Finding Vietnamese Employees

The goal for our trip in October is to be able to interview several possible candidates and possibly select one.

In order to be prepared in October to be able to do that i plan to:

1. Post some employment ads in order to get some attention and get some resumes.
2. Screen resumes and select the ones that are worthy of further interview.
3. Request a video or skype interview.
4. Schedule in person interviews with the final candidates for an available time during October.

The first issue is finding job listing sites which can help me to identify competitive prices and be able to post my job.

I requested a bit of help from the contacts that the EMBA class has,  and Nancy and Kirk introduced me to Mr Hoang and Mr Dung (Zoom).  Mr Dung's first inclination is to pass along the resume's to groups and to large tech community groups.    This will certainly work for me once I have figured out what my 'employer competition' is.   So first I asked about sites out there.   Mr Dung had a suggestion to go to 

anphabe.com

The site appeared to be exactly what I needed in order to do some research,  they had multiple PHP developer positions and listed them with the salary.

By opening the listings I found that the salaray displayed on the list page was the upper end of the range of salary.      This really helped me to identify the range of prices that they were willing to offer.

Looking a bit deeper,  I notece that the majority of the companies offering jobs here are 'outsourcing' companies.  These are companies looking to fill positions in OTHER companies,  I would likely be able to call one of these companies and they would fill the position for me.

In order for me to get a true feel for the market and perhaps reach employees without reaching out to one of these staffing companies,  I need to identify some other sites and markets that employees may be looking

vietnamworks.com
This site is almost identical to anphabe in the search options it presents.  At first it appeared not to

have as many listings though as searches for project manager only returned 2 or 3 listings,  however a search for PHP returned a large number of listings.

The difference with this site is that they require a login in order to view salary.

The site conveniently allows you to login using your google login so I simply did that and now they have my personal gmail address.

Unfortunately,  it appears that this site allows the posters to say "negotiable" and not display a price for the posting,  which made the result set less helpful, however scrolling through the listings did show some  PHP developer position salary between 700 and 1500$.

On this site the positions listed appear to be from more varied companies and not so focused on a few 'volume' companies.  In addition the listings had titles like '5 PHP developers'.

Between these two sites I feel like I got a good understanding of the technical positions and a good salary I am looking to fill:

• PHP Developer $900 - $1500 / month with 1+ years of experience
• Project Manager $1500 - $2500 / month with 4+ years of experience

In both of these situations,  benefits seem to be key.  Researching the postings some benefits offered are:

• 12 days company sick leave
• accident insurance
• Loyalty Bonus: 50% of salary after 1 year of working
• annual workshop and training
• english training
• team dinner
• performance review
• 40 hour work week
• annual bonus
• 13th salary plus bonus
• Annual company trip and team building
• Sport club, free lunch

In general,  it seems to me that the salaries may be somewhat lower than the salaries in the US,  however the benefits offered are a bit more extensive and are offered up front,  I am not sure if this is an expectation or if this is just a less expensive way to entice developers.

While my presence in Vietnam will be small I will need to entice developers with financial benefits until I can figure out more extensive team building and events benefits.  These benefits seem reasonable:

• 12 days company sick leave
• 13th month salary
• Bi annual salary review
• 40 hour work week
• Overtime available

So these sites may be great at getting the word out,  however I now need a way to collect the resumes. So I went out and got the matraex.com.vn domain name and setup a website that will be used solely for a company presence for recruiting.    (Now I will need to get new business cards which use my michael@matraex.com.vn address).
I started with a copy of the matraex.com WordPress website and deleted all of the content and replaced it with Available  Jobs and a way to submit your resume.

Flying to Hanoi - Seat Assignments

I booked my flight to Hanoi using miles i earned on my Alaska Airlines card.

They partner with Korean Air who is flying me out of Vancouver to Seoul,  and Seoul to Hanoi.   One interesting thing about the flight was that when using Korean Air I was unable to setup my seat assignments using the Alaska Airlines portal.  So I had to call Korean Air.  
The first time I called,  I simply received a message "We are experiencing technical difficulties" which is kinda freaky for an Airline.  However when I called back they were very professional and when I selected option 2 for English I was immediately connected to a very professional and eloquent representative.

I was quickly directed to their website where I would be able to look at the seat layout of their planes.  She said I was on the Boeing 777-200ER so I looked it up and we choose seats for each of the four legs I have with them.

