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Taokyaki
Joined: 17 Dec 2009
Posts: 1
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 Posted: Mon Jan 25, 2010 3:39 pm Post subject: RCS |
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Hi there,
I have two questions. Any thoughts you have would be appreciated!
#1:
I'm a newb on the forum! I'm trying to find information on RCS beyond "all ALTS dispatchers are terrible." Google has not turned up much. I saw that someone else on the forum had a similar question but was answered via PM. Is there anyone currently working at RCS who would be able to give their opinion about their situation?
#2:
I have been applying for eikaiwa positions (replying to posts from smaller companies) as well but have not heard back at all. I have scoured the web for resume/CL tips in an effort to make my submission materials as complete as possible, yet still nothing. To what extent can I assume that it's the effects of slow hiring versus something that I am doing wrong?
(I have no TEFL cert. or formal experience, but I have camp counselor, babysitting, and Japanese-English tutoring experience.)
Thank you very much! |
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Imseriouslylost
Joined: 09 Nov 2009
Posts: 123
Location: Tokyo
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| Posted: Mon Jan 25, 2010 3:59 pm Post subject: |
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| PM sent. |
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fluffyhamster
Joined: 13 Mar 2005
Posts: 3292
Location: UK > China > Japan > UK again
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| Posted: Mon Jan 25, 2010 4:19 pm Post subject: |
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Well, I wouldn't exactly hold your breath waiting for a reply along the lines of 'AET dispatchers are now uniformly fantastic, with RCS being the absolute very best of the wonderful bunch'. And people nowadays are probably feeling even luckier to have any sort of job (even if that job is worse than before), and may be lacking the time if not money to continue participating in the "luxury" of internet discussion.
By the way Taokyaki, where are you now? If you're applying from outside Japan, it may be very difficult to get noticed when you lack experience and/or any qualification in ELT specifically. (I should know - after leaving JET in 2002, and even with my certs and all my experience, it took me almost a year applying from the UK end to get hired back into Japan, and those were generally better times!).
Last edited by fluffyhamster on Fri Jan 29, 2010 3:28 am; edited 2 times in total |
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lenoreelux
Joined: 30 Nov 2009
Posts: 44
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| Posted: Mon Jan 25, 2010 8:49 pm Post subject: |
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Right now, Anything is better than working at Best Buy or anyother retail company.  |
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Glenski
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
Posts: 12844
Location: Hokkaido, JAPAN
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| Posted: Mon Jan 25, 2010 9:56 pm Post subject: |
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Stay away from RCS. Period.
Are you in Japan? If not, then don't waste your time sending letters to smaller eikaiwas unless they say something about phone interviews in their ads. In fact, if they aren't advertising, don't waste time cold calling either.
Come here soon or just deal with the employers who recruit from overseas. The market is full, so expect lots of competition. Your "experience" is almost irrelevant (but cite it anyway), and any other reason you may not have heard from employers may be related to that or simply to the way you wrote a resume/cover letter. Can't tell without seeing either. |
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mhard1
Joined: 09 Dec 2009
Posts: 54
Location: Japan
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| Posted: Tue Jan 26, 2010 3:44 pm Post subject: |
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I see a lot of people bashing RCS but I really do not think it is as relevant now as it might have been previously. I have mentioned in another post that I work for RCS, and all in all I think its a great company. It should be seen for what it is though, which is a first step and a foot in Japan. As I mentioned before, bring plenty of money to get started (about $3,000 at least) to keep you going before your first paycheck. Also start doing some research on the areas you want to work in.
RCS from what I have been told has experienced change in management sometime before I joined, so although it carries somewhat of a bad reputation, it is actually quite a good company to work for now in my opinion.
