When I started hiring people in the Philippines I didn’t have the ability to specify a location. It was hard enough just finding talent, I had to take people wherever I could find them.
Over the years I considered having an office where all my team would be able to work together. I decided against it because my team is all over the country and I couldn’t ask them to move just to work in an office somewhere.
Today it’s way easier to find talent because of OnlineJobs.ph. If you want to be picky about their location, you can.
But, just how big is the Philippines?
Here’s what Julia wrote:
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While tropical storm Fabian was raining down on Metro Manila, here in Mindanao it’s been scorching hot.
(Flooding in Manila, dry and hot in Davao)
Doesn’t make sense right? We’re a small country. If there’s a typhoon in Manila, we should have felt that everywhere.
In terms of land area, the Philippines isn’t that big. We’re only 3% of the size of the US. To put things into perspective, we’re around the same size as New Mexico or Arizona.
But because our islands are spread out, we actually occupy the same amount of space as Texas. So even though we’re a small country, we can have different climates. We have areas that are practically deserts (La Paz Sand Dunes) to cold temperate provinces with daily temperatures similar to a New England town (Baguio and Lake Sebu).
At least in Texas you can drive all the way from one point to the next. In the Philippines, if you want to drive from the North to South or East to West, your car would have to ride a boat almost half the way. Great if you enjoy island hopping. Not so great if you hate plane travel and you often get seasick.
And, the islands aren’t as close as you might think. It’s not uncommon for a boat ride between islands to take 6-18 hours (depending on which 2 islands).
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I’ve only been to the Philippines once (in 2010). I was surprised at how far apart their 7000 islands are. From the island we stayed (Boracay) you couldn’t see other islands that I thought weren’t that far away.
It would be uncommon for a tropical storm or typhoon to affect every part of the Philippines at once.
John