The rep also gave me an 8 digit reservation number which allowed me to go online to the My Trips area of their website and change my seat assignments.

Chopping a Company Seal on documents used in Vietnam

In order to show to the Vietnam Government that documents are official original company documents.  You must use a corporate seal.   The seal must be used over the top of all signatures.

In Vietnam they use the awesome term "chop" to describe the process of you putting the seal in place.

The seal must be chopped across your signature

As I was preparing a packet of papers to go to vietnam I ran into an issue with how to 'chop the seal' on documents that had multiple pages.  While the first descriptions I received from my Vietnam Attorney made me think I needed to sign (or initial) each page and then chop the seal over that initial.

However after doing this they returned messages describing that was not what they were looking for.

 In Vietnam, the seal on the multiple page documents used to chop on signature first and then stamp on adjoining edges of pages. 

What this description leaves a bit ambiguous is whether this method requires TWO stamps

• Signature
• Adjoining edges of pages

or whether these can both be done in a single 'chop'

So the method I will be using before sending the papers the long way to Vietnam by post is:   A Single Chop

To make a single 'chop' of the seal on a multiple page document.  The chop will be across the signature and (assuming the signature is on the last page) fanning all  previous pages over the top of the signature so that the seal also includes the edges of the previous page.

This method of stamping the edges of the paper is something that I saw on the 'legalized' papers that came back from the Vietnam embassy and it really does  help to show how exactly the papers line up.  However if you were to take the staple out,  and restaple then you would end up with the edges being misaligned,  which is a good reason NOT to take apart the staples after you have 'chopped a seal'


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08/20/2015 : Update

I have changed my mind,  after reviewing a document that I had legalized by the Vietnam Consulate,  I think that I recognize that they are looking for two separate seals.

• One on the signature,  and
• one across the fanned edges of the entire set.

You will notice the small brad in the top left of the document.  This brad holds the papers in an exact location and as the papers turn it holds them in an exact spot,  which is different from a staple.  Perhaps this is to help the papers be somewhat 'tamper proof'.  if it is I can only hope that the less accurate staple is an acceptable enough method of keeping the papers aligned for me.

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Update:

Now I am probably getting to anal about it,  but there is likely a better way to do this.
The first round,  I ran the seal from the side which makes the name of the company always pressing through the highest number of pages.  Which doesn't show up as well.

So,   I am going to redo the 25 or so documents with the seal from the bottom and the company name spanning all pages so that it will at least show up on the single page impression

Avoid date issue with Secretary of State by getting documents and notary done at the same time

An interesting issue,  which could be avoided with experience was brought up by my DNAS attorney, One a document which I had the Secretary of State idaho create, notarize and certify was questioned by the Vietnamese authority.  

Basically they noticed that one of the documents was printed on July 22nd, yet it was not notarized and authenticated until July 29th so they asked me to explain.

They may accept the explanation.

I had the SOS print out the document on the 22nd,  but I did not take the document into be notarized and authenticated for legalization until one week later when I had the passports and other documents I needed.  When went back in and they said,  "we can go ahead and do that with document you already have".  

Basically they were able to easily verify the authenticity of the document,  and they remembered me. Perhaps they were atttempting to save me the 10$ fee.  I am not sure if this is acceptable document handling,  However it does seem non standard,  the document they notarized had left their hands and some authority may not accept that.

To avoid this,  Just get the documents all printed, notarized and authenticated at the same time

Providing Proof of Business Financial Stability to Vietnam Government

Working with DNAS to put together the documents I need for in order to apply to open a Representative Office in Vietnam has bee farily simple when I look back at it,   most of the forms and passport requirements have been simple,  however they also have a requirement to submit to them either a Certificate from the Federal Tax Authority stating that all Taxes have been paid and that our business is in good standing.  Or we have to get audited financials which are able to accurately show our balance and income sheet.

We spoke with the IRS agents on the phone and could not find any kind of a form or anything that the IRS could provide in order to prove that we are up to date.

We were about to give up when I decided to do some new searches
If you are an alien or you are about to expatriate,  you can file for a Certificate of Compliance to prove that you have paid your taxes before leaving.
http://www.irs.gov/instructions/i1040c/ch01.html

I called the IRS and they refered me to a form
http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f1120idq.pdf
which I quickly discarded, as we do not have these types of loans

So I followed the advice on the 1040-C and decided to go into the local IRS office and talk to the 'Area Director'.
http://www.irs.gov/uac/Contact-My-Local-Office-in-Idaho

They require that you schedule an appoint ment
http://www.irs.gov/uac/How-to-Schedule-an-Appointment-in-Idaho and I called  1-844-545-5640  in order to setup an appointment.    The wait time on the phone just to make the appointment was 7 to 10 minutes.


