Job Discussion Forums

[millie]

Madmaxola wrote

[august03]

I disagree about using a recruiter, check out www.china-tesol.org I used them and I know of many others that have used come to China with this organisation. They only place you with government schools, and it is the government who has hired them to find teachers, it is all legit. I don't know of anyone personally having bad experiences with them and I urge you just to look at the info on their site, whether you choose to use them or not the information may help. They can also connect you with teachers that are currently in China and ones that have finished and move on.

They also act independently from the school you would be teaching at to offer you advice and help when and if you require it. They are a safe bet and believe me there are not too many of them here in China.

I do agree with the other posts though, there is no need to pay anyone to find you a position, do your homework and you'll be fine.

[UConn]

What�s up with www.journeyeast.org?
Call and find out +18609749988

I saw your post on Dave's ESL. Just wanted to drop you a note regarding journeyeast. While most people really have it out for recruiters, and understandable so, journeyeast is a program provider (recruiter - is such a soiled word ) and was created by several individuals (including myself) who went to China as part of bad experience and decided something could be done to improve the quality of cooperation between Americans coming to teach, and Chinese schools.

"If it walks like a duck.. Quacks like a duck.. " You have to measure an organization by its performance. We've been extremely lucky weathering all the crap from shady Chinese businessmen seeking to profit from our market position. Trying to keep both schools and teachers happy is a near impossible task. Fortunately, our organization is strict about who it recruits and who we cooperate with. We've learned this the hardest way; and this has personally been the most challenging, unrewarding, rewarding, gratifying, and ungratifying experience and last five years of my life.

My friends and I formed journeyeast while we were in college. We invested money from our own pockets to come up with the registration fee�s to legally license the organization in Connecticut, USA. We spent two years on the ground in China, developing our network and learning more about all the horrible ways we could get ourselves trapped up as teachers.. We met some great characters along the way and gained some important allies. Our simple goal was to help other foreign teachers seeking first time placement in China an opportunity for safe, legal job placement.

How disillusioned we were at first!!! We had no power to enforce our strict contract policies with the schools.. I will never forget how we were laughed at! We found you can�t be nice.. you can�t be strong.. you can�t be in the middle.. oh, and yes means no, accept for when it means, �yes.� Do you know what I mean? Yes or no?

If you are already a teacher in China, our services are FREE. We�ve even placed a few of you critical, scurvy old-timers after a few emails subject reading: �Help! My visa is going to expire this month! �

The $1300 fee you mentioned, isn�t just our fee, it includes an orientation DVD which we authored ourselves, Pen Pal Features, Our own proprietary Chinese Learning Software, a teachers guide which is very detailed about ALL of the issues you will find on the ESL boards, the airfare (500-$900), a mobile phone, pre-paid time, its the entire cost of the visa, (Courier to New York city and postage to you about $150 if you include the couriers salary) a journeyeast email which is guaranteed to work in China - all added up the total fee journeyeast receives is quite small. Journeyeast puts themselves in the middle and makes a guarantee to both the teacher and the school. We do not accept everyone into our program and we only offer only thirty spots each semester to maintain program quality.

Many of the folks on this board are seasoned ESL pros, who - like many, (including me) came to China and learned by getting burned. Some a mere first degree, while others were doused in flames of outright dangerous exploitation and threatened to remain in said state. Journeyeast offers a newbie, a way of coming to China with little chance of getting burned. We make a guarantee and put it into writing. We�re as much or as little a part of your experience as you require us to be. .

You can look across the internet and you wont find a bad thing said about journeyeast.org Well, not just yet - there are ten teachers we cancelled from our program last summer (because a rogue school cancelled two days before the summer program was supposed to begin.) We refunded all their money, but had to charge them the visa fee which was already purchased, and offered them a free trip for this summer because we felt pretty bad. A few were quite furious with us.

Other than that problem, In the past five years we've only had three problems, 2 were with schools exploiting our teachers, the teachers were removed and re-placed, reports were filed with SAFEA, and several local and provincial authorities, and the other was with a teacher, who broke her contract and was promptly sued by us to protect the schools investment.

We are very open about our performance, we readily accept constructive criticism and require all our teachers to complete an exit survey about their level of satisfaction. That being said, there is no way to please everyone. That is an impossible task that we can never hope to achieve. The best thing to do is work responsibly through any problems that we guarantee will happen. We prepare our teachers for many cultural scenarios�s.

