Job Discussion Forums

[enterthedragon]

I work at an intl sch in china (not shanghai or Beijing but a large city) and I tried to find some work at the weekends. Most companies only recruit full time teachers so that puts that out the window. There doesn't seem to be any part time jobs in China like there are in Korea for example. AM I right here?

So how do people find privates in China? I put some A4 ads on subway stations and outside some supermarkets but nothing! Obviously I cant ask students at my school for any lessons. I would just like to work evenings and Saturdays or Sundays even. How do you find private students in China? Do you have to own your own chinese website or something? I thought about this. An extra 4000 RMB per month on top of my 26500 NET salary and free apartment would be great.

[Non Sequitur]

You want to add a paltry 15 percent to your pay by working on the weekend?
Something fishy here.

[CNexpatesl]

People know how, but they don't want to give away their methods. They're actually genuinely afraid people will steal their precious potential privates in a country of 1.3 billion people. Go figure. I've seen this question asked many times and only get vague answers that never work.

From my experience, ads don't work. You either need someone like an agency or free agent to introduce you to clients. Or a Chinese friend, girlfriend, etc, and have them ask around or put in a lot of work into advertising your services. I had one native guy that would introduce me to privates. He would only take an initial fee from the first lesson, after that I would get paid 100%. This seems to be the only thing that worked, at least for me.

[Non Sequitur]

As I like regular work I pimped myself to a local mom n pop language school.
Got Saturdays 8-12 for the semester plus an offer of work 5 day pw over summer. I didn't take the latter as I needed some downtime.

[enterthedragon]

I want to make 30% extra as I am being taxed 25% on my gross salary which is a lot. I don't think asking friends really gets you students. Students need to want to learn English and have the money to pay. A lot of chinese only earn 5000 a month.You have to find the wealthier ones who can afford to pay. This is the problem.

[Modernist]

[Non Sequitur]

It's the commutes that suck the life out of privates if you're not a fixed base operator i.e. your apartment or a language school.
No shows can be handled by prepayment arrangements.

[Kalkstein]

[Jmbf]

Advertisements can work BUT most people don't put in the required effort to make it work. I've used ads very effectively in the past but it's not as easy as people think. To be effective you have to think carefully about the layout, design and distribution of your ads. Randomly posting up an ad you created in 10 minutes on your computer and printing them out on your crappy inkjet isn't going to cut it. You need to have an attractively and eye-catching design (preferably in dual languages) which clearly highlights your key selling points and gives some price indication. You need to target wealthy estates and high-end neighbourhoods and private schools. You also have to bear in mind that you need to put out a certain quantity in order to be effective. In my experience, for every 1,000 ads you send out, 1 decent lead will be generated.

Even after all that, you aren't going to build a large student base purely through your ads. Rather, the point of using advertisements is to build a small core of high quality clients. From there you can hopefully establish your reputation and then gain personal referrals from within that student base.

[OhBudPowellWhereArtThou]

Dragon:

They'll find you. Really. Do a good job in class and your principal will recommend you--- even if working extracurricular jobs is forbidden. Get to know some longtime expats. They usually have connections. Prove yourself to them that you are reliable and they'll put your name out for you.

As someone said before, relationships are paramount in climbing any ladder in China. Get to know people, both Chinese and expats. Accept invitations to dinner with your students' families. You'll be giving free English conversational practice to the kid, but pretty soon, you'll develop a good social base, and eventually, other families will want you to spend time with their kids. That's when money is offered.

[enterthedragon]

[getbehindthemule]

Why the need to mention your salary? This made me not want to reply but here you go:

In agreement with Modernist - You need to build relationships and trust first. This takes time and being a nice, honest and reliable teacher helps believe it or not
I've got numerous gigs from 1-1 oral English practice over dinner to full 2 hr classes. All have come from my Chinese friends and work colleagues after a period of time. This can have a snowball effect once other parents get wind of it. I've been approached in the street. One eg: 'Are you 'so and so'? Can you help my son with his English, I can pay well. I'm also a doctor so if you ever need a doctor‘
I've stopped private work altogether atm and will only take on premium work from Chinese business people in the future. I've come in contact with a handful of these rich types recently and I know they can pay top dollar.
I appreciate my free time too much and find the work tiring but in saying that, we all need to save up some cash every so often so this is a great way to go about it if you have the contacts!

[getbehindthemule]

[enterthedragon]

Yes it's a heavy load at this IS. Yes they pay for my accommodation although it is cheap as chips in this countryside place. I think my 2bed apartment is just $150-$200 per month for the school to pay. I can hardly spend any of my money as the city is miles away. A beer here is 5 kwai. In the big hotels in the city it is 50-70 kwai. However it is pointless trying to get privates here. Literally noone speaks any english nor wants to or needs to. Only in the city could I get some decent privates. WHy do I want to work on my salary? Cos it's not really such a high salary to be honest. 35000 would be a good salary or 40 000 even better. 26.5 is just 10k more than a regular esl job and I work 40 hours for this although I only have to teach about 20. Lots of admin though keeping records of progress and stuff. You can only get 40k -50k in SHanghai or Beijing I think for IS in china. Salaries are so varied.

[getbehindthemule]