Although I originally bought the jobsinchina.com domain to build a job listing site, for various reasons that plan was abandoned. The site launched as blog in January 2008, when I was living in China and wanted to write about my experiences living there.

By November 2009, I’d hooked up with NewChinaCareer and they provided job listings on this site, right through to November 2010, when their site disappeared without warning.

Since November 2010, there haven’t been any new jobs listed on Jobs In China, a situation I wanted to rectify. I therefore went ahead and created the ability for jobs to be listed directly on the site, no third parties needed.

I have some big plans for the functionality, using the latest features of WordPress – but first things first. I need to get employers to start posting jobs here. I have a steady stream of people looking for jobs, but not many posting jobs (actually none at the time of writing!).

So over the next few weeks, I hope to get in touch with some employers and get them to start using the site, so that it can finally become what I wanted it to be when I registered the domain all the way back in 2004: A place to put employers and job seekers in touch.

I’ve reworked the home page, adding the slideshow and separate sections for the Blog, Site News, Jobs and Flickr Picks. I think it’s much nicer than the old list of blog posts (which can still be seen on the Blog page).

I’ve also added the new menu system, which looks far superior to the old one.

Finally, there are some small performance gains, with a reduction in the number of images that need to be served up, etc.

Anyway, this has all been done in preparation for the addition of job listings here at Jobs in China. The current listings are just brief entries pointing somewhere else. I’ve now developed a proper job listing, which I’ll release in the coming weeks. Stay tuned for more information.

I’m expecting the majority of people arriving at my site, looking for jobs, to be interested in teaching English. The NewChinaCareer service is more tailored to general professional positions, and quite a few of them require Mandarin. So it may not be the best fit.

Since adding the list of jobs in China, I’ve received a couple of emails from people who’ve found that the jobs being offered don’t suit their needs. In both cases, these people would have been better suited finding jobs teaching English in China. At the same time, some people have been using the service, so the jobs listed clearly must appeal to them.

In an effort to find the best balance, I’m asking you, what are you looking for: Professional jobs in China or jobs teaching English?.

Please fill in the below poll to give me the feedback I need to make sure this site is giving you the service you need. Thanks!

Yes, JobsInChina.com finally has a listing of jobs in China. In this post, I explain both the new service and the background to this decision.

The Background – No Jobs in China

For those not familiar with the story, I originally purchased the jobsinchina.com domain in 2004, with the intention of creating a website listing jobs available in China. However, I was busy and it never came about.

At the beginning of 2008, I wanted to set up a China related blog and decided to make use of this domain name, which was sitting around doing nothing. My stated goals were to:

1. focus on issues related to living and working in China
2. to provide resources to people wanting to find a job in China.

Most of my blog posts were around what living and working in China was really like, so I feel I’ve done reasonably well on goal 1. However, I didn’t have much of a chance to provide resources for people wanting a job in China. I also found that I’d get people visiting the site who were, rather justifiably, actually looking for a job in China. I’d occasionally get emails such as this:

Please i want to work in your country as a teacher.  Maybe you can help me. I want to make use of my talent in your good company. I will bw glad to be contacted at <phone number removed> for me to undergo with your recruitment process.

and

I want to live and work in China.Im a Male Zambian aged 30 and Hold a B.A in Library Studies and English

I couldn’t do anything to help these people.

From the very beginning, I’d said that I may introduce a job service and over the last four months, I’ve been looking at the options.

The ideal scenario would be to create my own job service from scratch, but that’s not really practical, given: a) the amount of work needed to set something like this up; and b) the level of competition out there. So I had a look around at companies I may be able to partner with.

Job Listings Through NewChinaCareer

The best choice at the moment seems to be NewChinaCareer, so I’ve signed up to their partner program. That’s enabled me to list jobs on this site, both in the sidebar, and on the Job Listing page. The jobs themselves are provided by NewChinaCareer, JobsInChina.com just points you to them.

I do have one reservation about the NewChinaCareer service: I’m expecting the majority of people arriving at my site, looking for jobs, to be interested in teaching English. The NewChinaCareer service is more tailored to general professional positions, and quite a few of them require Mandarin. So it may not be the best fit.

I’ll keep my eye out for better programs (and reserve the right to build my own), but I have nothing to lose by trying their service out. At least it gives my visitors more choice than they’d have otherwise.

I recently added a new category of post to JobsInChina: Flickr Picks.

Flickr Picks highlights China related photos that I’ve found on Flickr, that particularly impress me. I’ll usually add my thoughts to the posts, but they’ll be short and frequent.