Last summer we filmed a television show in cooperation with the Outdoor Life Network about our teachers on tour meandering about Shanghai. Check out www.altroutes.com for more details on that.

Does our China office ask for introduction fees from schools? Of course, like everyone else. Including Dave's ESL! - Dave charges a fee for schools / employers posting job adds here.. There is NOTHING wrong with that. So does Monster.com $1700 for one week!!! Some rogue recruiters charge per teacher period and seek to exploit teachers that would otherwise not understand the market salary for certain areas - charging upwards of 250 RMB per period and paying the teacher a mere 50RMB. These are usually Chinese businesses, or individuals.. While we don't practice that, can someone argue that its wrong? From a philosophical point? Especially if certain services were guaranteed and provided?

We educate and consult with our teachers on market salary rates in locations they are placed. In every case - we strive to provide the highest possible salary to our teachers. We profit nothing except headaches if a teacher were to arrive in China, and learn from their neighbor they are getting paid hundreds less than what they should.

In the case where a teacher may not have all the appropriate qualifications such as TEFL, or BA diploma, but is deemed a good person qualified to handle the cultural differences and worthy of being a good teacher, we often waive the introduction fee to secure an incentive for placement. In EVERY case, we hold the schools provincial documentation proving that they can legally host foreign teachers. We inspect about 90% of all school partners, and evaluate their English department teacher English proficiency.. Who do you think pays for all these services and travel?

Without charging an introduction fee this organization would not be able to support its features and hire experience, good quality employees. BESI LLC the parent company donates hundreds of dollars each year to scholarships and hand picks street children offering them free summer education, and private tutorage. In fact the Chinese government has a 2 to one exchange. For every scholarship we offer to a Chinese , the Chinese government offers us TWO to provide to our teachers, and individuals seeking study abroad in China.

Are we rich from our five years of recruiting? Hell no. This started from my home and spread across America, into Germany, Russia and China. When I'm state-side, I usually stay with my folks. We're a young, energetic group of people trying to make a difference in a marketplace where change is nearly impossible, but achievable with time. Our goal is to provide safe, affordable, quality work placement and cultural exchange programs.

There are many good fee based programs in the market, Footprints, Cross-Culture Solutions, Educasian (very expensive) and the Colorado program.

Anyway, I'm not defending recruiters, there are plenty of evil ones out there -I just wanted to set the record straight on www.journeyeast.org If I were someone else, not an adventurous risk taker, wanting to be most careful about where I am to work in a foreign country, and who I would choose to bring me there, I�d want to have an organization on my side of the pond, that can be liable should anything happen. We�re regulated by the laws of the State of Connecticut, the Better Business Bureau, and Consumer Protection Agency. You don�t have easy, knowledgeable access to such administrative bodies in China. We cooperate with TravelEx, one of the most reputable travel insurance companies in the world.

Hope you found this useful, eat dumplings - and good luck finding a job!

PS> If you are state-side call our office. We spend hours offering free consulting.
(860) 974-9988

Regards,

Keith Curran
[email protected]
www.journeyeast.org
www.businessESI.com
www.chinaschoolreview.org

[Roger]

I give Journeyeast the BENEFIT not of DOUBT but of BELIEF, at least this time. It sounds far more teacher-orientated than Chinese agents tend to be!

Anyway, it might work out for someone who hails from the U.S.A. or Canada; if in China, myu advice is: stay away from LOCAL recruiters/agents/go-betweens, whatever their function!

They are a bunch of opportunistic, greedy and totally unreliable characters. I happen to know two agents that I can recommend, perhaps three if I add the name of someone I knew 3 years ago as a trustworthy and friendly Chinese employer - but what is three years in this line of business?
Almost an eternity!

[NateM]

Someone posted a positive review of journeyeast.org over at my site:
http://p082.ezboard.com/fteachingenglishinchinafrm49.showMessage?topicID=99.topic

Still, I'm more than a little hesitant to recommend them, (and I make a note of that in a comment to the review). No matter how much you get for that 1300-1800 dollars, that's still a hell of a lot of money that you don't really need to spend if you look around and do your research properly. And given the recent ad blitz over here, I'm not sure if I completely trust the integrity of the review itself.