Job Discussion Forums

[MuscatGary]

[quote="ABteacher"]
Questions:
What are the benefits/drawbacks of direct hire vs. recruiter?

Benefits: The direct hire often pay better. Recruiters make settling in easier (in my experience) by providing accommodation, furniture, accessible contact person etc. Recruiters process the application quicker than direct hire.

Drawbacks: The Ministries demand endless amounts of documentation, which must be attestated at the employees expense. If you want to work for them then be prepared to provide attestated copies of all school/college/university certficates plus attestated copies of letters of experience from previous employers, If you can't prove that you have four or more years post-Masters experience then it will not be recognised in terms of the salary offered. The attestation requirements have been seriously toughened uo this year. Ministries can take several months to start paying the salary, I've heard of four-five months frequently and the worst case to my knowledge was twelve months. Direct hire don't usually provide accommodation, and often no help in finding any, leaving newly arrived teachers in the situation of having to find somewhere to live and then furnish it (furnished rented accommodation here is rare). Recruiters often demand immediate deployment (can you come tomorrow?) and can be very slow in renewing contracts at th end of the year, I know of one who didn't do this until July this year after the teachers had left for holidays!

Is there a good recruiter out there anyone knows of? I worked for Hawthorn for two years and had no problems with them except the delay in renewing contracts at the end of the year.

Names of good schools to work for? There are pluses and minuses with all of them, many of the private sector colleges pay badly, demand long hours and often split shifts.

With my qualifications, what kind of salary can I expect? 1000 OMR + accommodation with an agent or 1200 OMR and get your own place. 1500 OMR with the MOHE IF you can prove your post-Masters experience to their satisfaction.

Oman is generally ok as a place to live and work but is changing and is not quite as liberal as a couple of years ago...

[pooroldedgar]

"Oman...is changing and is not quite as liberal as a couple of years ago."

Could you expand on this a little bit? I'm new here, and quite curious to here more about this.

[MuscatGary]