Note, the photos are not taken by me, they are taken by other people who have chosen to share them on Flickr. All photos appearing in this series have been released under a Creative Commons license (not that they are hosted on this blog anyway).

Flickr Picks do not appear on the front page of JobsInChina or in the main site feed. I took this decision because there are likely to be very many, very short posts and I don’t want to dilute my more in-depth content.

They can be seen on the Flickr Picks home page and it is possible to access them via the Flickr Picks RSS feed.

I have also added a widget to the sidebar, visible on all pages, showing the last 10 images added to Flickr Picks.

Why did I create the Flickr Picks category?

When I started this blog, I followed the lead of my friend Terence Chang from The Internet Entrepreneur’s Diary and used Flickr images for the header of each post. I think this really adds to the blog.

To find header images, I started monitoring the China related photos being added to Flickr. What I found was a steady stream of great photos.

I felt like commenting on them and sharing them with my readers. Sure, they are all available on Flickr, but I’m picking out the best or most interesting photos and highlighting them. It also adds to the blog, as it shows what life is like in China.

I hope you enjoy Flickr Picks. I’m going to enjoy bringing them to you.

JobsInChina is proud to present LocalCurrency, a WordPress plugin that allows you to show currency values to your readers in their local currency.

For example: If a post contains 10 yuan, a user from Australia will see 10 yuan (AUD$1.53), while a US user will see 10 yuan (USD$1.39).

How LocalCurrency Works

LocalCurrency works out the reader’s country (via their IP address), gets the current exchange rate from Yahoo! Finance, calculates any values in the post in the readers currency, then shows it to the reader, in brackets after the original value.

All of this is done using ‘AJAX’ techniques so that it doesn’t affect page load times. Readers can change their currency via a selection box if they desire.

Who Should Use It?

If the answer to the following questions is yes, LocalCurrency is for you:

• Do you often include currency amounts in your posts, using a currency that most of your readers aren’t familiar with?
• Do you feel a need to explain how much it is worth in a currency that your readers do understand?
• Do you end up writing something like: it cost me 10 yuan (about $1.50)?

LocalCurrency tells readers exactly how much values are worth in their own currency, wherever they are from. Don’t forget the Internet is international! Let people understand what you’re saying.

Although this may be useful for anyone, it’s particularly ideal for people living in a foreign country, who have a blog (or are planning to start one) to document their experiences.

See LocalCurrency In Action

The following sentence should contain the amount in your local currency:

I spent 20 yuan on dinner last night, then 30 yuan on the taxi home.

If you want to change the currency, use the selection box at the bottom of the post. Note: if you are in China, you will not see anything.

Where Do I Get LocalCurrency?

The plugin is available for download from the LocalCurrency plugin home page, along with information about how to use the plugin. If you have any questions, please feel free to leave a comment!

I first came to live in China in 2002 and was immediately struck by life here. Everything seemed fresh, new and … unusual. I took hundreds of photos and made notes of things I wanted to write about. I should have started a blog then, to capture those exciting new experiences. Alas, blogging was still relatively new and it was not to be.

Fast forward to 2008. I’ve lived in China for more than 3 years (in several stints) and am currently living in Hebei in northern China. Things that would have made me stop and stare 5 years ago, no longer even register. Sure, at times the differences rear up, but for the most part, China has become home.

Why start a blog now? Well, I never lost the desire to write about China. Although China no longer seems ‘fresh’, I now have a much better understanding of the place and how things work here. Hopefully, this will allow me to pass on a more realistic view of China than I could have done when I first lived here.

Why JobsInChina?

That’s a tricky one. I’ve owned the www.jobsinchina.com domain name since 2004. My original intention was to create a website listing jobs available in China, but I was too busy, time passed and the opportunity was lost.

Having tasted blogging with my web development blog, I decided I really wanted to start a blog related to China. The www.jobsinchina.com domain name was sitting around doing nothing, so I decided to use it.

I am going to try to focus on issues related to living and working in China and to provide resources to people wanting to find jobs in China. I may also introduce a job service to the site in future, but we’ll have to see how that pans out.

So Will It Just Be About Working In China?

No! Although I’ll try to focus on that, I’ll be writing about all my experiences in China.

I plan to cover all things related to China, including daily life, culture, travel and my own experiences. I may post pictures I’ve taken, relate old stories, interview people, make commentary on news stories – in short, if it’s about China, then it belongs here.

Interspersed with that will be serious articles aimed at people wanting information on living or working in China.

The Final Word

I’m sure I’m going to enjoying writing about China – I hope those of you interested in China find value in this blog.