The China Job Search

I first really thought about teaching in China when I was studying abroad in Barcelona, Spain, during my junior year of college. I loved being abroad and I knew that after completing college, I did not want to go to graduate school right away. Instead, travelling more and gaining more experience seemed like a great idea to me (obviously, it still does!).
I started researching the idea while I was in Spain, but it was still too early to find a job. Just so you know, finding a job in China does not require sending CVs that early. You can research, but most of the schools don't want the CVs (or resumes) until a couple of months before you can get there. Also, while you are researching, you need to make sure that the school you are looking at (and I am focusing on schools because that is the experience that I have) actually exists and is a good place to work (more on this later).
After Spain, and talking about going to China with my parents, I started looking and applying for jobs seriously during my senior year of college. My parents were not too happy about my decision to go to China, but since it is what I really wanted, they helped me with everything. What I basically did to look for jobs was to go to google and type in various phrases such as "ESL teaching jobs China", "China teach English" "Suzhou ESL jobs", etc. If you have a specific town or city that you want to teach in, then type that city in. Many times, there are websites that are very helpful and have lists of schools that are looking for foreign language teachers. Once you find a place that you want to apply to, then you email whatever they ask for. Usually they ask for your CV, a recent picture of you, a copy of your passport, and a copy of your diploma. Sometimes they ask for a cover letter and recommendation letters as well.
Good jobs will not only pay you a salary, but will also give you money for an airplane ticket, paid holiday vacation, some kind of insurance, help with the visa, an apartment, and sometimes they will give you meals.
After sending all the information, it is very possible that you will not hear back from many of the people. At least, that is what happened to me. The people that you do hear back from are usually not from the actual school, but are intermediates, which is something that I didn't actually know until I got to the school I teach at now and learned that the person I had been communicating with for the past four months didn't actually work at the school. However, they can give you information that is pretty accurate and good to know. You talk with them and figure out which school will give you the best deal and which place sounds like it fits you the best.
One last comment: be careful of the schools. Some places can be not nice to foreign teachers. Try to look up information about the school before you sign the contract or agree to work there. Try to ask teachers who have worked there before how they were treated. I say this because I was looking at one school when I found an internet sight in which many teachers who had worked there commented about the horrible way that they were treated by the school and the guards. I knew, then, not to work there. If I hadn't seen that sight, I might have worked there. Instead, I found a much better school where I seem to be treated well (knock on wood).
Be careful and good luck!