Job Discussion Forums

[frankincensed]

Yes, and here's another thread (a continuation, since the other is locked now) to say that "ESL Bear" is again ignoring what others are saying, spreading more doubt and continuing the mis-information. I guess ELS, A'Sharqiyah and Buraimi must be perfect. Everyone else is wrong. Hmmm...I guess those of us that had a different experience must have been dreaming, been on drugs, been inexperienced or just a bunch of whiners. Just listen to "ESL Bear", he'll give you the right scoop.

[frankincensed]

I'll be back as well. I think people have a right to know what they're getting into from someone who's been there before them.
Incidentally, I've already moved on to something better. That's why I'm not still at A'Sharqiyah.
Good luck to you, too...

[Middle East Beast]

[madrileno]

This thread will probably get locked also. I think one of the mods must be an employee of ELS because any thread that emerges with negative information from former ELS employees ultimately gets locked...

[Middle East Beast]

Let's hope that's not true.

MEB

[Space Teacher]

[madrileno]

[johnslat]

Four days - not locked yet.

Regards,
John

[veiledsentiments]

Silly conspiracy theories I'd say...

Most of the time the reason for locking is obvious... people start attacking each other instead of just giving their side of the story. All those that have had a negative experience accuse individuals who had a positive experience to be a management plant... and their attacks get the thread locked... and so it goes.

If someone was trying to hide the facts about ELS, would they not delete the threads rather than lock them and leave them.

VS

[TheSilentKind]

It doesn't take much to look at earlier posts about ELS to see how many have been locked. I'm surprised these ones have lasted so long myself. It makes very interesting reading.

I wonder if the change in management for ELS Middle East will have any effect on ELS Oman.

[Win Some Lose Some]

A cautionary tale about what some might characterize as corrupt, dishonest (or maybe it's just incompetent), callous, applicant-abusing employees of this company.

I have been in touch with several people who received the "job offer" from this company. That was possible to do because the recruiter there who sent out a "job offer" email to a long list of email addresses so each of us was able to see all the other email addresses receiving the offer. None of the people I communicated with on that list has received a job with them.

Here is the worst, most abusive story I've heard from that list so far from one girl on the list. She was very thorough in documenting her story including the dates back in the middle of September of the emails she received telling her they would send her air ticket in a couple of days and they wanted her to come there immediately. I will paraphrase here rather than use direct quotes for obvious security reasons.

She wrote out this whole story for me in an email.

1 Around the middle of Sept. an employee at this company told her her visa application had been approved and they wanted her to come to Oman immediately.

2. Since her lease was up on her apartment right about that time, she didn't renew it because they said they would bring her to Oman within a couple of days. So, she moved into more expensive, short-term quarters to wait for her air ticket. She couldn't look for a longer-term, less expensive rental since she was told she would be going to Oman in couple of days.

3. She also, sold, gave away or abandoned everything that she couldn't take with her on the airplane including all her warm weather clothes. Who needs an expensive down coat in Oman, right?

4. Another employee of this company sent out an email around the same time to a larger group of job applicants saying that they wanted them all to fly to Oman on the following day and to please send their airports of departure so that she could send them an e-ticket. She said if they hadn't received visa approval yet to just bring all their documents and that would be completed after they arrived .So, the girl sent them her airport of departure.

5. Then in a couple of days, she wrote back to the girl who sent the email saying the company would bring them all to Oman right away to ask why she hadn't received her air ticket yet.

6. The girl at this company wrote back and said they had NOT actually received visa approval yet for this girl and she would have to wait until it arrived before they would send her e-ticket.

So, she waited a very long time (more than a month) and checked in with them regularly until she finally realized this unscrupulous company didn't give a damn about what they had done to her by giving her the false information that her visa had been approved and to prepare to come there in a couple of days, and then basically abandoning her while she waited (foolishly, I must say) for them to fulfill any of their false promises.

I gave up on the phony promises a bit earlier than her, but also suffered quite a bit of disruption as a result of this false, disreputable behavior.

I am posting this story basically as a caution to others regarding ANY promises made by what many might conclude is a completely unscrupulous, disreputable company.

So, if any others have positive stories regarding how they were treated in their dealings with this company, hopefully they will post them here to provide some "balance" to this sincere and honest story of woe. The only suggestion I would make to counter-posters is that it would probably be more useful to hear about your experiences with this company during the July to October of 2011 period rather than your experiences from an earlier time. As we all know a lot of these sorts of companies have a high degree of turnover among their administrative staff.

Maybe, some of their recruits did actually get hired during this July - October, 2011 period, get their ticket, go there and go to work teaching at one of these 2 unis. Maybe we'll here their more upbeat stories.

Since they are still currently advertising on various ESL sites for these positions, it is hoped that this warning can help to others to avoid such grief based on false promises from this company.
----------------
BTW, wikipedia says they are a wholly-owned subsidiary of Berlitz of Princeton, N.J. I guess maybe that would be a good place to start making complaints about raw treatment by this org n Oman if you believe it to be as such.

[Win Some Lose Some]

Another member of this forum sent me a PM telling of his horror story trying to deal with this org. He said to feel free to share the story with anyone, so this looks like the place where it can do the greatest good for the greatest number of people.

So, here it is in his own words:

Hi there, you wouldn't believe my experience with them.....my visa has been issued long time ago and I have not been informed about it. I have tried to reach a girl (that the company assigned to processed with my application ) at the company but she never replied to my e-mails, I tried to call her and never pick up the phone ? Now...how did I find about the visa ....(funny story) I kind of forgot about this company and started to look around for another one. I applied for Uni of Nizwa, they interviewed me...things were going well...they asked for documents .....one week later...they phoned me stating that I have a work visa with a company issued early in August ( the interview with Nizwa was in late Sep) the HR manager in Nizwa called me to explain this messed up situation ? till the moment that I am writing this to you I never heard from the company whatsoever. I emailed her but she never replied.....

Is it a matter of booking teachers or they had enough teachers to work for them and forgetting about the rest .....the problem is that I can't enter Oman without having someone from the company side waiting in the airport to give me the official visa.

Here is my story....feel free to share it with others...
=======================
My own words: I'm looking forward to hearing the positive experiences that any new applicants have had with them in the July - Oct, 2011 period, if any.

[Sleepwalker]

I hope someone in the MOHE is reading and passes this on to Immigration.

Some years ago, I received a job offer from them after asking for more details about the positions on offer. Last year, I was contacted again and I asked for details of positions and locations. I never heard from them.

[madrileno]

That's just depressing.

I can report that they are short staffed at both unis. Both are in desperate need of more teachers. (The one at U of Buraimi has everyone working 30 contact hours).

That, along with the fact they're hiring surplus teachers only to not organize their transfer to Oman speaks volumes about the company's management and organizational skills.

[Win Some Lose Some]

Thanks for what appear to be your on-site observations, madrileno.

From what I've heard there are several applicants whose visa requests have been at the MoHE for almost 6 weeks but the company can't be bothered with contacting MoHE to see what the problem is.