Job Discussion Forums

[Mr. Leafy]

Thanks, roadwalker. I changed the title. My original title was a failed attempt to deflect some of the replies I got. I should have known better. As for the timing, it was a reaction to the recruiting we are currently doing.

mw182006, I don�t a cover letter is required and in recent years we have been seeing less of them. But if you do sent one it should not start out with; �Hi, I�m Suzie and I�d love to work at your school!!!�

kev7161, not many people include elementary school info but more than a few did, that�s why I mentioned it. I think it makes an applicant look young and inexperienced.

I don�t think you HAVE to use a person�s name. That�s up to you. But if the ad says �Apply to Sue Smith at Our School� and you write to �To whom in may concern� it looks lazy. Sure, use a generic cover letter and email but take 5 seconds to paste the right name in if that is requested (and use the same font to do it). I would never reject someone for not doing so, but if it comes to the final few and some people have paid attention and made an effort and some haven�t, a good first impression could tip the balance.

My cover letter is about 80% generic and 20% custom. I mention something they mention in the ad, I read the school website and tell them how I am compatible TO THEM, not just how great I am. If there is no name and title in the ad, I try find one on the school�s site and use it. I use business letter format when I write. I�ve had more than one interviewer tell me how rare this is and how much they appreciate it. I change jobs about every five years. I usually apply for less than ten positions each time I change and I�ve never been out of work. So however arrogant you all think I might have been, my post really was meant to help.

Thanks for those who gave support and other ideas to applicants.

[sharpe88]

Correct, it may not land a job at Mr. Leafy's school but it's a seller's market for teachers.

[Simon in Suzhou]

As someone who has also been in the role of swimming through resumes in the past, I agree with the OP's advice, but kind of wish he wouldn't have made the post. In my experience, the folks who do not have the common sense to put together a decent resume are probably not people you want to work with anyway.

I know that's a broad brush to be painting with, but in my mind it's the darwinian way of the workplace. If a person can't take the time and effort to do an internet search on writing a resume and has all sorts of juvenile demands, I certainly don't want to enlighten them so that they can bring their "professionalism" to the classroom next to mine!

[Non Sequitur]

The issue at the early stage is 'how not to be discarded'.
Transgressing on the little points mentioned by several posters is a surefire way to have your CV binned in the first cut.
And that IS NOT a way of overlooking good applicants on a whim.
How you prepare your application is as good a way as any, of determining the level of your professionalism.
If the FT game is a seller's market as one poster suggests, then this thread would have no purpose.

[teachingld2004]

First of all, excuse me for the typo's. Keyboard is in bad condition.

I am not wrong in saying that it is of no use to ask for more money at a university job. Language shool perhaps, but uni certainly not.

Universities have standard salary caps, unless perhaps you are so great that you warrent more then the going rate.

After you are at a job for a year, and you are asked to stay for another, perhaps you can get more money. But usually the univerwities give you an automatic raise.

I have seen plenty of resumes where people have written that they just want to emperience another country.One woman said she had 20 years experience in sales. That does not ean I have to give you more then the going rate

[wangdaning]

[vikeologist]

I would say the most important thing is to clearly provide the school with the information they need to make a decision.

If it's not clear whether you're suitable / eligible in terms of qualifications and experience, then it's annoying.

The thing about cover letters for us is that it gives me an idea of your English ability. If you believe that any native speaker with a degree has a good enough standard of English, I can assure you that's not the case. At the moment we have the non native speaker teacher doing the Writing class, because I think he has the clearest writing style of us all.

Some people recommend that the photo you send of yourself should be a lifestyle photo, and you should look 'fun'. Maybe that gets you an interview some places. Speaking for myself I want the photo to look like that of a professional person. Inane grins, or anything that suggests mental instability, doesn't work for us.

Overall, we're looking for professionalism, but also some idea of your personality and attitude to work. You don't need to be uber-formal for us.

[Mr. Leafy]

[choudoufu]

lovely post, OP, but total rubbish. let's try not to kid ourselfs....most of
us on this here forum are not professional teachers, and the jobs we take
are more like glorified babysitting. most schools do not have a real
HR department to handle hiring (at least not for the dancing monkeys!).
what they have is often simply the only person on staff with sorta kinda
passable english. your rules apply to western businesses, and a very
few international schools in china, but not to the average chinese school.

1. elementary school? i can't imagine anyone listing elementary school on
a resume. are you sure that wasn't one of their prior teaching positions?
or were you hyperbolisizing?

2. keep track of where you apply. sure. fine. but does it matter if i send
two applications to the same school? of course not. FAO gets so many
resumes, and most english names sound the same anyway, so they are
not likely to notice. and if they do, so what? they surely won't mind. a
chinese FAO will bin ya if ya send two applications? not likely. they know
you're mass-e-mailing your resume. it's expected.

3. YOUR ad may have a specific name. but then what if i'm not responding
to your ad? i'm applying for your basic ingrish oral teacher, not head of
the department. dear sir, to who it may concern......both are just fine.

4. cover letter? in china? why bother? a simple email stating your
interest for the upcoming school year is enough. "hi, i'm jane and i'd
love to teach at your school" would be fine for most schools here in
china where the average FAO receiving your email likely can't read and
understand anything more complicated.

5. ok, i'll give you this one. punctuation can be your friend. still....you
prolly won't lose points seeing's the receiver won't know grammers neither.

[Non Sequitur]

[Winter]

[Non Sequitur]

Use the full name which is what the Chinese do and remember the family name is first.
Accordingly, when you talk on Skype address Gao Ya-wen as Ms Gao.

[Winter]

[Non Sequitur]

Just use the whole name:
'Thank you Gao Yah-wen, I look forward to receiving the offer document and commencing with your school on 1 September'

[GuestBob]

I have seen dozens of terribly formatted CVs, many of them little more than bullet point lists under bolded headings. There may be no single right way to write a CV, and the information you are going to put in will most certainly vary as your career progresses, but you are damn right that I want to be able to look down the left or right hand side and quickly pick up dates and places of education and employment.

It is also amazing how good a badly written CV is as a predictor of an unsuitable candidate. You might have a bunch of experience but if you can't write an email properly and your CV is a mess then I am not going to interview you. On the two occasions I have interviewed someone about whom I had reservations my pernickity prejudice was proved correct.

Choudoufu, you are right that some places in China will take dribbling idiots as teachers. But you know what, we don't. And you know what else, we have no problem recruiting. Why? Because people notice that we are more professional than anyone else and boy do they like it!

Nobody wants a job as a dancing monkey and we don't want FTs who fit that description either. We need good teachers who are interested in delivering serious courses to English majors - that's what we advertise and that's what we get.

A clearly formatted CV and brief but well written cover letter actually help FAO staff to understand what you are about. The better they are written, the clearer they will be. The absence of these documents, or their cursory completion is a hindrance.

Remember, your CV has to be translated for SAFEA's FEC application so if your paperwork is a mess then people are going to dismiss you as a waste of time. Incidentally, that translation requirement also runs contrary to your really silly assertion that all FAO staff are unable to speak Engish. That certainly hasn't been my experience and I am tired of hearing such casual defamation.

Come to think of it, why are we even having this discussion? It's a job application, of course it should be neat, tidy and the result of some effort and consideration. What's next? "This one place rejected me because I didn't have a shirt on when I interviewed over Skype, but like, the guy who interviewed me got 'he' and 'she' mixed up a few times so I probably wouldn't want to work there anyways because they can't speak English anyway."