Job Discussion Forums

[arioch36]

Why ask more questions when you haven't asked the important ones Roger asked, whci tend to be common for all "recruiters" who recruit for teachers for more then one school.
You've personally visted all these schools? Then you should be able to list each possible school.The prospective teacher has a guarantee which school he will go to, and has the chance to talk to foreign teachers already there? "we all will satisfy them"...that's a pretty big guarantee that's garbage!
They have two contracts??? One with the school and one with you???

You got 35 teachers from the same company in Canada...yeah, I heard about this..and they make promises and you make promises and the school makes promises, lots of contracts.

Your recruiter talk talks for itself. you say you havn't had much complaints... Haven't heard anything positive since I have been here, have heard complaints... ie the start of this thread.

Same advice as always...stay away from recruiters, sign with the school yourself.

Strange that Canuck and Owen start up at the same time...almost as strange as the fact that I have never seen MW and Dragon at the same bar at the same time

(Not that you or your money making business is evil, or anything...many people are trying to do the same thing right now in China because they see the big bucks of recruiting. For some reason most of them seem to be targeting Canada. You're a salesmen, reminds me of the foreign teacher I worked with last year, made 10,000 or whatever recruiting for the school he was at...never actual lied, just told the good side of everything, like you. Liked the money, and started recruiting for schools he had never even been to, on teach-in-china

[owen buckland]

[owen buckland]

Roger wrote: (I still need some clarification, Owen.
Alright, you don't sell job applicants to SHutong. But you do post them to places away from Yangshuo. May we know whether your future teacher has a chance of nknowing beforehand where he is going to end up?
You understand that for a total newcomer to arrive in Yangshuo and be sent to, say, Wuhan, may be an unpleasant surprise.
How far away are they likely to end up working? Do you personally know your partner schools? )

Hi Roger: Good questions!! I don't really want to answer the questions because it's a little business secret of Buckland Group,but for Roger, I still answer you this question. Any one who applicate a position from Buckland need to check my website, which I listed all my membership schools, and all the schools are listed by their location, students type, present teachers, when the vacancy is available..... so the teachers already know quite well before them come to yangshuo, yangshuo is too small for place 60 teacher,just a meeting point and a good place to start with, of course everyone try to focus on Yangshuo and Guilin, but only a few are lucky and that need to reserve one or two years in advance, at present we have 6 teachers are working in Guilin and yangshuo. BUT we treat yangshuo as a hometown for all buckland teachers, they are allowed to visit Buckland ESL Hostel any time and will be offered the cheapest price, sometimes even free of charge. They also use yangshuo to overcome their jet-leg, having the culture shock orientation, handing around the beautiful contryside for a few days before going to a far away school which may only have one foreign teacher in the whole city. The best thing Buckland offer is every teacher is allowed to quit their job in the first month if they are not satisfied with their school and still got another chance to change for a new school, because we have about 48 schools available. Some one want to change because they don't like to teach the kids, some one want to change schools because they want to travel more cities, we all will satisfy them. That's the reason why we don't have much compaints-----you know you will NOT be placed in yangshuo before you come, you HAVE a chance to change the school if you do NOT like it and still keep the contract. The last : we gurantee all the contract get carried out-----in case the school not, Buckland HAS TO do it, because they have two contracts, one with Buckland Group, one with the school, if the school failed to follow the contract, Buckland's contract is always valid untill it expired.
I usually visited every membership school by myself, if not I will send my staff to check before I send any teachers there and will ask the school follow the BUckland standard to prepare the apartment-----usually much better than the goverment standard. another point: Buckland always ask the school pay a 300 to 500 higher salary than the other school in the same area, so they felt very much comfortable to be with Buckland, not to say be cheated by Buckland, People always found the truth sooner or later, they compare everything, one year is not a short time to compare, right? I got 35 teachers this year from the same company in Canada, if my placement is bad, do you think they will continuing recommend teachers to us?All the teachers compare the conditions and offers from different schools all overChina, they sent 50 to 150 same emails to 50 --150 schools, say they are very interested in the positions, actually they are just comparing school's offer, that makes the recruiting job not a easy one. Sometimes you answered 136 emails to some one, and the last minute he changed his mind to another school, and you already make all the paper work ready for him, even waiting him in the railway station, what do you think of the feeling?

Roger wrote:(I think it is a great idea to require them to deposit a security with you - if that serves, among other things, to preserve material rights of expat teachers that might be compromised by the final taker.
But you make it sound as if some schools do hand over to you a deposit while others don't. So, if an expat teacher has bad luck, and you don't have resources from that teacher's employer to satisfy his material rights, who is going to be the loser? )

Buckland Group will be the loser, but this seldom happened, we always checked the school carefully before we place them a teacher.also I have the right to withdraw back the teacher to another school as soon as the school treat the teacher unfairly, The school always has a threaten from Buckland, it may lose the teacher anytime, so Buckland is powerful to the school!!!For example, Edna, An American teacher worked inGuilin tourism institue, she has a problem with the college, and the college refused to help her, she tried all the means, no use. I only wrote one email to her said I already has another position for her the next 24 hours, the college solved the problem in 23 hours!!Because the college knows Buckland very well that we always have more than enough positions for not enough teachers.

(And, you wrote the recruiting commission - or 'fee' - can be negotiated (you said "3000 or 30'000 - you decide..."). That sounds like you put teachers up on the block for auction, am I wrong in seeing it this way?)

No, it's just a kiding, usually no negotiation, 3000 to 5000 for a school which has no problem for sure. 30000 deposit for the school may have problem in the future.

(These qauestions are not motivated purely by distrust; a lot has to do with curiosity, and I hope you can agree that curiosity can be healthy.)