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Update: 8/4/2015
The scheduled appointment was just a way to avoid too many people showing up at once,  when I went in, I just told them when my appointment was,  without any checking they said okay and gave me a number (however the lady mumbled that someone there wasn't being honest about their appointment time because there was not 4 people even working to handle all of the appointments)
So I waited 45 minutes and was just about to assume they would not be able to get to me since lunch was coming up in just a few when a lady called our number.

She quickly identified that she is not well versed in International affairs but she did describe that the only thing she could thing off was the 6166 form which seems to to simply certify that the individual does pay taxes in the US.   This document is normally used to give to another country in order to let the other country know that the individual is paying taxes under certain US treaties.

She recommended that I call the International Group whose number is on the instructions to the 8082 form you file in order to get the 6166 to ask more questions.

So I had a transcript printed out which indicates the amount owed by the company.  Since we are an S Corp,  the amount owed is $0 as the the K-1 section the 1120S just allocates the full amount owed to the shareholder.

When I called the International Tax they could only think of the 'sailing' papers which is the 2063 form.   This form is something that a departing alien can fill out in order to demonstrate that they do not owe any more taxes.   However the form only has a place for a SSN and an ITIN,  it does not have a place for an EIN for a business.

So,  as a next step,  I sent the transcript off to the DNAS lawyer,  asking him if this was enough.   In addition I think I will simply fill out the 2063 form out for me personally,  my wife and the company EIN and I will go in and try to get something signed.

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8/3/2015
Another avenue we have been going down at the same time to try and figure out an audit: 
So we went to an accountant and asked about getting an audit done.  The time consuming process of getting an audit,  as well as the cost can be rather prohibitive for a small business ,  but the accountaint described that there are three options "compiled financials, a review and an audit",  each of these ends with an accountant opinion  letter attached to financials.  However we quickly found out that compiled financials is not enough,  and that the accountant opinion letter actually with compiled financials would actually state "this is not an audit" and "the accuracy of the financials was not validated".  Our DNAS attorney described that the financial audit is most importantly looking to determine the accuracy of the financials.  SO we are having to start a new process of getting our accountant to do a review.

It seems the best way to find out what level is acceptable,  is to request a 'proposed' letter from the accountant that they would send,  and forward that to the attorneys to confirm whether it is acceptable.  So when we connect with the accountant again we will verify first what options we will have.

The DNAS attorney came back and was not happy with the form of the opinion which states that the compiled financials is NOT an audit,  and it turns out that they want an audit,  which is cost prohibitive (and now time prohibitive for me in this project).   While the way that I worked with my accountant some how anchored them to give me a very low price,  the audit would still cost upwards of $5000 and could take a couple more weeks.  Being this late in the game  this would blow my October timeframe.   Since the accountant was already 75% of the way done with the financials I told her to finish them,   Perhaps they will come in handy when seeking a loan or something in the future,  or maybe I will ALSO be able to submit these financials  to the Vietnamese Authority in order to "help" with the application in the case that the other method we come up with is not good enough on its own.

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Hanoi Office Space

There are many things to think about when as I consider office space in Hanoi.

This post will be my rambling point as I figure out the different aspects.  To start with some of the biggest unknowns are:

• How much does a it cost?
• Are there areas that are better than others?
• Do offices come furnished? 
• How does parking work?
• Is security necessary?
• Is internet and power more reliable in some areas that others?

To start with,  I will defined the requirements I think I would have if I can take for granted the availability of utilities, parking and security.

• 800 to 1200 sq ft minimum
• One or two private offices 
• A storage room / network / server / utility
• Wired for ethernet preferred
• Drop Ceilings Preferred for video camera install

A couple of quick notes about how things are different:

• We need 75 to 125 sqm (square meters of space),  realistically we could even go smaller if we are only going to have 4 or five people,  but I want to be able to expand possibly fairly soon without moving offices,   10 sq meters is enough for someone to operate,  but we need room for other stuff, utility room (break? bathroom if not provided by building)
• traffic is crazy,  I can't say whether a location father from the center of downtown is better
• Would I get more job hopping employees if I locate in a Tech Center,  close to all of the other companies that compete for employees?

