Hello,

I am interested in starting an IT office here in Bangkok and need to know which is the best way to recruit highly qualified IT staff. Especially I am interested in experienced and well educated LINUX professionals. Which newspapers or which websites are the most effective?

Please help,

Rossi

this is going to be very hard.

my tip is to start networking, networking events all over the city normaly have the farang boss and 1 or 2 Thai female staff wondering around handing out cards and eating the free snacks. here you can get talking with people who already have good staff who may know of people looking for jobs, or you could be rude and offer your card to there staff! it probably will not help you in the future though.

or you can advertise in the Bangkok post or whatever and have any number of muppets walk through the door looking for a job.

its reall hard to find staff here and really hard to find good ones, and nearly impossible to find good ones who will stay and work for any number of years.

Try The Times of India

Well, to be honest I wanted to do the business in Bangkok, not in India...

I was just wondering if it might be more succefull to advertise online than in the printing media... I don't want to waste a lot of meny and not getting any positive results.

Well, to be honest I wanted to do the business in Bangkok, not in India...

I was just wondering if it might be more succefull to advertise online than in the printing media... I don't want to waste a lot of meny and not getting any positive results.

Online would be your best bet, its cheaper and you can run it for longer.

Good luck.

I found th.jobsdb.com

Are there any other large online job websites in thailand?

Get a LinkedIn account and become a member of the groups:

Thai IT community

Thailand Business Network

Thailand connections professionals and friends

Thai professionals group

Try The Times of India

Outsourcing to India is the big thing now. One of my friends owns and operates a successful call center in Australia. He does outsource his business to Philippines and to India. His option is. Indians are more technical knowledgeable and don’t piss all over you when he’s tried Thai before.

Though, you might put up some ads in say Pentip.com and see what comes up. But in your specifications, what they need to do, programming languages they know, creditable / callable references. You might find someone who will suit the bill.

They used to call me ' it ' at work, does this mean l am now wanted.

Yes there is a bounty on your head.

One of the big questions is are you seriously paying " good IT money" on what a good IT person commands worldwide, or are you looking for that 1 in a 1000 local hire that will be as productive as what you find in the west, India, eastern Europe etc., yet work on local salary of less than 40K/mo?

Edited October 25, 201015 yr by steelepulse

Try The Times of India

Outsourcing to India is the big thing now. One of my friends owns and operates a successful call center in Australia. He does outsource his business to Philippines and to India. His option is. Indians are more technical knowledgeable and don't piss all over you when he's tried Thai before.

Though, you might put up some ads in say Pentip.com and see what comes up. But in your specifications, what they need to do, programming languages they know, creditable / callable references. You might find someone who will suit the bill.

I think the poster means to recruit Indian staff to work in BKK rather than outsourcing as you have interpreted.

Recruit Westerners would be my best advice....

I am actually looking to hire qualified linux admins here in bangkok, no matter if they are indians, expats or thai. i am willing to pay salaries between 30k and 50k depending on the actual skills.

Unless you are ripping DVD's or copying software I think your best bet is to outsource.

I am actually looking to hire qualified linux admins here in bangkok, no matter if they are indians, expats or thai. i am willing to pay salaries between 30k and 50k depending on the actual skills.

Expat qualified linux admin for 50K

This will be a long search

WOW, don't you think you are offering far too high of a salary for somebody with those extremely complicated technical skills that they spent years learning and then on top of that "Highly Qualified" personnel. Please, get serious, you going to go through one poor employee after another one with what you are planning on paying.

If you want Monkeys then pay peanuts!

that salary would be low for a good Thai employee in that field.

I am actually looking to hire qualified linux admins here in bangkok, no matter if they are indians, expats or thai. i am willing to pay salaries between 30k and 50k depending on the actual skills.

You haven't been here that long have you. That is far to much to pay both parties. Most experienced Linux / PHP admins and programmers bring in not more then 20k.

Unless you are ripping DVD's or copying software I think your best bet is to outsource.

Well, it's your money, you spend it. How about Amish Fireplaces, I hear they are the rage. They will keep your family warm on those cold winter nights in the north or as something to just put in your house. How about dryers for your clothes.

Hi Rossi

I have been working in IT here in Bangkok for some years now. I have worked for two firms and have recruited dozens of new hires for both of them and there is a bit of a challenge here trying to find the right people. The skills you find here vary dramatically from person to person even among people with the same number of years of experience. I find that it depends on what the prospect actually did and was allowed to do in their previous or current role and their desire to succeed. For example, I have hired a Sr. Developer, 7 or 8 years experience developing in .NET and C# that could barely use Visual Studio IDE or Eclipse effecitenly to write code with any type of effeciently. But have had Jr. developers with 1 or 2 years experience work cicles around the older guys just out of desire.

Also, to be candid I have found better and more creative developers that are women than men here, naturally not a very fair statement I know but just an observation.

For Systems people like you are looking for then locals can be had for 25K - 50K and if you are looking for a really Sr. guy/gal then look for 75K to 85K but maybe try hiring one or two of those and then get a few fresh graduates from school, they are eager, willing to learn and work hard, and they will save you some money. Many schools here teach Linux as well as Microsoft so I'm sure you can find some. On the expat side, unless you are willing to go over 100K/month you will most likely not find any.

Good Luck

C

I have hired hundreds of IT staff over the years here. And I will not give too many pointers as we are in competition to some extent However, I would say that among the Thai staff are some of the best I have worked with, including those in my long stints in San Francisco and London. I would also say that you get what you pay for, wherever you are. Also, I believe ADDECCO (spelling) has a salary survey for IT companies in Bangkok, should you happen to use their recruiting services. So that should give you some pointers.

Back in the US, I once interviewed somebody for a senior techical position. He got every answer wrong. When I pointed out that things were not "so good" in the interview, he said to me that he "can not remember technical details worth a dam_n". One of my absolute favorite quotes in thousands of interviews. He still expected to get the job, even though he could not remember the basics of how things work. Years later somebody joined as a Vice Chairman with exactly the same name, I though my days there were numbered until I saw his picture and confirmed that it was a different person....

Finally, I am always disappointed by blanket statements about the entire population of any country. Without quoting anybody, I would say that it is clearly possible to hire and retain smart, qualified and effective IT people in Thailand.

Edited October 26, 201015 yr by ianguygil

JobDBs would be of course a good start. But networking is nearly the only way here!

But qualified Thai staff will most of the time stay away of small companies, and real expats will ask for much more. Another try would be to find a qualified foreigner already living here as a team manager and use his/her network. Too bad I am not qualified on linux

Good luck anyway!