Job Discussion Forums

[Angelfish]

Hi. I'm new here, so please forgive me if I ask anything really dumb or obvious, feel free to tell me if I'm being blatently thick

I've just been accepted to work for Geos and I was just looking really to get a bit of info from people who are already doing it, have done it, just as a bit of first-hand knowledge.

Ok, how easy is it to "up" your salary? I mean, they say you're paid overtime, but is it hard to claim? Is it easy to get some good return on the commission side of things? Is there an unwritten amount of overtime you end up doing but don't get paid for? Jus tthat kinda thing.

Also, what are the apartments like? Do you get good value for money? Is it worth finding somewhere else once you're there? Are you normally in a decent area? What should you bring to supplement the furnishings you're provided with?

Feel free to add anything else you think I should know but I haven't asked about.

Thanks.

[PAULH]

Frequently Asked Questions | GEOS Language Corp. - How can I find out more about GEOS? Can I moonlight while working for GEOS?
Does GEOS offer six-month contracts? ... Due to the fact that the working visa is for a minimum of one year, all GEOS contracts are on a one-year renewable ...


www.geoscareer.com/faqs.html - 18k - ????? - ?????

www.geoscareer.com/testimonial_program_coordinator.html - 11k -

www.letsjapan.org/print.php?sid=94 - 18k - ?


CAN I MOONLIGHT WHILE WORKING FOR GEOS?
No. Japanese Immigration law states that if a company sponsors your Working Visa, you may only work for that company. Therefore, if you worked for GEOS and did some moonlighting on the side, you would be breaking Japanese law.

P.S. This is FALSE. There is no Japanese law against teachers moonlighting. They just dont want you poaching students to teach as privates or being too tired to work your main job.

[Angelfish]

Ah, that's good to know. A bit of teaching on the side isn't gonna get you locked up.
Thanks

[seanmcginty]

I worked for GEOS for one year. That was from 1999-2000 so my info is probably a little dated.

You can pretty much never claim over time with them, I never met anyone who did. They compute it by teaching hour, but most of the classes are 45 or 50 minutes, so even though you are probably working for the whole hour they subtract those minutes from your weekly total.

I don't know what the commissions are like today, but they were all right when I was there. The people who hired me said it would be 40,000-50,000 yen per month, which was total BS. But some months I would get 20,000 or so extra yen, others it would be almost nothing depending on whether there was a campaign or not.

The apartments are very luck of the draw. Some of them are really nice and have a great location, others are in run-down buildings in the middle of nowhere. I got stuck with a pretty lousy one that was pretty far from work, but I only paid 45,000 yen per month versus my coworker with the nice apartment right in town who paid about 75,000. You definitely don't need to worry about furnishings, all the apartments are so small that you literally couldn't fit any furniture into them beyond what the school has already provided.

You can work on the side. I had a side job on my day off at the YWCA that brought me a few extra thousand a week. It depends on your manager, some will just wink at it, but you might get stuck with an anal retentive one who you'll have to hide it from.

[madeira]

I worked for GEOS from 2000 to fairly recently.

Overtime is automatically paid if you go over (was 26) hours of teaching time per week. I usually had some overtime... but I was constantly trying to reduce my teaching hours. You really don't want that many classes!

Bonuses... I had some large group lessons, so at least 1000/week. (You get 500 yen for each hour you teach a class with over 7 or 8 people). The other bonuses varied a lot, and tended to be seasonal. Books are tough to sell. Not that they're bad, but most are geared to lower levels. By the time students get to a native speaker's class, they already own tons of them.

Work on the side: If you're worried about it, GEOS actually can give you extra work evenings and mornings. E-geos was pretty fun, and they also have corporate contracts. The pay isn't bad.

The only thing I never did was teach GEOS students on the side. They'll ask you to! My managers let me use my classroom on my days off for language exchange, though. I was a bit surprised...

[lalalateda]

I heard a rumour that GEOS teachers aren't aloud to socialize with foreign teachers from other eikaiwas. Any truth there?

[Hoser]

That sounds even stupider than NOVA's rule about fraternizing with students.

[PAULH]

[seanmcginty]

I had lots of friends from other Eikaiwa when i worked at GEOS and I never heard anything about any no-socializing with the competition policy. I'm pretty sure that is just a myth.

[angrysoba]

I worked for GEOS for about three years from 2000, and they're not such a bad company to work for at least to get your foot in the door and give you some experience.

The chances of getting any substantially higher amounts of pay are pretty low though. When I worked there they did have the 500 yen bonuses for classes of over eight students but it amounts to the price of one beer and I taught very few classes that size in my whole time I was there.

You do get certain bonuses for book sales and for renewals of contracts, if you're very enthusiastic about that side of the job then you could end up with a few extra thousand a month.

Recently, they've had a certain drop off in students and their response has been to make up their shortfall in profits by having students buy additional texts at the time of their joining (effectively raising the price of joining the schools - a rather typical display of their business expertise) and they often have other subtle ways of making money elsewhere.

An example of that is the Leo Palace apartments. Whereas most people who stay in Leo Palace don't have to pay utilities, GEOS pay higher rents on their Leo Palace apartments and also pay utilities bills straight to GEOS.

If you want to pay less for rent and so effectively get paid more you might want to look around for other accomodation once you get to Japan.

On the positive side, they usually have alot of resources for new teachers and provide a good starting point. Also, using their accomodation does cut down on alot of hassle that finding an apartment can cost, you just have to pay for that privelege.

[Angelfish]

Thanks. This has been really helpful.

Definitely looking forward to going.

[lalalateda]

Just to clarify: I didn't here the socializing thing from any GEOS people. I was actually pretty sure it wasn't the case. My employer told me that when he was trying to get me to adhere to such a policy. Nice guy, huh.

[angrysoba]

The non-socializing policy would be particularly harsh if you ended up in a school in the sticks where you could well be the only native teacher in the school and you would have to work out Japan all by yourself.

That isn't the case though, they do allow you to mix with teachers from other eikaiwa and in the case of socializing with students it is pretty much obligatory as you are expected to go to GEOS parties (all well and good if you teach 19-year-old University chicks)

[Willy_In_Japan]

When I worked for GEOS two years ago, it was policy at that time that you could NOT do ANY English teaching at ALL according to the trainers........EVEN if it was FREE or "Language exchange".

The trainers told us that if they found that we were doing privates that we would be dismissed.

Take that for what it is worth.

Oh ya, and my 'extra payments' each month ranged from zero to 5,000 yen or so. I would say a good 'average' was 3000 yen........a far cry from the huge amounts that the recruiters told us we would be making......

The guy from 'Lets Japan' used to earn huge amounts on extra payements, but that was over 10 years ago I think.

[Angelfish]

Surely if say you do an extra hour or two teaching each week though, you should be in line for about 12,000 - 24,000 extra a month (according to their contract which states 3,000 yen for each extra hour taught), unless you're saying it's very difficult to claim or prove?