Thank you for staying resilient

 
It has been 17 days I arrived Thailand. This is not the first time I look for jobs in Thailand. It has been one year and four months that I was looking for jobs in Thailand. Throughout the process, I learnt a lot. I learnt a lot about myself and I learnt a lot about other people. During this period, it is not that I did not get any jobs. I used to receive a job offer even before my thesis was done. However, I rejected the offer because I was only given 20000 Baht per month. When I finished my Master, it is really difficult to find a good job. I received some replies from the employers, however, got rejected in the first place for the reason that the company cannot employ foreigner according to Thai law and another reason is that I am not proficient in Thai language. After my Master in July, 2023, I went back to Myanmar. I had a plan to come back to Thailand at the end of December. However, I got a job offer to work at RWIO and worked there for six months. Then I moved back to Thailand to look for jobs again. 

Job searching experience and my perspectives in career has been totally changing. I don’t want to work in the non-profit industry anymore. I got two job interviews before I moved back to Thailand, one is in Myanmar and one is in Thailand. I was not selected for both jobs. For the first job, I sat written test and interview, but was not selected at last. When I decided to come back to Thailand, I came with the only determination that I won’t go back to Myanmar at any case. In the first week of arriving Thailand, I was thinking I will be waiting for the responses from some potential job applications. However, gradually, I realize that the NGOs are more likely to fill the positions from their networks and/or in some cases, they already have their targeted candidates and the public job post announcement is just for show. Most of other public NGO jobs in Thailand are restricted only for the Thai nationals or people with proficient Thai language skills. I understand that NGOs work need to deal a lot with people and requirement of language skills make sense. I am also learning the language but it takes time and it is a gradual process to reach to the proficient level. For the company jobs, for most of the starter positions, they require Thai citizen or Thai language. For the senior position, it is limited with years of experiences. As a person coming from the totally non-profit sector, it is difficult to move to the business industry. They won’t trust you. I also try to apply for the teaching industry in Thailand. However, as far I researched the industry, they only accept native speakers or non-native European teachers. Even though some school want Asian teachers, they would prefer Philippinos. No room for Myanmar people, especially for inexperienced teachers. What am I supposed to do. I am thinking about working as waiter or front desks but so far, those type of jobs need work permit. Trying to survive in Thailand is just like hell.