Job Discussion Forums

[disregardedknowledge]

Hello. I realize there have been a lot of posts about AETG. However the 'most recent' seem to be the latter part of last year. I am thinking about applying for a position with them in Riyadh via a recruiter based in the U.K.

I am a male teacher who simply wants to know from anyone who has worked there recently or is working there now. Should I not apply? Please feel free to PM me, as the last thing I want to do is anger those of you who get very peeved when a new thread on an old topic is started.

My main concerns are how bad is discipline and the quality of the accomodation along with the difficulty or ease to commute to and from work.

Thank you for any advice or details.

Regards

[beccy_hay]

AETG are fine, you will have no problems working for them. Accommodation is great - compound for females. The males get apartments. I am happy that I did not listen to anything negative on the job board . As it turns out what was posted is really not true. I think that since they are using different recruiters a lot has changed and for the better. My contact in AETG was Salem, and really is a nice guy, very knowledgeable and completely honest. pm me if you have any questions.. I am very happy with AETG I have to say.

[veiledsentiments]

Posters with only one post can't use the PM. You need at least 5 posts.

Personally I always suspect a first post that is almost the first positive post on an employer. It is very rare for an employer to change their policies in the middle of an Academic year. Anything from September to now should be considered up to date... read both positive and negative to make your decision.

VS

[uptownpro]

i'M COMING OUT TO SAUDI NEXT MONTH TO WORK FOR AETG. i'M NERVOUS A LITTLE AND MY FAMILY THINK I HAVE GONE MAD... BUT IM COMING WITH AN OPEN MIND AND CLEAN HEART... TELL ABOUT YOU UPS AND DOWNS OUT THERE... OR ABOUT WHEN YOU FIRST GOT THERE WITH THE CULTURE SHOCK

[veiledsentiments]

First off... using all CAPS suggests that you are SCREAMING.

Be sure to do a search concerning this employer. Little good has come out about them so far.

VS

[milliman]

first off have any of you lot read this
http://www.expatexchange.com/expat/index.cfm?frmid=289&tpcid=3348294
its as recent as January 2011 so read. people and this not on the ESLcafe forum this is outside the forum

[veiledsentiments]

It didn't add much. I don't like the way that thread seemed totally disconnected. The one long post matches one that we had... likely the same person. Then there's a recruiting pitch in the middle of it all. That was right after an oddly positive post about AETG from the same poster.

It appears that things haven't changed...

VS

[milliman]

[milliman]

[DenUk]

Heya,

I'm thinking of applying via a U.K recruiter to AETG for a position in Riyadh.

Any up-to-date information about the recruiter and teachers currently working in KSA under AETG would be appreciated.

Regards,

D

[Abdellia]

I've also just received a job offer from AETG KSA. I am at a loss on what to do. On paper the package looks fine, however, I am seriously reconsidering after reading all these negative reviews. I would appreciate anyone who knows more about the current situation to please give us some input. I would love to get into contact with any one working there right now. Particularly males as I am a male entertaining the notion of going there. Thanks in Advance!

[hashim99uk]

[newbie147]

"An Arab is no better than a non-Arab. In return, a non-Arab is no better than an Arab. A red raced man was not better than a black one except in piety. Mankind are all Adam's children and Adam was created out of clay." [Al-Bukhari and Muslim, on the authority of Abu Musa]

[Commenter]

I started working for AETG last year. It was my first year working outside of my home country. This comment is mostly a general advice for people who are in the same position that I was before I joined them.

First of all, I would like to make it clear that Saudi Arabia is not suitable for all kinds of people.

If you intend to go there purely to save money, forget about it. If you plan to go there to change the society and spread your own opposing views, forget about it. If you plan to go there hoping to create your own little Western bubble in a foreign country, forget about it.

The reason I'm making this clear from the get-go is because it ultimately doesn't matter which company you're working for in KSA if Saudi isn't the place for you. It's a country where the culture is a very big part of the way business works, and almost all companies share attributes that are completely alien to the vast majority of Western teachers.

It's very easy to take this kind of advice lightly and believe that you can tough it out, but living and working in KSA for the relatively short time that I have, I've seen a number of teachers from a number of different backgrounds working for a number of different companies crumble under the pressure. Some of them quit after a few months, some seem to suffer badly from stress and/or depression, some are fired due to a lack of understanding of Saudi culture and some fall into a deep and dark pit of cynicism in which they do nothing but count the days until their contract finally finishes.