Good Luck! |
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fluffyhamster
Joined: 13 Mar 2005
Posts: 3292
Location: UK > China > Japan > UK again
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| Posted: Tue Jan 26, 2010 4:00 pm Post subject: |
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Granted, Mhard, RCS isn't the worst (nastiest, most hyporitical, insensitive, unsupportive etc etc) dispatcher around, but dispatch is by definition not good (for anyone other than the dispatcher) - in fact, it's illegal 'intermediate exploitation'. But as you're currently working for them (and don't worry, I was "guilty" of that too, for a year), perhaps you could divulge if e.g. they're paying half into any sort of acceptable NHI nowadays - or will they expect their AETs to simply leave Japan after a year (when NHI premiums, whoever's paying them, shoot up, but one will need to have been paying and continue paying them i.e. be in that system, in order to get one's work visa renewed)?   |
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seklarwia
Joined: 20 Jan 2009
Posts: 1546
Location: Monkey onsen, Nagano
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| Posted: Tue Jan 26, 2010 9:58 pm Post subject: |
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| Our RCS ALTs are in comparison worse off than the other dispatch ALTs in the area. I don't think their has been any huge conflicts with management amongst them, but they get paid less than 250,000 and are not reimbursed for travel expenses. |
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Glenski
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
Posts: 12844
Location: Hokkaido, JAPAN
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Imseriouslylost
Joined: 09 Nov 2009
Posts: 123
Location: Tokyo
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| Posted: Wed Jan 27, 2010 4:52 am Post subject: |
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| mhard1 wrote: |
I see a lot of people bashing RCS but I really do not think it is as relevant now as it might have been previously. I have mentioned in another post that I work for RCS, and all in all I think its a great company. It should be seen for what it is though, which is a first step and a foot in Japan. As I mentioned before, bring plenty of money to get started (about $3,000 at least) to keep you going before your first paycheck. Also start doing some research on the areas you want to work in.
RCS from what I have been told has experienced change in management sometime before I joined, so although it carries somewhat of a bad reputation, it is actually quite a good company to work for now in my opinion.
Good Luck! |
| Glenski wrote: |
| Stay away from RCS. Period. |
Glenski, its good advice in theory but for people looking for a way into Japan, working for a dispatch agency that hires abroad is much safer than landing in Japan and hoofing it.
I've read terrible stuff on every well known dispatch agency in Japan. But I've also spent long hours browsing job websites where nearly every single listing says: "only hires from within Japan."
For those looking to get into Japan, dispatch agencies and big Eikaiwa are the only ways to go. It is the same as it was here for me. I needed a way in, so I ended up working at a horrible Eikaiwa for a year (or "Hagwon"), made connections and learned my way around, then jumped into something much better.
A dispatch agency isn't going to kill you, although it might make you uncomfortable. While you're in Rome, though, you can do as the Romans do and begin making connections and looking for something better. In today's market people don't really seem to have a lot of choices.
That and all the negative spotlight I can find online about RCS is stuff that happened years ago. In the Taber case, correct me if I'm wrong, RCS was forced to change their business in order to begin to pay during vacations.
Anyway, just my two Yen. I know you're our resident expert but from the outside looking in, things are pretty rough and I'm certainly not daft about the industry.
Besides, happy people don't complain on internet forums. |
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robertokun
Joined: 27 May 2008
Posts: 199
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| Posted: Wed Jan 27, 2010 6:24 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
| working for a dispatch agency that hires abroad is much safer than landing in Japan and hoofing it. |
If you have some savings, I'd generally disagree with this. |
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ssjup81
Joined: 15 Jun 2009
Posts: 664
Location: Adachi-ku, Tokyo, Japan
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| Posted: Wed Jan 27, 2010 6:46 am Post subject: |
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| robertokun wrote: |
| Quote: |
| working for a dispatch agency that hires abroad is much safer than landing in Japan and hoofing it. |
If you have some savings, I'd generally disagree with this. |
True, but I bet most people who are looking for work don't have those savings, especially right now. I know I don't. I used up my savings ages ago after losing my job. |
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Glenski
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
Posts: 12844
Location: Hokkaido, JAPAN
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| Posted: Wed Jan 27, 2010 8:01 am Post subject: |
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| Imseriouslylost wrote: |
| Glenski wrote: |
| Stay away from RCS. Period. |
Glenski, its good advice in theory but for people looking for a way into Japan, working for a dispatch agency that hires abroad is much safer than landing in Japan and hoofing it.
I've read terrible stuff on every well known dispatch agency in Japan. But I've also spent long hours browsing job websites where nearly every single listing says: "only hires from within Japan." |
Look.
1. Not every employer hires only from within Japan. You have not seen enough ads.
2. If every well known dispatch agency is bad (and I will practically confirm that with the posts I've seen on half a dozen forums), then isn't that a strong hint to avoid them? If not, please explain why!
