Chile Forum

I've noticed that a lot of people are talking about how the best way to make money while living in Chile is by working from home. I was just wondering what kind of jobs people have that are working from home. Something based back in their home country or some sort of personal start-up business?

Going a bit further, can anyone tell me what they think the likelihood is of me being able to get a decent-paying job in Chile. In May I'll graduate from a well-respected US university with a double major in Management and Spanish. I plan to move to Chile with my girlfriend (has chilean citizenship but from Spain). Anyone with some advice as to the best way to search for a job?

Sidenote: I'll be in Viña del Mar

Hi there. We work from home but we've built our internet publishing businesses over several years to make it possible. I you plan to work remotely, I'd recommend building things in the US first before moving to a foreign country which adds a bit of friction in the process.

I'm not sure there's a big job market for you here in Viña if by "decent paying job" you have US salaries in mind. Others who have been around longer than me may offer more qualified opinions though.

Your looking at it.

About 99.9% of what we do happens by email, phone, internet, or fax with local proxies and employees around Chile. The business is not so much something that can be run from home, just something that does not really require a big front or back office.

We run our business out of our home, mostly because their is no real need at this point for an office. We have a big house, no kids, and most of our clients we meet in the field or our members and employees are stationed somewhere else in Chile.

We have a small office staff in Temuco of paralegals and secretaries to help coordinate what is going on in the rest of Chile, but I have managed to keep that small so far by adding more technology (less to go wrong). We are interviewing a few more people today to fill some gaps in our high season, but I don't expect to have more than say 10 staff at any one time this year in my office. Most will be out in the field working.

Just because of the nature of our business and logistical issues, I believe we have had like 5 clients physically visit us in Temuco this year. In which case, it is cause for celebration and we take them out to dinner or invite them over for a barbecue rather than stick them in a stuffy conference room.

We are shopping for some office space currently, but that is more for employee storage. I have always worked best from home, and refuse to give it up. Basically all the employees in my office space are starting to distract and annoy me sufficiently that it is time to kick them out. I need to get them an office so I don't fire them.

Working from home in Chile is very strange event. Even people that likely could, tend to gravitate towards renting an office for the show. You will likely have to look towards some home based business in the States, that works well over the internet.

alright, well thanks for that advice. I guess I'm not expecting a US-level salary there, just enough to get by for a year while my girlfriend is finishing up at the university. Her family has some connections with Ultramar and Banco del Estado, so hopefully they'll be able to set me up with an interview.

If I could get one piece of advice, what sort of a monthly salary (in pesos chilenos) should I be expecting? I have no real experience to speak of (just one year as an assistant manager at a Walgreens while going to school) and a 3.5 GPA out of a good US university. Any ideas on what I should expect/hold out for?

I never liked working for American companies, but I can imagine a Chilean company would just drive most gringos nuts.

On the prospects I would not expect much by way of pay. Your best bet is to trade on your Gringoness, and perhaps that you went to a U.S. university. What did you study?

Chile is very very rigid when it comes to what you study vs. what jobs you can get. You do not see philosophy or psychology majors trading stocks. The concept that anyone might do something outside of their educational background is fairly out there for most Chileans. People change jobs, but they rarely change carriers.

Family name and family connections are very important also. Be careful who gets you the interview. If they are perceived as being lower class or lower on the company totem pole, it might stick to you also. A CEO from a good family getting you an interview is one thing; a bank teller or secretary from a lower class family could get you stuck in one position, even if they do hire you.

From my perspective as an employer this is great. I get the pick of the litter as far as all the kids that got passed up by the 15th century cultural business practices, or who have no chance in hell of ever being promoted. I don't really care what family they come from. In fact, I have found the kids from the "good" families and "good" education to be fairly lazy and worthless as employees. I likely would not even waist my time by offering most of them an interview. On the other hand, I seen a bag boy at the grocery store the other day take some initiative and fix something that was not his job, and I dam near hired him on the spot.

I would say give it a shot, at least for the educational value of it. Likely after about 6 months to a year you will see a dozen or more things that are done really poorly or some need that is not being filled, and you will be out starting your own business.

I am studying management with an emphasis on international business and spanish. Not sure what kind of a job I could get, I am possible looking for a financial analyst-type job with a bank as I have taken many finance courses or perhaps something more in the operations field. I guess I'll just have to get down there and start looking before I get a good idea of what will be my opportunities.

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It would be nice to have a "report spam" button!

Let's see: the guy names him/her/itself "fisherorsam". He/she/it definitely is fishing, but we can't rely upon his/her/its name being Sam.

I might at least hope that these infiltrators would try harder to write in decent English -- or Spanish, for that matter.

Yea, I will add report spam button with the upgrades that are under way. So far, I think I beat the spammers back to about 1 or 2 a month (they don't love us anymore ).

So, not that bad. You can always PM me until I get report spam button added.

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Charles is DEAD ON. To wit:

1) Culture: My brother in law is a dentist in Vina. He's a very good dentist. But he charges considerably less than his office mates because he did not go to the "correct" schools for K-12 & therefore doesn't get the "best" clients! As a result, he's paying an arm & a leg for his children to go to the "correct" schools because contacts & class are everything in Latin business. Chile is by no means exempt from this unfortunate quirk.

I also agree that many of the upper-class types are less than worthless. They behave in the way nobility must have in ages gone by - I'm better than you & didn't do a dogone thing to be better except choose the correct bloodlines, so kiss my ring & kiss my.....well you know. Arrogant to the point of insufferability & useless to the point of needing a union, these people. There's A LOT of unused talent in Chile for a good capitalist to hire. In addition, Chileans also discriminate HARDCORE based on age. My 38-year old sister in law is a hyper-organized, kick-< NO EMAIL >$$ accountant - and "too old" to get a job. Chilean businesses hire for all the wrong reaons, leaving some hungry talent ripe for the picking. BTW, I am a hard-core rightwinger. Unlike the lefties, I do not use terms like "discrimination" often or lightly, and I'm no class-warrior (or at least not a Che-like lover of the lower classes) - so when I say Chileans are class-ist & discriminate, you can believe it is true. I'm not just some leftist spouting nonsense to justify God-knows what sort of idiot programs.

2) Working from home: I specialize in taxation of real estate for small to medium sized real estate investors. Because so few tax people "get it" with RE, I have no problem attracting clients. 90% of my business is from out of state (I'm in Ohio), so we deal over internet, fax & phone. In short, I can conduct business out of Columbus, Ohio....or Vina del Mar, Chile. My clients do not care. We experimented last year - we went to Vina to visit In-Laws for 6 weeks. I used Skype (2 cents per minute using coffee shop internet), e-fax & email to communicate. My practice didn't skip a beat. Not only did my clients not mind, they wanted to know how they could work out of a resort town in South America too! When we come for a full year (mid-2009), I will need to periodically return to US for certain audits & speaking engagements, but only b/c I choose to. I make enough on the client/internet business to not have to do that, rather I choose to, primarily out of good old fashioned greed. In short: It can be done, but it shoud probably work in the US before you leave.

John Hyre