I wonder if I'll hear back...

Immediately after clicking "Send" I started running through plan B. I had made some contacts in Taiwan and would then have to shift gears and take a bottom-up approach which I knew would be difficult to gain traction. Luckily for me within 5 minutes of sending that email, I had a response and the guy was very interested in talking and asked his admin to set up a conference call when I get back from Vegas.

By buddy RJ had been through this process in transferring to Europe so I have been consulting him on a frequent basis regarding this matter. He advised that the first interview would not delve into my qualifications but focus more on finding out what I was looking for. He couldn't have been more wrong. This guy doesn't mess around.

Interview #1 lasted 1.5 hours and got into the nitty gritty of my experience and qualifications. The boss is Chinese-born, then moved to the west coast US at a young age and stayed there until the mid-90s when he moved to Taiwan. This made the interview much more comfortable than I expected as his language skills put me at ease and he was quick to use American idioms which makes the conversation go that much more smoothly.

He interrogated me heavily on my motivation to come to Taiwan and at the end commented, "Your motivation is sound". I think I passed the test. I expressed that with the globalization of manufacturing and the shift of work from the U.S. to Asia, rather than complain about Americans losing jobs, I want to build my skills in this area and go with the flow. I have experience with going into Europe and shutting down assembly lines and moving them to the U.S. Now I'm just looking to shift farther west. Or is it east?

He gave me 2 names to schedule further interviews with, each of which lasted at least an hour. Each person seemed impressed with my credentials but neither had a vacancy which was suitable; I am looking for something more technical than what they had open. I reconnected with the boss and he had a plan. He has a new hire in role which he thinks is a stronger fit for me, so he is asking that person to step into the less-technical role to free that job up.

He is hoping to create the vacancy before the end of the year and thinks I can expect an offer from HR mid-Jan.