Not only you have curiosity, quite a lot of people who are doing the recruiting job are curious----how could Buckland charge 30000 for a teacher while they even got difficulty to charge 3000.
Nice to discuss this with you, hope the answer satisfy you,any more questions welcomed.
best wishes
owen buckland

[arioch36]

Dearest Bucky,

Thank you for repeating everything that you had already said. It was a pleasure to read it twice. You are a true salesman who can continue to say a lot, while saying absolutely nothing. You would make a fine politician. To bad in your self-serving speech about how you only care for your dear teachers you never responded to the original post that startyed this thread.

Your doublespeak speaks for itself why one should stay away from recruiters

[chastenosferatu]

Owen Buckland has missed his true calling... politics.

[Changjiang]

I've been lurking around here watching this forum for awhile and now feel compelled to respond.

I used a recruiter, specifically Owen, and am reasonably happy with how things turned out. Everything in the contract I signed in Canada has shown up on schedule and I haven't had more than the normal number of glitches. My school has cancelled things on me at short notice, but hasn't scheduled anything without a day or two warning.

IMO, anyone that complains overmuch about Owen must have screwed up royally. I've caught him playing pretty fast and loose with schools, but haven't met any teachers that had a legitimate complaint against him. And I can personally attest that he will go a long way out of his way to help one of "his" teachers, he's solved a couple of problems for me that otherwise would have been a royal pain.

Now is there a more productive topic we could be discussing instead?

[Changjiang]

Okay, I'll post the NEXT.

You asked if anyone had a positive experience with a recruiter and I answered yes.

If it was a rhetorical question, I apologise for taking you so literally.

I am not advertising as I don't get paid to post.

I stand by my statements.

[Changjiang]

Okay, fair enough. No offense meant, none taken.

I agree it's bad timing, but it's just I haven't seen any topics previously where I felt I had some useful information to impart.

I'm a little disappointed that I'm the only one. Are contractors so universally bad that I'm the only person to get lucky? I wonder what percentage of people that post here regularily are contracted and what percentage are direct hires?

[hubei_canuk]

[arioch36]

I have no problem believing or not believing working for Owen is good or not good.


Jacob should have been clearer about the problem, but he said the same thing perhaps changchang is saying, He cheats the school. This is where the 30,000 comes in..Possible scenario...the school pays Owen 3,000. The 30,000 that the government pays that should go to the school goes to owen instead.

Changchang says this is a new post. Not true...there have continuously been posts about recruiters, and even about Buckland. And one of the common problems is this two contract thing. Very probematical

HC leaps up to defend Buckland (not to be confused with the teacher Owen who posts. But it was HC who said you deal with Owen you better be on your feet, because he has no qualms about cheating you.

Iwill always reccommend you always sign a contract with a school only.

Mr. Jiang, hugely curious on your residence permit. Does it say your true residence/ school? Ditto on your Foreign Expert's certificate?

[Roger]

For some established schools, acting as an agent is the trend these days! Why, they have been recommended by Westerners to fellow-Westerners; in the end, several expats turn up at the school but only one vacancy needs to be filled... The principal then auchtions the redundant numbers off to other takers.
IT is actually quite common. My first encounter with a "recruiter" happened near Shenzhen train station. I was being accosted by a young man, one of those "hello!" simpletons. I engaged him in a dialogue about local schools, and he walked me a few hundred meters down the road. We found ourselves at the gate of Shenzhen No. 1 Primary School (maybe it was no. 23 priamry school, what does it matter?). So I asked him if I could have a word with the "boss", and he scampered off to the nearest telephone. Next thing he told me was that the "boss" was keen to see me!
We walked on - away from that school! We marched for about twenty minutes and reached a pompous office tower. On the 7th floor I was ushered into an airconditioned room. My guide disappeared into another room. Some time later, he reemerged, followed by a smiling lady. He translated for me that "this is your boss... she wants to hire you..."
Needless to say she was not going to be my boss. She was the wife of the boss. I negotiated a contract with her, not knowing that my actual boss was going to make major changes with not so much as any advance warning. BUt that was another story, an adventure really.
Meanwhile, this guy had done me a "service", hadn't he? He told me he had no chance of finding a job such as teaching - the best salary he would make was 1000, he told me. How could I leave him then without giving him a xiaofei?
Many of my training centre employers actually loaned me out to others, including to other schools. Isn't this acting as an "agent"? My current kindergarten has hired another expat through an agent too; they only pay per hour (although they pay through their nose to get him).

How did I get my current job? Another story...
I applied to a middle school. The principal visited me at my home and we negotiated a deal for me. He spoke no English. At one point I became somewhat confused - a period was to last for only 30 minutes? Thus I learnt I was going to be hired by a kindergarten.
I did not make a fuss about this discrepancy - applying to a middle school, ending up working for a kindi.
In the end, it was one of my most satisfying jobs. However, some time later, I heard that the kindergarten had to pay 10'000 RMB in "commission" to that principal.
A principal whose salary normally is less than half this sum!

[chinasyndrome]

[quote="Changjiang"]

[arioch36]

Not posting because of not having useful information. What a hoot! I mean, are we really expected to be able to impart useful information? I mean, come on, we're in China.

On the original thread, I will have to contact the moderators before posting some of the information I have been recieving but our friend Canuck. I am sorry about accepting at even foot value anything he said about Owen Buckland.

Maybye HC can help clear it up. Hey HC, are you the no college degree Gordon who did some nasty things, and had to take the fast train out of Yangshuo? What is your real reason for leaving the Yangshuo you profess to love and know so well?

[Hamish]

[chinasyndrome]

Ladies and gentlemen,

we are now at DefCon3. Stand by, stand by.