Job Discussion Forums

[balqis]

Advice requested. How to go about looking for tertiary university jobs in Russia? Is the only way to do the search to visit websites of each university and apply only if there are vacancies announced [and there are almost none ever].
Please, any advice will be welcome.

Greetings from the Middle East,

balqis

ps. Any info the possibility of ESL tertiary jobs in the Caucasus?

[Sashadroogie]

I know very little about this. None of my non-Russian EFL colleagues knows either. Not too many foreign people take jobs in Russian universities. Mainly on account of the fact the pay is below poverty level. It is not what you might expect university salaries to be if you base expectations on salaries on the situation in home countries. 500$ a month, or something similarly impossible, is what most people say is the case in Russia - prestigious unis too. Russians manage it because they have their own homes and get pensions and holidays etc and have time for private work.

Private colleges will probably be the only way to earn enough to be based in Russia, unless you have independent means.

Sorry to be so down. I may even be a little inaccurate in the figures above, but I'd doubt you'd earn anything close enough to support yourself. I may be wrong though. Hopefully other more knowledgeable posters will advise you better.

[spiral78]

I can add that university positions in Central Europe are also relatively poorly-paid. I suspect it's a holdover from socialism - education and medicine have not been entirely shifted over to 'capitalist' and teachers and medical staff from nurses to the most elite surgeons are not paid anything like parity with those in the West.

I've got the qualifications and contacts to get uni jobs in Central Europe, and would dearly love to be there, doing that, but simply can't afford to. It's below subsistence pay, as Sasha says.

[balqis]

Thank you Sasha Daragooj and Spiral78.

But suppose I were still interested and wanted to test my options. How would I find job announcements? Is the only way just to go from unis' website to website and check if there are vacancies?
I tried it but there are almost none ever, none at all for a fact !
Then what else can I do? Send my ESL file to their English departments?


balqis


ps Perhaps a line on the ESL jobs in Caucasus?

[Sashadroogie]

As I said, I don't really know much about this. I think, and this is just guessing, that you would need to apply in person, on spec, if you really want to pursue a job in this sector. This would mean beating the pavement on a tourist visa, and then hoping that the uni is equipped to 'convert' your visa to a work visa. Alternatively direct phone calls may be a way to start.

Also, any ESL jobs that may be going would barely resemble ESL as we know it. Lots of translation work etc. so unless your Russian is pretty good, it may prove hard to convince a uni that you offer something valuable that their Russian staff does not. Unis generally don't 'do' communicative lessons...

The Caucasus includes a few different countries. Can't say anything about ESL Uni sector there at all, except that I would guess it is similar to Russia in terms of structure, but even more poorly-paid.

Again, sorry to sound like a Cassandra here, but the reason there is so little solid info around, from the 'net or from other posters, is because nobody in ESL seems to work in Russian universities.

Good luck in any case, and if you do get a position, please report back to us. I'd be most interested to hear the details. Curiosity has been pricked.

[balqis]

Thank you Sasha Daragooj
I will report here if I have anything to report about my quest.

Greetings from Oman,

balqis



ps. my Russian exists rather than not; never thought it might be of any use but now you have made me think it might;

[coledavis]

I get the impression that, as native speakers are not the norm, you apply to universities directly. Generally speaking, you require either a degree which includes at least some applied linguistics. As for the salary, what people often do is to teach an agreed number of hours, e.g. 12, thus justifyng their visa for the university, and then do other things, such as Skype teaching, to earn effectively their main income.

[jpvanderwerf2001]

I can only speak for Vladivostok. As far as I know, every native speaker who works for a uni here is a Fullbrighter, or a long-term expat (just taking hours for the heck of it). As Sasha pointed out, pay here is pretty terrible at unis, at least as compared to the private sector.
If you're still interested, my guess is that showing up and knocking on doors would be the most effective method of finding a uni job.
Good luck

[balqis]

Thank you to All for your replies.

Please, more if anyone has a suggestion.


Greetings from Oman,

balqis

ps. Coledavis, so I will do as you suggest, apply through email to various unis by sending my ESL file.
Thank you for the tip, which confirms my intuition of how to go about it.

[Dyadya Misha]

I have a couple of friends who teach part time in universities, mainly on the back of some institutions branching out into wider curricula. However, as others have said, for full time positions the pay is so low you literally wouldn't believe the numbers if you got an accurate figure, and consequently nobody I know has ever come across a non-CIS Russian university tutor/lecturer in full time employment.

[jpvanderwerf2001]

I know a full-time lecturer, but his pay is rather low (commiserate with his lack of qualifications, I might add).

[spiral78]

I can't speak for Russia, but I can say that the Prague McSchool teachers make considerably more than a full-fledged university lecturer in the Czech system. I expect it's the same.

[balqis]

Thanks Gents, all remarks dearly valued.

Please contribute, whenever you have something to say. Even a line with insight help. I earn here 3000$ but almost daily before I go to work I watch Russian movies with winter landscape. For all my love for the desert and its meaning, this is what I watch con amore. So probably I am somewhere close to my limit.

Please add even a line.

Greetings from Oman,

balqis

[spiral78]

[Dyadya Misha]