Job Discussion Forums

[daniel of blackmore]

I recently received something resembling a job offer from RCS (�where would you like to be located?� �We look forward to working with you in April� etc.) But in a recent email they informed me that I would be introduced to the board of education at the end of this month, and If I was accepted I would be given a contract to sign. The conflict of language between �introduce� and �accept� threw me a little I must admit. Have I not already been accepted if they are sending me details of positions and details of accommodation? Or is this �introduction� really just another interview where I could still fall flat on my face and lose the job I thought I already had?
My more positive assumptions were that the introductions are to determine placement rather than employment, or really just a formal introduction, which doesn�t explain as to why the word �accept� was used. To be honest I misplaced some of the reading material I was given at the interview (I know, dopey thing to do) so I didn�t want to ask RCS a question I already had been given the answer to if I�d only studied the materials they had given me properly. I know I had to meet the approval of the board of education but I was never told in my interview I would meet them face-to-face before any conclusions about employment had been made. I assumed that RCS would hand them information about me and that would be the approval stage cause that�s what I remember being told. It makes perfect sense to me that the board of education would want to meet me, but how far have I actually got in terms of final employment at this stage? Should I keep looking for other things to fall back on or have I more or less landed on my feet?

[Quibby84]

First off, stop worrying!

If your ALT position works like mine did then you have nothing to worry about. Your dispatcher received your resume, they sent it out to this specific school board. The school board looked over your resume and liked what they saw. So they tell the dispatcher, then the dispatcher takes you for an introduction. I was worried to, but my dispatcher told me that unless they REALLY hated me or I did something REALLY stupid, then I had the job (they pretty much go off of your resume and picture). So we meet this guy who asked us our names (there were three of us) and where we were from then he said "ok"...and that was it. We were taken to our school and shown around.
Then we went to work the next week...easy as pie (if pie was easy...)

[flyingkiwi]

The introduction is exactly that. Don't worry. Just talk a little Japanese (that always impresses them), sit up straight, smile and bow. Unless you totally screw up you have the job. Enjoy.

[markle]

[fluffyhamster]

I agree with markle. Things will hopefully work out fine, but you can't ever get complacent. It is entirely possible that you may not be selected by the BOE*, and there could be a limit to the number of meetings that RCS is prepared to arrange for you to get you fully accepted and placed.

In an ideal world, of course, either the dispatcher would actually be licensed and offering you many more basic legal rights (i.e. they really would be your employer, caring and supportive, and tell the overly fussy BOE to get stuffed - that it can't pick and choose, "hire" and certainly not fire at will or whim), or the BOE would directly employ you and do the selection and hiring themselves (and it would again be difficult to just fire you for no good reason, and that's if you'd have any problems to complain about despite you getting your full package of basic benefits and rights)...but such is the "unqualified" perception and status of much of TEFL (versus supposedly uniformly qualified state teachers).

After the fiasco with RCS (detailed at links below) that made most AET's jobs with at least one BOE untenable, I was about ready to pack in the dispatch AET lark and leave Japan. Borderlink however came to the rescue with soothing words and promises (they were aware of how we'd been treated by RCS), but whaddya know, within a term they'd transformed completely into sociopathic parasitic corporate vampires and were making completely unreasonable, in fact worse, demands and deductions themselves (so I left them too, and will never ever work dispatch again).
http://forums.eslcafe.com/job/viewtopic.php?t=45983
http://forums.eslcafe.com/job/viewtopic.php?p=615616#615616

Do a search also for 'borderlink', 'interac', 'dispatc*' etc.

Anyway, I would be VERY WARY of working for these kinds of companies, because once reality bites (as it probably soon will), there will be very few (ever fewer, or at least ever less attractive) options available at this (entry) level (few AETs seem to want to go (back) to eikaiwa, especially the big ones, and there is even less chance of getting a job at a nice cushy small eikaiwa than there is of getting hired and being satisfied with the conditions that most dispatchers offer). Dispatchers would rather fire you than give you enough money for you to be able to cover your train fares and food, let alone rent etc, and taking even unpaid leave is often not allowed (because if you don't get paid, neither does the company - at least that's what I'm assuming, given the urgency and ways (threats) with which they might force you to work on those days you'd really prefer not to. If there was money in flogging dead corpses (not so unlike the worst AETs come to think of it LOL), believe me, these companies would do it).

*Assuming that you indeed get to meet them, that is! Dispatch companies operate on the basis that they will get more contracts than they actually end up with (i.e. that they will need more teachers than turns out to be necessary), and the BOEs can delay deciding on who's finally won the bid until quite late...so the dispatcher sometimes ends up without enough jobs of any kind to offer some unlucky souls; and the situation is exacerbated somewhat by BOEs demanding that they get to "interview" a few extra faces from which they can then take their pick (see second para above). One of the worst companies for this is w5 Staff Services - they were always telling me they in fact now had no work (even after a successful interview and promises of meeting with BOEs), then writing to me a month or so later, in late April or even May, with some "last minute"(!!!) offer, when I'd've obviously been forced to look elsewhere in the interim; in fact, I never got to meet a BOE through them. With RCS, I got "lucky" at the first meeting. Borderlink was surely the worst offender though and always seemed to parade far more AETs than was strictly necessary (in scenes reminiscent of the slave auctions in Gladiator), meaning that I had to go to several BOEs before one chose me. BOEs should hire directly, and preferably more locally, and spare everyone the headless chicken run-around scrabbling after peanuts both before and after the jobs proper have begun - the AETs would certainly be happier for it and be prepared to work harder. As it is, AETs seem to be viewed at the highest level at least as unwelcome and unbeneficial, which begs the question, why continue to "hire" them at all? One can only hope that the number of eager applicants will shrink as the wages and conditions spiral ever downwards. Maybe what Japan could do with is a scheme like the NET one in Hong Kong (i.e. one that seeks qualified teachers, as opposed to JET etc). Sorry, rambling away here!

[Weezer]

[Glenski]

Weezer,
I think the worries are over. You're replying to a 3-year-old post.