IS IT EASY TO FIND WORK?

Hell to the yes. It is very easy to find work in Hanoi. The amount of English centers in Hanoi is off the charts. Everybody needs to learn English if they want to have any sort of interaction with any foreigner, ever. It’s the world’s common language now.

How can you find all of this work? I’m, again, going to direct you to Hanoi Massive. Or, alternatively, you can check out English Teachers In Hanoi, Hanoi Massive Jobs, or Hanoi Teachers. There are new jobs getting posted there every day. Between that and just talking to people, you will find work in no time. Just be proactive about it… although sometimes not even that is necessary – the other day the bank teller gave me an unsolicited job offer to teach at her friend’s English Center when I deposited my pay check.

When you first begin teaching, if you really want to play it fast and loose with freelancing (like I did), you will be building your schedule a few hours at a time. Don’t be discouraged if it takes a month or so to be working everyday. After 2 months, you’ll be so busy that you’ll begin to miss unemployment.

DO I NEED TO FIND A JOB BEFORE I ARRIVE?

NO YOU DON’T! Let me repeat that just in case you need extra reassurance: get yourself to Hanoi first, find a job second. I 100% understand that flying across the world to maybe get a job is a ballsier move than most of us are willing to make, but your chances are much better than you think. Most jobs won’t respond to your emails unless you are actually in the city anyway. They don’t want somebody to maybe start in the next couple months; they’re looking for people who can start next Tuesday. After you start the job search, you’ll probably be working within a week. It will probably take you about a month to construct a full schedule. What should you do when you show up? Get a room in a hostel or something. If you like what you see, find a more permanent arrangement (I explained how at the top).

Of course, if you want you can always look for jobs before you show up, but unless you are realistically expecting to find work with a big international school (which requires solid qualifications and teaching experience) then your efforts are likely to be fruitless. And while we are on that subject…

WHAT QUALIFICATIONS DO I NEED TO TEACH?

Realistically, all you need is white skin. East Asia in general is a pretty racist place, and parents who send their kids to learn English tend to be more concerned that their teacher “looks the part” than they are about anything else. That being said, I’ve had friends of nearly every ethnicity imaginable who taught in Hanoi and loved it, but their experiences were a bit more challenging than mine.

Anyway, being a native speaker gives you a leg up. Having a university degree gives you an additional leg up. Having a certification to teach English (like a TEFL or a CELTA) give you an even bigger leg up. However, the thing that gives you the most credibility is experience. If you don’t have any experience (like I didn’t when I came here) everything you do will inevitably be second-guessed, regardless of how highly qualified you are. However, after about 6 months, people will suddenly start listening to you, regardless of how ill-qualified for the job you were when you started. In the mean time though, if you don’t have any experience yet, you’ll still get plenty of work. So don’t worry!

You should know that, if you want to teach in Vietnamese public schools, it is an absolute must that you have a certification. That said, there are still plenty of other work opportunities in Hanoi for the certification-less teacher. Neither of my roommates in Hanoi (both of whom have thick French accents) had university degrees OR certifications, but they still lived comfortably as teachers. It’s really not hard to stay afloat here, which leads me to my next point…

WHAT IS A NORMAL SALARY FOR AN ENGLISH TEACHER IN HANOI?

There is a hierarchy of salaries here. Teaching normal '9 to 5' weekday classes should pay you the lowest. Night classes should pay more. Weekend classes (especially weekend nights) should be even more than that. In general I would recommend that you never accept anything below 20 USD/hour, unless there are other benefits to the job that are valuable to you. During normal work hours I work for 22 – 23 USD/hour, but my general asking price for nights & weekends was 25 USD/hour, and I considered that to be reasonable. Definitely not cheap by Vietnamese standards, but based on supply and demand, competitive. 

If your salary is calculated by the month, you should know that all you really need to live as a foreigner in Hanoi is about 500 USD/month. The locals get by on half that, but things will be more expensive for you because the people you will have to buy things from know your wages are higher. In general, you shouldn’t accept a job that pays you anything less than 1,500 USD/month. Anything less than that probably means that your hourly rate is atrociously low and you are being taken advantage of. Of course, every situation is a little different, so you’ll have to evaluate the pros and cons for yourself.

All salaries here are counted in USD and then changed to Vietnam Dong (VND). If the dollar is strong, you’ll earn extra money. If the dollar is weak, the employers will get to keep more for themselves. It’s a double edged sword. You are always paid in cash though, so at least you’ll save on taxes. Having said that, you should know that I filed with the U.S. anyway... but I think I might have been the only expat who even bothered.

Are There Jobs For Foreigners In Hanoi Besides Teaching English?

I’m inserting this question here awkwardly after the salary question for a reason. This is one of the number one things people reach out to me asking about. Are there jobs besides teaching English for foreigners? Yes! Are you going to want those jobs? Ehhh…………

As a westerner who does not speak the language, you’re not going to be able to just show up in Hanoi and land a lucrative job in the way that you might be hoping. Now, don’t get me wrong—there are lots of foreign business people that are in and out of Hanoi! This is the capital of the country, so there’s all sorts of reasons for western businesses to have a presence here. But those people tend to be wearing suits and carrying briefcases, and I’m guessing that if you’re reading this, that’s not you. At least, not right now.

