Job Discussion Forums

[estanton]

I'm very grateful for the awesome comments I received in response to my other post , so I have one more.

I have read many times in posts that the best way to get jobs in Mexico is to go there and contact people.

At the same time I read the poll where people seemed to say they actually got jobs through the Internet, so I'm not planning to neglect that either.

Aside from responding to Dave's jobs, I have a few lists of schools from my CELTA program and a Teaching English Abroad book they gave me, so I will just start calling the numbers on those lists and asking for fax numbers or e-mails (when I don't already have those) to send along my resume.

My question here, though: if/when I try to actually go there and do the word-of-mouth thing and search for schools that I might not find in these other ways, who should I ask? someone wrote awhile ago that it was best to "ask everyone" including "your corner store guy" or something like that.

I'll be considering several towns, though, so may not have time to necessarily get a great relationship with anyone in a few days in a place. Of course I will talk to any friendly strangers I meet in the zocalo (reserving some caution until I discover the school actually exists), but: are there any shortcuts to language school info?

This may be as simple as looking in a phonebook. I don't know yet how reliable they are in mexico (they're not very good in India from my experience, often seem to have outdated or missing listings). Looking for advice on this.

Looking for ads in newspapers is good I'm sure as well.

I'm also wondering especially about places like local chambers of commerce or that kind of thing (which I've not seen discussed).

Any other thoughts about good local sources of information would be very much appreciated.

Again, if old messages discuss this, please refer me to them. It may save others time too to have a recent message about this.

Finally, somewhat related: I looked at colegios.net, which seems like a great website as far as it goes but I don't think includes private lang. schools. I'm considering posting a resume there. Anyone have experience with that? Is it worth it? and is it ok to post one in English?

thanks!

estanton

p.s. unrelated (you can respond by pm) It is driving me nuts how the emoticons will only show up on the last line of text. Is there any way to create an emoticon (or quote) WITHIN a cut and pasted text, not at the bottom?

[Ben Round de Bloc]

[lozwich]

You have to put them in while you're typing, E.

That way, they all end up in the right place.

Have a great day.
Lozwich.

[moonraven]

Why not use the phone book? I used the phone books in the state of Morelos to contact schools--it was easier than knocking on doors.

[MELEE]

Ask everyone means ask everyone.

To illistrate, on one of my house hunts--which is similar, but not quiet the same as a job hunt, when I was specifically looking for a house with a yard to accomadate my two dogs. It went something like this. Eat in a restuarant, ask the waitress when she comes to leave you the bill--You wouldn't happen to know of any houses for rent, would you? 75% of the time, the answer was yes, so and so has a house in x area that they are trying to rent. Walk into a corner store in an area you are interested in, buy a drink and say--You don't know if there are any houses for rent around here? Usually they will at least know who owns rental property, if they don't if any are empty at the moment. I also asked the president of the Rotary Club, who I know quite well, he knows the people who own a lot of land and was able to generate a list of people I should contact. In the end, I found the place I ended up renting by telling one of the students at the university that I was looking for a house, and he said--Oh! the place next to me is empty.

With a job, I'd actually do something similar. People will generally be curious about you and want to find out where you are from, what your doing there and if you have a significant other . Any converstion that develops should include--I looking for a job. Do you know where I should look??

[estanton]

Melee, thanks- I will ask everyone. I think one valuable thing about this experience is that it will force me to be outgoing and inquisitive to make contacts for myself.

I will also use the phone book.

Ben, I can understand your being a little mystified by my question since I have used a lot of emoticons in posts.

My question was about using emoticons in the middle of a block of text. I tend to paste in a whole message by someone, then plug in my comments between their quoted words. when I hit the emoticon button, though, for my in-between text, it appears at the bottom of the message, not in the middle where I want it.

I had been just typing emoticons to get around this. I thought it would be nice if you could get an emoticon to appear next to your cursor using a button. Maybe the keyboard commands do that? i will see.

but Loz- you answered my question. I'll just quote in small blocks and do emoticons as I type.

Thanks again everyone for your help and patience!

still curious if anyone has experience with colegios.net re: English-language resumes. I think I will just do it since it doesn't seem too difficult.

estanton

[Ben Round de Bloc]

[estanton]

I'm aiming for medium-sized university towns. Most of them have two or three schools that I already know about from lists through my CELTA training. I'm thinking there might also be more schools in each of those cities.