The hub of downtown Hanoi appears (to me) to be in Hoan Kiem  about 45 minutes from the naboi airport.

Hoan Kiem district in relation to the airport


It turns out our hotel for the EMBA program 

It turns out that our hotel for the EMBA program will be located here as well.  This maybe why I think that this is the hub.

EMBA Residency -
Hilton Garden Inn: 20 Phan Chu Trinh, Phan Chu Trinh, Hanoi 100000, Vietnam 

When I look at other areas whch are IT industrial parks, (such as Thang Long)

 I feel like I am getting too 'corporate',  Even though this is clloser to the airport (for my future travels) and people will likely have a better parking experience.  It seems that there are simply more people downtown, with a much wider set of options for employees traveling to work.

Also, it seems that the 'culture' that we live in here in Boise,  is an older,  historic building with an awesome view,  and smack dab in the middle of town,   with food, bars and people all around.  
I like the idea that I might be able to find this something similar in  Hanoi (perhaps just because it helps me to filter out the huge array of choices)

So I will start my search in Hoàn Kiếm.

The first thing I find is that when searching from google,  I get LOTS of places like 'regus'  that will charge you WAY more than than they should for an executive office anywhere in the world. Lots of Executive suites,  but what I need is a full office for multiple people.  So I keep digging one great option appears to be: Savills  they appear to be a realestate commercial leasing out fit.   They deal primarily in recent construction high rises,  but they have some other options as well.

Here i find 5 buildings in Hoam Kiem.

I have found this site in the past when I was not as serious about needing to find real estate options,  and I emailed them from their site.  They replied back almost immediately with several questions to which I replied.  I never heard back from that reply,  I dont know if that is because they decided that I was not a good fit,  or if they are just not reliable,  but it seems like they would have to be a pretty large company in order to represent the caliber of buildings they have.

I reached back out to them (7/30/2015) after more than a month to see if they would reply.

One thing that is not represented on their website is the price,  and that is one thing that really helps me to decide quickly on whether a space is a good fit.

While I do want to have a decently nice space (I say that 'lower Class A' and 'upper Class B' fits us.)  I will pursue this with them,  however I think I need to also so a little bit of classifieds searching in order to find the smaller,  individual building owners like the ones I have rented from most of the time in Boise (the larger building owners seem to be able to  hold out for longer lease times and higher rents,   and I want neither of those in Hanoi)

I looked back at some old research (before blogging my findings) and I pulled up this officesinvietnam site.  I t seems that they have a 'listing service' that has offices and the search seems to help me zerro in on stuff.   They also list prices on some of them.   I found that the ones that listed the prices had numbers like 37 and 50 USD per sqm / month.   This equates to about 4 or 5$ per month per sq foot,  or 50 to $60 per square foot per year,   compared to Boise prices,   rent for the newest high rise can be 20 to 35$ per year,   and the class of office that I have been happy with is more like 10 to 16$ / year.

I have not found yet whether that means the entire market is that expensive or that I have just happened upon some very expensive areas,  also I do not yet know if there are other services (power,  security , parking internet,  furnished) included in those.  On this site though,  it appears that all of the building listing dates are old,  and when clicking on the contact now phone number,  it takes to  a blank page,  (not a lot of trust here)  however they have now helped me to understand some level of pricing

One (very interesting option) was a Grade B office space with a generator (for reliable power,  it IS an issue!)  and security.   Also the Lift is "good".

While I seriously doubt this place is available,  it also helps me to see what options are out there and possibly questions I should be asking when looking at some of these locations

• power backup
• elevator
• security
• car park

WHen I searched Craigslist,  there were lots of Ho Chi Minh office spaces but not a single one in Hanoi, (all though there were lots of houses and apartments in Hanoi)

A google for 'hanoi office rentals'  turned up some small cheesy sites that may have had somethign buried inthem,  but they didn't seem worthy of searching when several of them only had a single office. building for rent.  However one of them appears to have a price that was interesting and it will help me to know what questions I need to ask about at other offices.  The space was in an area I didn't want but had this price listed "Price: $ 10 (including management fees). "  This helps me to know that it is possible depending on availability that some buildings are SIGNIFICANTLy less than others.   But additionally it helpped me see that some places charge a 'Management Fee'   so I need to be aware of that ,  and ask about it for when I am doing my pricing.

