately, concluded that this was a great city brimming with opportunities, so I should stay.

    With me so far? Good.

    So, like any 20-something looking for work, I hit the Internet to find jobs in areas I’d be interested in to start a career in. And what I found, or didn’t find, was both surprising and perplexing: there’s not a dedicated site or database for expats in Shenzhen to search for part/full-time employment and internships.

    Now some may balk at that. “Ever heard of good old-fashioned networking?” someone might ask. And yes, I have, but I’ve also been accustomed to college employment databases and Web sites like journalismjobs.com or craigslist having up-to-date listings from reputable companies. And, if not viable job opportunities, then internships. Something. Anything.

    Others that balked at my so-called “epiphany” might also mutter something about the social networking Web sites in Shenzhen. Well, those are great Web sites that do a lot to enhance the experience of an expat living in this city but, with regard to finding jobs, they leave a lot to be desired for two reasons: 1) they are cluttered with postings that have very little to do with work and 2) there’s no way to search for work in a field you are specifically interested in.

    What I expected to find when I opted to find a new job was a Web site dedicated to helping professionally motivated, career-oriented expats find the kind of work they want. And I’m not the only one left discontented in this regard. My old teaching job left me (and the 120 or so others I came to Shenzhen with) plenty of free time to do whatever we pleased. Some tutored, others studied Chinese, and still others explored the city and its surrounding area. But some wanted to accrue experience relevant to their desired field of work (not all of us who came to Shenzhen to teach wanted to be teachers forever).

    My point is that a city bursting with industry and growth should have a viable resource for expats to find work. It should not rely on chance encounters and friends of friends getting your foot in the door. The number of companies stationed in Shenzhen is staggering (and growing), and I know firsthand that they want foreigners working for them, so why not have a central hub where companies and qualified candidates can easily search and explore the possibilities this city provides?

    It would take a lot of work to get a Web site like this up and running, but I firmly believe it would benefit companies and, ultimately, the city itself if work opportunities more accessible for foreigners.

    (The author is a former U.S. journalist who is teaching English in Shenzhen.)