[Suits]

(04-29-2015 06:47 PM)jbkunt2 Wrote:  

This is a no contest.

USA all day long.

China is, frankly, a shit hole.

Have you been to China?

Quote:

The USA has some incredible places to live - NYC, Chicago, San Francisco...

Agreed.

And it is incredible living in these places if you earn a lot of money.

If you don't, it'll really take the joy out of the experience.

OP mentioned having only 'soft skills." He wouldn't be earning much money in the US.

China is a great place for someone, who normally wouldn't even be given a chance, to make their mark.

I spent three months in Canada last year before moving back to China. My heart was set in Beijing, in fact, I had a job lined up already.

However, with time to kill while I waited for a family event to come and go, so that I could leave the country, I did an exploratory job search just to see what my value was in Canada.

I applied for over thirty positions. I got invited to three interviews.

One was at a school that didn't have a position to offer. They took some real interest in my resume initially, but I never heard from them again after the interview.

I was interviewed for and offered a low paying part-time retail sales position. All the other candidates at the interview were high school students. I was a recent university grad. I probably could have earned $15-20K a year doing this job. I would have needed to survive by living with my parents and using public transportation.

I was also invited to an "open house" interview at a non-profit. Another 150 people showed up. We were all interviewed for three minutes and asked 3 questions. The line was so long that one woman passed out while waiting her turn and collapsed in perfectly comfortable weather.

Now, Canada is not the USA, but I did my university studies in the US and have a lot of contacts there and I'd argue that even with regional variation, my friends there aren't having results that different than I was having in Canada.

So, instead I went to China. After one year of hustling and taking risks, I have a good list of clients lined up and I make over $50K USD a year -- just teaching English.

I guarantee you that I would not be making that type of money any where in the USA or Canada one year after university graduation with my liberal arts degree in Asian Studies and International Relations.

If you've got some hard skills, like my brother, the engineer, you can do well in the USA. If not, you can join all my university graduate friends with third shift cleaning jobs and part time sales positions at Meijers.