Job Discussion Forums

leowoman · Joined: 05 Feb 2006 Posts: 5

I'm a total newbie here, as this is my very first post, so please be gentle! Smile

I applied for a job and the e-mail response stated that I need to call the potential employer in Jakarta for my interview. Is this common, or is this something that should raise a red flag? The school seems to be a respectable one; I've read good things on this site about it.

Also, I know people have said things about being wary of schools who want to hire you and have you fly over and start work within a couple of weeks, but I haven't read anything specific about how common this is or why exactly it's any worse than setting up a job that starts in a month or two. Especially since I would really like to start working as soon as possible.

Any advice is appreciated!

ls650 · Joined: 10 May 2003 Posts: 3484 Location: British Columbia

I'm a bit surprised that they asked you to call them, and not the other way around. Unless this is some kind of a great job, I'd let them pay for the call with their dime.

leowoman · Joined: 05 Feb 2006 Posts: 5

I was surprised by this too. I'm pasting in the quote from the e-mail below:

"Due to the inadequate telephone lines in Indonesia, we recommend you telephoning school. Also due to the high cost of international phone calls, may we also suggest purchasing an international pre-paid phone card for Indonesia? In addition, I suggest preparing a list of questions for your telephone interview. This will help expedite the telephone call."

... Have you guys had problems calling internationally? Is this shady? And it seems that the "interview" aims to focus more on answering my questions than finding out what kind of teacher I would be. The name of the school is Sekolah Djuwita, and it's hiring for its branches in Jakarta and Batam, if that helps.

gugelhupf · Joined: 24 Jan 2004 Posts: 575 Location: Jabotabek

I know little about Djuwita other than they are a national plus school with a number of campuses, and they have been around for some time now.

The school I work for (also a Nat Plus) would never expect applicants to phone in for an interview, however. We would always call the applicant at our expense and for those already in Indonesia we might choose to fly them in for a face-to-face interview if we were sufficiently interested in meeting them.

Does anyone have experiences to share about working for Djuwita?

PS - don't worry too much about schools looking for someone to start at very short notice. On its own, this does not necesarily indicate a problem. Even the best schools occasionally need to recruit urgently to cover unforseen vacancies. If a school does this regularly, however, I'd be concerned.

leowoman · Joined: 05 Feb 2006 Posts: 5

Just an update - I tried to call, but I would not recommend that others do if asked.

It took me many attempts to get through, and when I did, the person who answered the phone was unable to direct me to the person I needed to speak with because we didn't speak the same language. So, in other words, the interview never took place.

The cost of the call wasn't a big deal because I bought a $5 calling card, but the whole thing was a bit of a waste of time.

Anyway, in the interest of helping out others who might find themselves in this situation, I would say try to work something else out, maybe q&a over e-mail, etc.