Job Discussion Forums

[Brianbro]

Hey everyone,

I've taught in China during 2015-2016 at a private school and then went back to the United States, but now I'm looking to head back and teach in Chengdu for the fall semester of 2017. While I can find teaching jobs with private schools, I want to try my hand at public schools this time around, but I'm unsure of the ways of getting in contact with them. I have a few questions that I'm hoping someone can help me out with.

What is the best way of getting in contact with public schools while living out of the country? I'm currently in the United States so walking into a school is not really an option for me right now, so would it be better to contact them directly using the emails found on websites? I've tried contacting schools through email, but I haven't had any luck in getting responses from them. Is it because it may be too early, outdated emails, or they just don't know how to respond?

When do public schools start looking for foreign teachers for the fall semesters? From what I've found out, some say April and May; others are mentioning June and July.

Is it just too early to start looking for public school jobs right now? If anyone can help out and provide advice on how to improve my search, I'd really appreciate it.

[hz88]

It could be a combination of factors.

The market in Chengdu for public school teachers has been largely passed over to agencies. Its not always easy to find someone to reply to your emails when using email addresses you may find on their website.

It is a little early in the year for recruitment for the next semester. They will usually begin recruiting in late April or early May as that is usually when they will ascertain from their existing teachers what their intentions are.

One other significant reason that could be is that a lot of schools (including mine) are awaiting the final changes that are scheduled to be rolled out nationwide in April. There are a lot of changes to the procedures pending and its very much up in the air at the moment so they don't want to begin something that is likely to change as it may waste everyones time later.

Just keep trying or hold off for a while, but as I said from the people I know in Chengdu finding a public school that recruits for themselves is pretty difficult. You may have better luck with universities if you wish to deal directly.

[The bear]

Honestly, you're best bet is probably recruiters. They have contacts you could only dream of, especially when you're not even in the same country.

Email is really hit and miss, that's if you can even find an address in the first place. And then hope it's still in use. And then hope the person who opens it can understand English. And then, if they do, remembers to file it or email you back. The odds are poor. But with enough emails some may stick. As you know.

Probably a little too early, April/May is peak job hunting time. If you leave it to June/July the best jobs are probably taken.

[Non Sequitur]

July and August are the holiday months for both staff and students.
To me this means May and June are the hiring months.
Sending speculative emails where there is no job ad (missionary selling) is likely to have limited effectiveness. But it is probably better than doing nothing.
Look at the Wikipedia entry for the cities you are interested in and click Education on the sidebar. The entry for an individual school may or may not have a link to a home page. If not put the name of the school into google and you'll get something.
Some sites have 'Employment' pages otherwise look for 'International' or similar.

[getbehindthemule]

Public schools use a recruiter (in SH anyway) to hire teachers for them. There are some genuine and good recruiters/education companies out there that provide induction, health insurance, etc. But there are also a hell of a lot of shady ones. Unfortunatley it can be quite difficult to distinguish between the two initially.
There are also some good Western recuiters about. Many of these will have gotten the job vacancies to fill from Chinese recruiters. So you may need to interview with the Western recruiter first as a sort of screening process. They will then put you in touch with the Chinese recruiter for contract negotiation etc. This can be advantageous to the job seeker as you have a Western company to fall back on. For some positions the Western recruiters deal directly with the schools. The better recruiters will have screened the school in advance (I can PM you a good one if you are interested) and your risk is minimal.
As a previous poster mentioned April/May is the peak hiring time.