In terms of jobs that you can just show up and get, you are basically looking at getting a job in a hostel or—if you’re lucky—finding a job in tourism (which, honestly, is likely going to land you somewhere like Sa Pa or Ha Long Bay). Hostel work can be really fun! But it’s also a lifestyle, and if you don’t want to move back into the college dormitories, you might not like it. And, putting lifestyle aside, you also will not be well-paid.

Circling back to the salary thing—foreign teachers in Hanoi make ABSURD amounts of money by local standards. I was once at the house of an adult student (who was a PhD engineer), and after dinner was over and his family had headed off to bed, he invited a few other Vietnamese men over to do some drinking. One of those men was a doctor, and the other of them was a high-ranking government official. After a few drinks, they started talking about money. They asked me how much I make (Vietnamese people are known for being very direct in ways that can sometimes make westerners feel uncomfortable), so I told them. It turned out that, of the 4 of us, I actually had the highest salary! That is not to say that these men weren’t still much wealthier than me thanks to… *ahem* other reasons, but still. Foreign teachers in Hanoi make more than most doctors! The purchasing power of this salary is game-changing. Even if you’re not sold on the idea of teaching, I think we can all rally around the idea of not having to worry about money.

So can you find other jobs? Yes. Are you going to want those jobs? Doubtful.

Honestly, if you want to move to Hanoi but have no obvious way to make a living there, your best bet is to start looking into remote work. Graphic Design. Web Development. Content Writing. Digital Marketing. These are all things that are in high demand and can be done 100% remotely. If you don’t want to teach, I’d recommend exploring what remote work could look like for you.

Anyway. Back to teaching…

WHEN IS THE BEST TIME TO ARRIVE IN HANOI IF I WANT TO LAND A TEACHING JOB? 

The biggest event in Vietnam that you need to think about is Tet. Tet is the Lunar New Year of Vietnam, and although the exact dates vary year to year, it will always last (approximately) from early February to the very beginning of March. The majority of Vietnam’s business, commerce, and education will come to a screeching halt during the 3 (ish) weeks that constitute Tet. For teachers that are already working in Vietnam, it’s time to jet off to a tropical island somewhere. For teachers planning to move to Vietnam, it’s NOT a good time to show up. The whole country is on holiday.

The 2 best time to get a job in Vietnam are August and March. August marks the start to the fall semester in Vietnamese schools, and March marks the start of the spring semester. During the summer the schools are out, but there are English centers that run year-round.

In my opinion, your best bet is to start your job search in early August. The fall semester is pretty intense, so you should be able to get pretty reliable teaching hours. Also, pretty much every educational institution will be bringing on new teachers. In my experience, schools tended to be a bit more flakey during the spring semester because there are other small holidays that break it up. On top of that, most teachers who were hired in August are still teaching, as to complete the school year, so there isn’t as much of a need for new people.

So, here’s a quick recap: The #1 best time to arrive is early August. The #2 best time is the first few days of March. The absolute worst time to arrive is early February because this is the start of Tet. 

But, honestly, any other time would be okay too. Just be prepared to hustle for the first couple months! 

WHO NOT TO WORK FOR:

If you answer a bunch of job ads and take a bunch of interviews, chances are decent that you will brush elbows with a company called SET Vietnam. DO NOT TAKE THE JOB. Run fast, run far. You can read about my experience with them here. If this articles doesn’t deter you… then best of luck!

What Can I Do To Prepare Before I Leave?

Aside from getting your TEFL/TESOL/CELTA certification (none of which are required to teach in Vietnam) the best thing that you can possibly do to prepare yourself for success as an ESL teacher in Hanoi is to arm yourself will a versatile repertoire of educational games to play with your students. 

Yes, games. 

In Vietnamese classrooms, from pre-schools to the university level, students, parents, and school administrations alike will expect you to play a game at the end of every class to practice the material that you covered during your lesson. This is something that we are not accustomed to in the West, so the concept may feel rather foreign, but it's not optional. Obviously not every lesson is going to lend itself to making a game out of it, but you'll need to figure out a way. The more types of games you have in your back pocket when you arrive in Hanoi, the better.

At this point you might be ready to open a new tab, get on Google, and look for good ESL games. I've devoted a lot of time to research on this topic myself, and I've found a lot of intriguing games... but 95% of them had one big issue that prevented me from ever playing any of them: they required lots of different materials to play. These materials included toys, computer screen projectors, TVs, easy internet access, stereos, text books... the list goes on. 

Vietnam is much further down the socio-economic ladder than modern countries like South Korea—it's part of the developing world. That means that most schools and language centers do not have the funds to shower their teachers with the kinds of resources that are required by most games from popular ESL sites. The truth is that you probably won't have much beyond a marker and a blackboard at your disposal to make these games happen, so they need to be pretty bare-bones.

I get asked about these games quite a bit, so to answer all those questions, I wrote the following eBook. The games in it have been developed, tested, and perfected in actual Vietnamese classrooms, and can be applied to every level of student from primary school to the university level. Oh, and most importantly, they can all be done with zero extra materials.