Job Discussion Forums

[Elegantstatue]

I have dealt with so many of them the past six months, I am thinking do they all suffer from a syndrome? I have not dealt with one that knows what they are doing! If I could apply directly to schools I would, however, that is really time consuming. There are too many schools in China in different locations, servicing diverse communities, of students all with different needs. Besides I can not read Mandarin. Most of the sites are in the Mandarin language only.

[OhBudPowellWhereArtThou]

Are you finding your recruiters or are they finding you? Sign up with a collective/agency which requires recruiters to pay a fee to see your resume. Putting your resume up on a publuc job board is THE worst way to get a recruiter.

[caleypatrick]

I have always dealt directly with schools/universities and it has worked in all occasions. A start would be to search for reviews of schools/unis you are looking at on this Board. I got some good/acceptable reviews on schools all over China and used those as a starting point. Also, schools/unis that have a website translation are usually pretty good, IMHO. Best of luck to you.

[OhBudPowellWhereArtThou]

[The bear]

Contacting schools directly can work, but it's a challenge getting through to the right person (I don't mean a recruiter like Bud mentioned, I mean the FAO or whoever is in charge of FT hiring).

Additionally, although all universities will have a website finding an email address can be a challenge, even on their English version. Then you never know if it's still a valid email address. Then you never know who the email went to or even if the person can speak English. Then the university may have enough FTs or not be interested at that moment and not reply. See my point?

Recruiters have a place, personally I'd say be wary and have a few key points you will not back down from. The recruiter will either find you a suitable position or give up. E.g. University work only, in Guangdong, salary above 7,000, fewer than 18 class hours, accommodation on campus, return flights. Something like that. You will probably get offers like "kindergarten teacher, Beijing, 12,000, accommodation. The recruiter is just chancing it and will try and sell that to you as they get a bigger cut, something like that.

So if you do use a recruiter, stick to your guns.

[Non Sequitur]

Missionary prospecting aka cold calling is worthwhile only if you have no help wanted ads to follow up.
Because lunar NY is earlier this year you'll likely not get responses right now.
By all means sort out which schools you want to pitch to, but wait until school's back before sending your emails.
For cold calling I tend to favour concentrating on one city at a time as you get an idea of the main players and I know the schools talk to each other.
Wikipedia is a good place to start. Here's a link to the education section of Wikipedia for Dalian.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalian#Education
Some school entries on Wikipedia have links the actual school website which saves trying to get there via Google search.

[CNexpatesl]

e59

[OhBudPowellWhereArtThou]

Try esljobs.com. I've never had a problem with them in twelve years. I don't accept every job offered, but if the recruiter doesn't know the answer to a question, she'll try to find out. If she can't get an answer, she'll say so, but she won't hound you.

A recruiter with esljobs.com got me summer work, and she read the riot act to an inexperienced, out-of-control FAO bimbo.

You can also try abroadchina.org. Your resume may be seen only by paying recruiters.

Horizon is also a good outfit. Many people don't like them because they (two Australians) make jobs available only to the qualified. If a school requests a Master degree, they want to see the degree. Horizon seems to have first pick of many Chinese schools. I've seen schools that it couldn't fill positions for with qualified candidates suddenly disappear from their website and appear on other websites. They are quite picky, and some folks resent it.

Good luck

OBPWAT

[Non Sequitur]

As a former recruiter I sometimes had to remind jobseekers that it is a case of follow the money. My fee came from the employer and their satisfaction was my concern.
The two Australians mentioned above have my full support as they seem to be injecting a bit of professionalism into cowboy land.
That said most recruitment is carried out on a contingency basis i.e. no cure no pay.
This means recruiters will encourage employers to see their PD as a wishlist and that candidates not quite up to spec should be considered too.

[OhBudPowellWhereArtThou]

[Non Sequitur]

Good points:
All the 'credential creep' as it's called in my country doesn't increase the supply.
The better hiring scene in the US, plus increased pollution and the declining value of the RMB when added to the apparent insistence on higher quals must be choking off supply.
At the end of the hiring season, does a less than top notch (but still acceptable) school run with the 8 teachers it can get which have all the degree and work experience requirements covered. The downside being to go without the 4 or 5 others it really needs to cover the classes.
This was a real issue at my last school which had a couple of 000 freshers all in a tourism-related major.
I would not have liked the job of explaining to parents why little Johnny isn't getting an FT, when little Jamie who went to the same high school is getting an FT.
I've probably said this before, but the better hunting grounds for low/no qualification teachers who have maturity and motivation, is the provincial level vocationals.
The websites of provincial schools have words like 'under the supervision/control of the eg Shandong Dept of Education'.

[thechangling]

Emily at Click china is very good in my experience. http://www.clickchn.com/index.aspx

[Non Sequitur]

I note the first uni ad indicates 6500 airfare, which is way down from the halcyon 10K I got at my first gig (2004).
Plus I got a 2500 winter holiday allowance.
Certainly seems a businesslike operator at first sight. They deserve support.

[jimpellow]

[caleypatrick]