Job Discussion Forums

[mikokozak]

Hi,

Is the market in Taiwan as bad as some people claim. I mean I keep in hearing that things have suddenly changed and teaching is no longer as lucrative in Taiwan as it used to be. What are your views?

What are the top spots at the moment (besides infamous Korea)

Thanks,

Nick Kozak
www.nickkozak.com

[clark.w.griswald]

I don't think that the market has become any less lucrative in as much as pay rates have remained steady. Please don't pay too much attention to the claims that Aristotle makes to the contrary as these are based upon nothing but his desire to have something to whinge about.

The concern that seems to have been raised by many is the difficulty in securing good jobs with a good number of hours. The reasons for this seem to be two fold:

Firstly, there are more qualified applicants here than there probably has ever been. This gives schools a greater selection of applicants, and makes it more difficult for each individual applicant to secure the chosen position. The jobs are still there, it is just becoming more and more difficult to get the one that you want.

Secondly, greater competition between schools has resulted in the students being spread out among a larger number of schools. The schools want more classes with more students in each class, whereas the parents wants less students in each class. As student enrolments become dispersed over the various schools, the number of classes available at any one school drops. This means that when positions do become available that the number of hours on offer is often less than in the past.

This is all means that applicants need to become more competitive and more profesional. When I used to handle recruiting for one of the large chain schools, I was constantly surprised by the unprofessionalism of applicants. I would get emails that would read 'Looking for work. Call me if you have a job.' That's it. Other times applicants would write a lot, but were too lazy to use a spell checker or re-read through their application to check for grammatical errors. If you really want to increase your chances of getting a job then I suggest that you put in professional applications as this will increase your chances of being considered.

[migo]

I wouldn't consider Korea a top spot. The anti-western sentiment there makes just living there a very unappealing prospect.