Job Discussion Forums

[potatoihave]

I'm wondering what peoples takes are on teachcn.com and/or Shanghai Institute of Physical Education. I'm teaching in Guilin right now and am looking at moving to either Beijing or Shanghai. I wasn't planning on using a recruiting agency, but the deal from teachcn.com, for Shanghai Institute of Physical Education, seems descent (they say 5,000 to 7,000 RMB per month for 18 hours....I'm hoping it's going to be at the upper end and 18 CLASS hours, but have yet to clarify. Is this okay, or bad for Shanghai?).

Does anyone know about these places and have anything good or bad to say about them?

Thanks for the help.

[Keath]

TEACHCN.com

We cooperated with them last summer.. They are a Chinese recruiting company based in Hangzhou. Their schools bailed on us at the last minute (Two days before the summer program was supposed to start) and left 10 teachers without summer jobs or airfare home.

They have a nice web page, but when asked to help us out - we got looks of confusion and a few shrugged shoulders..

You won't get results if there are any problems and you wont get any gaurantees on your employment..

They have another web page called jobeast.cn

Just goes to show you, no matter how nice the web page looks you gotta look into these orgs..

[potatoihave]

Thanks for the info. I'll be extremely careful

[Laoshi1950]

My experience with seeking a job with this college last Summer still rankles. However, I had no contact with the recruiter mentioned (as far as I am aware).

I would exercise extreme caution about the job offered - especially the salary offered and the living conditions, the working conditions and other benefits. Seek clarification about these and negotiate hard on these issues.

I spent 5 months negotiating a satisfactory employment package with SIPE, containing the standard conditions and benefits. I was sent the necessary documents to obtain the "Z" Visa.

But, the day before I was due to depart Australia last August, I received an email message telling me that there had been a change of FAO Director, and that the new Director had reviewed the Contracts for the 4 foreign teachers. He thought they were "too generous". Consequently, he had arbitrarily cancelled the already-negotiated and agreed employment and living conditions, and changed the salary offered!!

The new offer was a flat monthly salary of RMB6000 - no refund for the airfare, no accommodation provided, and no holiday allowance and so on!

So, I refused the job and then was forced to spend the next four weeks of the Summer holidays trying to locate another job at very short notice. That is why I am now working in Wuhan, Hubei.

I have worked in China for four years now, but this was the worst and most unsettling experience of Chinese HR practices that I have ever experienced while working here.

[potatoihave]

Thank you, this is just the kind of information I wanted to here. The combination of the two replies is enough for me to steer clear. There are plenty of other jobs out there...