To say, "Well, they're bad but what else can we do but show up?" is naive. Sorry, but that's true. You have options.
a) Come here. Yes, but come prepared. Plenty of us helpful people provide knowledgeable advice (and some of us have been doing it for a decade!). You almost make it sound as if coming here to job hunt is to come unprepared, or that it is a hopeless endeavor. It's not.
b) Stay home, save your money, hunt from the comfort zone of your homeland. There is no disgrace in that. There is only a limited number of opportunities, but most of them are trustworthy in supplying reduced or free airfare, housing, and visa sponsorship. Come here, and you will have to deal with ads where they don't give sponsorship, and airfare is already gone. You may even (in most cases) be able to do all the interviewing in your homeland, which again saves a lot of headaches, whether you have to travel to a recruiting site or do it online with a Skype interview.
Why on earth would you pooh-pooh a crummy setup like dispatch over what else I have written above? Please explain that.
| Quote: |
| For those looking to get into Japan, dispatch agencies and big Eikaiwa are the only ways to go. |
And, it is the eikaiwas that are in the majority of employers who recruit abroad. You conveniently failed to mention them.
Besides, there are other routes:
international schools (for the qualified)
business English schools (for the qualified)
direct hire (rare but possible for the qualified)
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| A dispatch agency isn't going to kill you, although it might make you uncomfortable. |
It's do a lot more than make you "uncomfortable". You don't do justice to your earlier remark about them ("terrible stuff").
| Quote: |
| While you're in Rome, though, you can do as the Romans do and begin making connections and looking for something better. |
Sound advice, but you don't have to limit yourself to a crummy illegal dispatch situation to do that.
| Quote: |
| In today's market people don't really seem to have a lot of choices. |
For the unqualified there are the 2 options above, 3 if you count JET.
| Quote: |
| That and all the negative spotlight I can find online about RCS is stuff that happened years ago. |
Every time RCS gets mentioned, only bad reports come in. There are darned few to no reports that I know of which support such a place.
| Quote: |
| In the Taber case, correct me if I'm wrong, RCS was forced to change their business in order to begin to pay during vacations. |
I don't know. That post was incomplete, sadly.
| Quote: |
| from the outside looking in, things are pretty rough and I'm certainly not daft about the industry. |
But you did overlook some aspects that I have just pointed out. Please consider them carefully. Yes, the market in Japan is pretty rough right now. That should be a slap of reality in the faces of those who think that they can/should just come here and take whatever they can get, especially if it's only a dispatch job! Too many people these days are in a rush to get here, and they want a quick fix to their job-hunting demands. Most are qualified only by virtue of having a vanilla degree, no experienced, and that should also slap people into an awakening of what they should consider, especially if they have a mind to do TEFL long-term, not only in Japan. That is, get some credentials (experience, certification, maybe even a teaching-related degree).
I'm sure there will be some who will see all of this text as a "stop" sign. There have been those who say that Glenski doesn't want people to come to Japan and teach, and that he is a naysayer and spouts doom and gloom all the time. I say, read what I write. It's practical, sound advice tempered by personal experience and staying abreast of things on several forums for a long time. There will always be people who just want to test the waters of TEFL everywhere. Fine. No problem. Believe it or not, I was one of them. But 2010 is not a good time to do it blindly. That's mostly what I am saying. If you come blind or fail to heed some warnings about the situation here, will you come back and whine about it and ask where to go / what to do next? Many do. But why put yourself in that position?
P.S. You are not "daft".
P.S.S. I am not "the" resident Japan expert. One of them, ok, but there are plenty on this and other forums who know things I don't. Heed them, too. |
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fluffyhamster
Joined: 13 Mar 2005
Posts: 3292
Location: UK > China > Japan > UK again
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| Posted: Thu Jan 28, 2010 1:03 am Post subject: |
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| Imseriouslylost wrote: |
| Besides, happy people don't complain on internet forums. |
Most people are generally quite happy and pottering along nicely until they are given good reasons to become somewhat "unhappy" - and dispatchers can provide quite a few. But as to why more AETs don't then post negative accounts (i.e. is it just a disaffected few airing unfair grievances), this is probably because most either simply can't be bothered (just like they can't be bothered to really learn and post much about anything ELT-related such as grammar, language practice activities etc), or because (somewhat like you, it would seem) they would view "dwelling" on anything remotely negative (I'd prefer to call it being honest and realistic) to somehow reflect badly on them as a person, even though such information could be of great use to others in helping them reach an informed decision (rather than an all too simple "good" or "bad" one).
But ideally of course, nobody would ever have to even hear about let alone experience anything remotely unsavoury!  |
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