considering a move to macae

Hi Ana,

As a former Vancouverite and teacher who has been living in Brazil for nearly 13 years now, and in Macaé for the last 2 of them you won't get it any more "straight from the horse's mouth" than this.

You'll note that your VITUR Tourist Visa doesn't permit work or study in Brazil so that's the first barrier. You most certainly can job hunt while you're here and that won't be a problem for you in any way. What you need in order to work in Brazil is a VITEM-V Work Visa and they're nowhere near as easy to get as your VITUR.

You've got to have a confirmed offer (in writing) to sign you to an employment contract by a Brazilian employer. I'm sure that you're already aware that the laws here require all employers demonstrate that they've exhausted all efforts fill job vacancies with qualified Brazilians before they can hire foreign nationals. That makes it tough, but not impossible, to find work here.

Do you have any other work experience than the ESL or do you have any teaching acreditations or did you teach in the public school system in Canada? Those will certainly be helpful in getting into teaching languages here, but that's slave wage work for sure. You'll just make ends meet by working your butt off anywhere here in Brazil. Teaching your own private students is the only way to go, but it takes forever to recruit them and you'd need to be prepared to survive for 6 months to a year by some other means, until you could build up a sufficient student base to support yourself and from that point recruitment would need to be an ongoing process in order to replace outgoing students.

Teaching isn't going to be of much help in terms of the VITEM-V visa either. The (commercial) language do not offer any help with the visa process as most companies do. Generally they don't even hire teachers on an employment contract which is necessary for the visa, but rather they sign teachers to a "service provider contract" that absolves them of all the traditional labor laws surrounding pay, benefits and holidays. Essentially they want to maximize their profits off the teachers' backs by keeping the pay scales so low. If you've actually got some experience in the Canadian public school system that is much different, you could probably find a job in a (traditional) private school here. I'm sure you'd actually need to be a Brazilian citizen to teach in the public school system, so that's out.

Experience in some other fields might be helpful since you could expand your search here to things other than teaching. Your languages certainly would be a benefit in any field. Finding a job with a company outside the teaching field would probably be more likely to produce better results regarding willingness to assist in the visa process too, as companies (unlike the schools) are much more likely to help in the visa process.

Obviously it's going to be much easier to actually land a job offer if you're here doing the job search in person and can attend interviews. Your friend could prove very helpful if you can't manage to come for an extended period (3 to 6 months) in order to conduct an effective job search. At least he could hunt down leads and deliver copies of your CV/Resume that you weren't able to send via e-mail. Just a couple of notes at this point you can apply for a VITEM-V Work Visa while here in Brazil if you should find something, but you would still have to physically return to Canada to collect the visa in person at the Consulado. Second is the fact that regardless of how much time you used up on your 180 day "rolling year" entitlement that would have no effect on returning with a VITEM-V. Since you would be entering under a different category of visa altogether and that 180 day limit is ONLY for VITUR Tourist Visas or Visa Waiver Program visits. In theory if you did find a job, left Brazil to pick of the visa in Canada even if you'd used up all 180 days you could come back right away because of the different visa.

Cheers,
William James Woodward, EB Experts Team

hi

thanks a lot for all the information about the visa. i know this will be my biggest obstacle...i plan on going in a few months so i will start my job hunt while i am there and see how things are.

i don't work at an ESL school as a teacher now, i do marketing and administration so i have experience and education besides teaching. i don't know if that will get me anywhere there but i have to try somewhere.

in the meantime, i will continue to practice my portuguese so i can be more fluent when i arrive because i know that despite english being in high demand everywhere in brasil, portuguese is a must have.

i really appreciate all the information you gave me, it really helps!

Good luck Ana and do send me a private message when you're going to be in Macaé, perhaps we can arrange to meet for coffee. It will be great to talk to somebody from Van and catch up on the latest scuttlebut form home, I've been away for so long. Also, it will help you greatly to have another local contact here in case of problems.

Regarding Portuguese, read my posting at the top of the first Brazil Forum page "LEARN OVER A THOUSAND PORTUGUESE WORDS IN A FEW MINUTES", it will help you a lot. It's full of all kinds of tips.

Cheers,
James