Having said that, I should make it clear that it is perfectly possible to live here and have a good and happy life. As a Muslim, I love living and working in Saudi. That doesn't mean that all Muslims will feel the same way, or all non-Muslims won't feel the same way by any means. In fact, no matter your religion, if you have buckets of patience, a generally optimistic and forgiving outlook on life and a good sense of perspective on the modern world, teaching in Saudi could well end up being the dream job for you.

I want to make this point explicitly clear, because it has a huge bearing on how you will find life at AETG should you end up working for them.

It would be very easy to say AETG is a good company or AETG is a bad company, but at the end of the day, they are a typical company to work for. They have their good and bad points just like all of the other companies. If you're the kind of person who is suited to working in KSA, then their bad points are easy enough to deal with.

They suffered from some bad press before I joined them, and I'm not sure if it had any influence, but I found that when it comes to visas and getting things done along official lines, they are excellent. For the process of getting you out there, they get things done properly and efficiently in comparison to other companies who will leave you to organise pretty much everything on your own. They are generally easy to contact in all situations (I've managed to get people to answer their mobiles and deal with my issues outside of their work hours), and all pay and benefits are usually on time and given with the minimum of fuss. The staff are also generally friendly and helpful as long they're not harassed too much.

They have an academy, which is pretty typical of most academies here in the country in terms of working hours being split shift, which, no doubt, most people would prefer not to work. However, the facilities/resources in the academy are generally of a high standard. They also contract staff to a number of different places all over Saudi, which all have their individual pros and cons. So if you find yourself working somewhere that you're not happy with, you should at least have the option to ask to be moved somewhere else.

I can't speak for every place of accommodation that they offer, but where they put me was fine. You should also have the option to take housing allowance anyway, so if there are any real problems, you should at least be able to go and find your own place to live.

I don't want to put anyone under the impression that working for AETG will be 100% headache free. Like I said before, they have their bad points, but then so does pretty much every company in almost all countries.

Again, to emphasise the point, if you're the type of person that can handle Saudi, then AETG can be a perfectly good choice for you. If not, you may be better off looking at another country.

[DeApple]

For the potential poor souls considering joining them........... avoit it like a plague, it is actually much worse !

Commenter,

Your comments are bias, totally partial and false statements, quite possibly advertisement from AETG itself.

I was there for two years and nothing of what you�ve stated is close to accurate. The fact of the matter is that even Saudi teachers made a point to let Westerners know that they are a very bad misrepresentation of their country.

Across nationalities, backgrounds, ages, we were cheated out of our hard earned money, had our passports taken away for over 6 months, left stranded at different parts of the country, airports, with illegal visas, misleading information, wrong documents, you name it, it happened. As Christians we have been discriminated on a daily basis even though Muslim teachers also have had their share of family, visas, accomodation issues raised because of their wrong doing, basically malice and lack of care.

It was very tolerant of them to block this site in Saudi in order for new teachers to go over there uninformed and change our Internet network at the compound from secure to non-secure so they could read everything we wrote.

Some of us have higher living and working standards that the single accomodation promised (that was never a reality) full of beatles, all kinds of crippy crawlers family size and constant foul smells (sewage) apart from the more often than not teacher on medication that cracked and made everyone else�s life impossible. The average weirdos is about 95% (counting depressed, lonely, neurotic, etc.) mostly "damaged goods" that could not make it anywhere else.

On the Academic side, at the uni we never had a working printer to be used for teaching purposes, most audio visual equipment was broken or locked and most of the time we had to buy board markers. The Academy had a wonderful split shift during Ramadan that left teachers working at midnight or teaching kids classes or conversation for 6 hours straight, no breaks.

The few people that could survive there sain in both counts were middle aged that had expat experience, mainly in Arabic countries, or had a goal (tuition fees to pay, mortgages, kids uni).

Saudi Administration people were overworked, underpaid and treated like dirt most of the time, therefore they spend a large part of their working schedule drinking tea, talking on the phone. I left quite a few friends there, mostly Syrians, Jordanians or Egyptians. The Westerners converted didn�t sound or looked the part to me.

This is a short summary of what they have done, more will come out in the book about the experience that I�m writing.

Good luck to the few decent female section persons that were actually dedicated, decent and tried to do the best they possibly could under extremely hard circunstances. My heart goes to them