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Our airport is not up to par with other countries like Singapore, HK, or South Korea. But that is not the worst part of it. The worst thing about our Ninoy Aquino International Airport are the taxis the pickup commuters there. They have a culture of being abusive to the newly arrived Foreigners and Filipinos including our OFWs.

I could not remember when this abusive culture actually started. Ever since I could remember using our airport, they have always been like that. And they never changed for the past 20 years that I have been old enough to ride a plane on my own.

Common Abuse

They don’t use the meter and would charge up to four times the cost of the passengers regular fare.

I don’t know why they think they have to be an opportunist and why they don’t want to go about their work normally like everyone else.

How to avoid NAIA abusive taxis

1. Have a relative or co-worker just pick you up from the airport.

2. Get the number of Taxi operators that allow call ins and have them pick you up.

3. If you are not carrying much baggage or anything too valuable, you can walk outside the airport to the bus stop and just ride a regular bus.

This has been an age old problem but seems never taken seriously by our transport authorities.

Jobstreets recently revealed that according to their company’s data, there are about 500,000 college graduates every year and there are 170,000 local job openings listed on their website. Assuming these are all the jobs available in the Philippines, that means, if all those positions are filled up there will be about 320,000 graduates who will be unemployed. If you add another 320,000 for those new graduates who did not get a job last year and then add the employees who recently quit their job or lost their job due to company retrenchments, you get the picture how many people are competing for the local job openings.

There are a lot of competent Filipino workers but our local industry cannot currently accommodate all of them.

That is why I think that when you are beginning to plan your career, you should always be open to the possibility that you will end up working abroad.

Indemand Jobs Abroad

For those aspiring to work outside the country, you should always be on the lookout for the types of job that are constantly indemand. So that you can prepare and train yourself properly.

How do you get a feel of what jobs are constantly in demand?

Just check regularly the job listings of employment agencies like RRJM. If you check openings through out the year you will see that we are often looking for:

1. People who can work for Construction Firms like engineers, architects, quality assurance people, machine operators, vehicle drivers, etc.

2. Hotel and Resort workers like cooks, painters, cleaners, plumbers, electrician, etc.

3. Computer professionals like computer programmers, auditors, systems analysts, computer technicians, etc.

4. Marketing and Sales people

5. Financial Management people

6. Quality control people.

So if you are planning to work abroad, you should prepare yourself to get experience in one of these jobs because one to two years experience is required minimum in order to be considered by Manpower Agencies.

When looking for a job being confident with yourself is a big advantage. Employers would not want applicants who are lacking in confidence because they are looking for someone who can do the work and would need little supervision. You would not want to hire someone who is too worried to move and would often bug the manager on what they are supposed to do. Companies would like to hire people with leadership potential.

But sometimes applicants become too confident that it borders on being discourteous.

I recently came across an old article from Wall Street Journal. It was written in 2010 but it is still relevant today.

For job applicants please never make this mistakes. You maybe the best in your field but if your potential employer gets the impression that you are not pleasant to work with, they are not going to hire you.

Eight Mistakes that Job Applicants Make During Interview