I know finding an ESL job on ones own through the internet can be risky and time consuming. I went through this process several years ago and spent the two years after graduating teaching over there.

Where: Shandong山东, Zibo淄博 (http://en.wikipdia.org/wiki/Zibo)

I taught in Zibo for 2 years and then lived there for an additional year after that. It's a smaller tier 3 city that is surrounded by countryside and nearby mountains. What I liked the most was it was a biking city with designated lanes. I'm not much of a city person and found it much more peaceful than the time I spend in Beijing.

I was really pleased with the entire experience and if you're interested I can put you in direct contact with the person who helped me. Just shoot me an e-mail at josh@skritter.com if you're interested or have any questions.

*As a disclaimer I don't get anything out of this. It's purely me sharing the opportunity of a good and vouched experience.*

I lived in a village near 台州，浙浙。 That was really back woods and all the chinese I talked to (english speaking) really wanted to move to the city. I loved it as I am a rural person back in the USA. I had to leave as the project I was working on fell behind but I really want to get back to China.

I thought about going the teacher route but that is well outside my comfort zone as an engineer.

I'm always looking for resources to search for non-manager engineering jobs in china.

I went the teaching route at first, because it was definitely the easiest way. I do value the speaking experience more now, but it was definitely out of my comfort zone as well.

Unfortunately a large majority of the specialized field internships after college cost an arm and a leg. Well at least that's what my searching around results concluded. I don't know how many web development jobs I checked out that paid a small fraction of that of teaching. Rather frustrating!

Guys, about to do my second ESL stint after 10 years...anyone got advice on visas and whatnot? Considering going a 40-hr work week ESL company route this time. Did a University easy on-campus 16 hour thing last time. Just don't want to live in the apartment alone now.

Thanks.

PS - How hard is it to use this app in China? Slow? Load at all?

@MaKe007, The Skritter applications should all work from China, though being China you might notice it running slow or not loading at certain times. The other thing you can do from China if using a computer is use http://www.skritter.cn or http://html5.skritter.cn to access it.

I've been teaching English in China for almost two years. The first year and a bit was at a private training school. Now I'm at a university. Feel free to message me if you have further questions.

The vast majority of jobs will not be 40-hour work week jobs, and if they are, they may well be severely underpaid. 18-22 teaching hours is pretty typical for the private training school route, with 25-30+ being a heavy workload. If you're doing that much work, you should demand some serious compensation. If you were to do a university job for 16 academic hours and then find 14 extra hours per week, you could charge 200 per hour (or more depending on location/class size), to take in around 16k per month.

I assume you have a university degree. With a bachelors most schools should be able to sort your Z visa (work visa) out for you, and pay for it. I would highly recommend not coming on a tourist/student/business visa unless you have friends that have done it, and they have connections that can change your visa for you. If the school cannot give you a Z visa, they are not licensed to hire foreigners. Stay away.

Re: the apartments, most private training schools will also give you a private apartment. This is typically desirable for most people. It may even be difficult to find a good job where they offer shared accommodation - especially for the more "professional" jobs, like teaching business English to adults.