How to find a job in Vietnam from abroad

To find a job in Vietnam from abroad, treat it like entering a new market: map where the region is going, use conversations to test where you fit, and visit in person before you move. Then learn to explain your overseas experience in terms a Vietnamese employer understands.

That is how Michelle Doan did it. Born and raised in Vietnam, she moved to Canada for school and built a career in North America across consulting, banking strategy and tech, at Monitor Deloitte, Scotiabank and DoorDash. After about a year of planning, she moved back and joined Google on the YouTube team. She walked OV members through her method in a session in May 2026. Her wider views on building a career here are in Moving to Vietnam for your career: what nobody tells you. This post is about the job search itself.

Give the search a timeline and a system

Many Overseas Vietnamese think about moving back for years without a plan. Family, roots and lifestyle make it an emotional decision, and it stays a vague one. Michelle kept the feelings but treated the move as a project.

“I don’t think there is a perfect time to pull the plug and move your entire life back to Vietnam. What helped was having a guiding timeline.”

She used Notion as her "second brain" to map the market, track target companies and audit her skills. The tool matters less than the habit: write down what you know, what you are guessing and what you still need to find out. You cannot remove the risk of a move, but you can become much less confused about it.

Map the region, not only today's openings

Michelle did not only look at Vietnam. She scanned roles across Asia to see how the region was developing. Vietnam may not yet look like Singapore or Hong Kong, but more mature markets give clues about where Vietnam may be heading.

So instead of asking "what jobs are open in Vietnam right now?", ask where the region is moving and how Vietnam might develop over the next three to five years. That turns a scroll through job postings into a market map:

• Which companies are expanding?
• Which functions are growing?
• Which regional roles may later become local roles?
• Which skills are scarce?
• Which industries are professionalizing?

A map like this also shows you roles you would never find by searching job titles. OV Jobs is one place to start, with roles in Vietnam picked for Overseas Vietnamese.

Use conversations to find where you fit

When Michelle began recruiting, the right role was not there. Many roles were too heavy on business development. Others were too technical. Some did not match her interests or background. At first that made her anxious.

Instead of only applying online, she used conversations to sharpen her picture of where she fit. She spoke with people in Vietnam, Hong Kong, Singapore and the US: full-time employees, senior managers, founders and people hiring for APAC roles.

One early idea was that she could become head of sales at a startup. Talking with founders, she saw that it did not fully fit. She had built sales strategies for large US teams, but she did not yet have the local relationships or context to lead sales in Vietnam. She used that feedback as data, not as a reason to give up.

This is the lesson for anyone searching from abroad: your first idea of your Vietnam role may be wrong, and that is fine. Networking does more than get you referrals. It shows you what the market values, which of your assumptions do not hold, and how to tell your story so people here understand it. The right job may not exist when you start looking. The search gets you ready for it when it appears.

Visit Vietnam like someone doing market entry

In North America, Michelle found that cold LinkedIn messages often worked and people were open to virtual coffee chats. In Vietnam, by her estimate in May 2026, cold outreach got far fewer replies. Replies improved a lot when there was shared context, especially through OV.

For senior people, generic messages were not enough. What worked was being in Vietnam, meeting in person and showing she was serious. She timed one of her visits around the OV Summit, which put many conversations across stages, functions and seniority levels into a few days. Those conversations turned cold research into warm relationships, and one of those warm leads later referred her to her role at Google.

If you are a Việt Kiều planning a trip home, plan part of it as a work trip. Go to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) with:

• a list of people to meet
• hypotheses about your role to test
• specific questions for each person
• a clear enough ask that people can help you

A visit like this works both ways. You understand Vietnam better, and people in Vietnam understand you better. The second part matters more than most people expect.

Explain how your experience solves a local problem

Asked how she stood out in the Vietnam job market, Michelle gave a one-word answer: storytelling.

Local candidates may know the market better and have deeper relationships and more direct experience working in Vietnam. Returnees need to accept that. The value of overseas experience is not automatic. You may have seen systems, tools, teams and operating models that Vietnam is still building toward, but none of it counts if you cannot explain it.

Do not assume an employer will read your resume the way you do, that a foreign brand name explains your value, or that "strategy", "operations" or "partnerships" mean the same thing everywhere. Michelle had to turn her consulting, banking, strategy and DoorDash experience into a story that made sense for Vietnam and for YouTube. Before any interview, answer four questions:

• What did you learn abroad?
• What does Vietnam need?
• Where is the gap?
• Why are you useful now?

A Viet Kieu candidate who can answer those in plain terms, with examples, competes on more than a degree or a company logo.