One site that I found (and have seen during other searches) is a local classified site,  which seems to be pretty busy for vietnam.   Although,  any more it is hard to know whether the sites are just scraping eachother for content.  ANyway,  this site is called TNH Hanoi and it looks like they have other localized version "http://tnhvietnam.xemzi.com/".  I didn't see any offices,  but I wanted to document a possible local classifieds site while I could.


I finally happened upon a real estate agent's website,  and it had many menus that reminded me of

bdstanlonc.com

somehwere else I had been,  so it made me think that perhaps the site is just like a USA style MLS site that agents just pay to have their name on.  Anyway,  it seemed like a valuable resource so I dug around in it.
http://bdstanlong.com/office-buildings-in-hoan-kiem.html

One nice thing it does is list all of the commericial building in the Hoan Kiem area.

bdstanlong.com - 2

I decided to contact this agent to see if he was willing to do any research for me on this commerical property so I filled out his contct us form.

Here is my nod to Tan Long for allowing me to find him in my searches

• Head office: 39A Xuan Dieu Str., Tay Ho Distr., Hanoi
  Tel: (84-4) 3719 9864 - Fax: (84-4) 3719 4124 - Website: www.bdstanlong.com

I hope to hear back from him in the future.
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Update 8/3/2015
When I hear back from savills,  it turns out that their reason for not getting back to me previously was that the email was possibly too large and may have bounced,  which Is probably true.  Their email was VERY informative and described the overall market and where the different office options were.  They also described that much office space is negotiable in price and gave me a concept of the cost of being located close to downtown

map of office buildings with time distance

• Per Square meter
• if they price does not say 'All - In' then there is a 10% service fee on top of it
• There is a 'Serviced Office' option which is more expensive,  but comes furnished and may work better for me as I will start small and 
• They created a map with an overview of the office locations and distance from CBD (downtown)
• THey describe how far it is from downtown to the outer locations.

Their email also gave me a concept of the cost of "Serviced" offices.  Some offices can run as much as $65sqm,  but I do not yet know whether that cost includes electric, internet (fast,  like I need it) and desks, chairs, conference, break, etc.  I would consider this,  as it could cust down on my need to source all of my utilities and desk,  etc, ,  but It will likely require a spreadsheet comparison.

Links to the attached documents for all of the space are here for my reference

• Grade A - B Offices
• Services Office Attachment

Realistically though,  this proposal helps me to see that ffice spaces in CBD run from 30 - 45 sqm and in west hanoi it runs about half.  But as far as the buildings that have current availability,  with office layouts,   the proposal only seems to have what floor is available,   it does not allow me to really look to closely at each of them.

For now,  I will send one more email to them to ask a few questions about the size and availability of the space currently.  In particular I would probably like to reduce the time commitment that we have in the space,  but maximize the level of move in ready and growing ability.  In September,  I imagine I will need to dig in and start whittling down the list and start asking for details.  

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Update 8/4/2015

I requested that they filter down theeir list to  offices which are 'move in ready'  and by this I mean that the office does not require an build out.  However Anh (the person that responds) understands this to mean that the office already has furniture in it.  So I send a clarifying email in which I explain my self a bit more.  I am looking for an office that has already had a tenant in it before and does not require any construction,  I am looking for an office that when I sign the lease I will be able to pay and start moving furniture in immediately.   With this clarification I am hoping to receive additional data back with exact office spaces,  with a certain size,  floorplan cost and possibly images.
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Translation from English to Vietnamese Services

So we have a need to translate every single RO document from English to Vietnamese.

That includes the Artcles of incorporation,  the Certification of Incorporation, etc.

Different services out there charge different amounts.

So I figured I should send out the documents for quotes.

Staring with a simple one page Certificate of Existence from the state of Idaho.  The document is about 88 words,  including the words in the letter head,  but not including the words in the Idaho seal.

So I send the document to a couple of services to find out what their costs are and what additional services they can offer.

http://www.english-vietnamese-translation.com/ - charges $0.10 per word.
https://www.rev.com/certified-translation/vietnamese - $28 per page - 48 hour turnaround



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Part way through the process of this,  i get an email from my Hanoi Attorney who says that the easiest,  most trustworthy way to get the translation done is by the Embassy at the same time as legalization.  However from what I can see the consular services did not offer translation services,  so I have another call to make.

When I go to the SF consulate page though today (7/30) I get an error

so i go through my phone dialed calls and get the San Francisco number out - 14159221707,  I will call them when they open 

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