Job Discussion Forums

[rellio1]

Hi all,

I'm thinking about looking to a recruiter to find me a job in china. I know what a decent recruiter should offer: no fee to the teacher, no percentage of wages taken, and the school pays me directly not them.

Does this actually provide some sort of advantage? If anybody knows a good one who does placements in Shanghai I'd love to hear.

r

[burnsie]

You will find that most recruiters often lie or don't give you the information you need to make the right decision.

Remember that recruiters have to be paid too so they will take a % of your salary from the employer. There is no difference between if it's in the west or in China recruiters still charge.

I have a friend who is a recruiter who recruited many foreigners but he has gotten out of the game according to him because it's not honest and his personality is not right.

In his words 'my personality is not right as you have to do some tricky things in the business'. He didn't elaborate but I would say it's tricks to get people to China!

[tw]

Let me tell you a true story.

Someone I worked with last term used a recruiter. The recruiter showed him the contract from a school. The potential teacher decided that the offer was acceptable and came to China. At the airport he was picked up by representatives from *A* school. To his shock and surprise when he arrived at the school's front gate, he noticed that the name of the school was NOT the same as the one on the contract sent to him by the agent. Apparently, the school was told by the agent that he was going to be teaching for them, but he thought he was going to be teaching at another school. The school then tried to call the recruiter's cell phone, only to find it out of service.

The lesson? Unless you have been trying VERY, VERY, VERY hard looking for a teaching job and you are getting nowhere, then OK, use an agent. But if you've been only going to a couple web sites a few times a week and applied to 3 or 4 teaching jobs, and you've only been doing this for say, 2 or 3 weeks, then you have not done enough cyberspace pavement-pounding yet. Anyone white can find a teaching job in China, the difference is finding a teaching job at a school that won't wreck havoc on you psychologically and/or mentally.

[Keath]

It depends on the organization. You want a guarantor that is liable to your situation if they fail to meet the agreements. Try to locate an organization within your country or local state or province. Aviod most Chinese web pages or online recruiters as they have only profit minded intentions and have no interest on your well-being after you arrive.

I'm affiliated with www.journeyeast.org and we enjoy a really excellent reputation.

There are other good programs out there like footprints or buckland, o marshal or educAsion..

Dop you research and best of luck, we have free consulting if you want to call us. 860-974-9988
Keith

[nolefan]

there are plenty of good and bad things to be said about recruiters. I should know since I used one and I work with one.

The right recruiter will give you the choice in what schools you go to and let you go there to check it out first. If things do not work out, you can always come back and try a different one. That is a much better option that signing a contract with a school you've never been to and have no clue what to expect from.

a good recruiter will also let you sign a contract deirectly with the school and not take any percentage of your salary. They should charge the school a fixed finder's fee and then satay away unless called upon.

On the other hand, going with a recruiter does not mean you should not do your homework. You need to read up on regulations and other details in boards like this one.

[Roger]

FInding a job in China is always fraught with insecurities and adventures - unless you can read and speak the local lingo here!
The first time I sort of depended on some go-between to "help" me (how the Chinese love to use the verb "help"!) locate a potential hirer it was a slightly underworked salesman near the Shenzhen train station who knew some English.
He walked me down Beijing Nanlu and right on to the gate of a primary school. There, he jabbered with the janitor for a while, then was given the telephone and he soon was talking to someone on the phone.
The conversation finished, he ordered me to follow him to the office "of the big boss". I thought I was going to meet the principal of that primary school, or perhaps some education official of the city.
Nada, niyet, nix da and completely wrong.
After 20 minutes we arrived at a commercial building on Shennan Donglu (the bus trip from the primary school there would have taken 3 to 4 minutes), and on to the 7th floor.
I was ushered into a plush office and shoved into the presence of a splendidly attractive female who spoke not a word of English.
Well, I was silly and naive and I even knew some Chinese... but I couldn't interpret the situation properly.
I was talking to the wife of the owner of a training centre. The woman agreed to my expectations - this was pre-2000! - RMB 3000 a month, 12 hours work a week... housing.
We were dismissed. Outside the building, the guy demanded a "commission" for allegedly landing me a job. I treated him to a hamburger (there was a McDonald's right in that building).

Several days later I got a call from the husband of that woman, informing me that he wanted to see me, and could I start work right next week?
I arrived (from Guangzhou), with my coffee maker, clothes, books (a mighty bundle). A staff meeting was scheduled; I saw some 25 staff and the boss. Between cups of tea we discussed my contract again; to my horror the goalposts had been moved: 3000 RMB a month? That's a little steep, ain't it? Say 2500? Agreed! 12 hours? That's fine. When can you come to the office in the morning? Huh? At what time in the morning would you like to begin work? YOu know, 12 hours a day - if you come late, we have to keep the lights on very late in the evening...
We compromised: 36 hours a week (at the beginning; later it was just my lessons at that primary school where my boss rented a classroom and ran his adult evening classes! Which was why that young man had talked to the school's janitor there).

That guy wasn't even a REAL agent; but real agents don't work very differently! My so-called wife negotiated a deal with a school principal; that guy came to pick me up in his van, then drove me to a kindergarten. While travelling there, I saw a folder with several English-language documents inside it;; I snooped and found several contracts with several foreign nationals, some whose salaries were well below mine.
I was introduced to the headmaster of that kindergarten - and the van disappeared...
In fact, the principal had indentured, sorry: sold me to that kindergarten.
In the kindergarten I met another woman who was equally clueless as to her situation as I was; she found herself unemployed and was finally shipped off somehwere else.
The kindergarten job was my best in all those years, but I have to add this: the principal later demanded that my employer pay him RMB 10'000 in commission...
She was flabbergasted!

[wonderd]

The most important thing is to research and shop around. I have been in China for only two years, but pretty happy with my company, so I would be pro-recruiter, but there are many horror stories out there about such things.

On the other hand, I know two schools in Shanghai that recently have had horror stories from their employees. One thing to definately be aware of is that many schools cannot get the proper paperwork to have you teach. Sometimes they must go through a recruiter. And many times they don't research it enough, and hire someone not realizing that they actually aren't allowed or don't have the resources to do it.

Generally, my experience has been that schools don't really know what they're doing when they're hiring foreign teachers. That's not true in all cases, but the recruiters exist for a reason, and that's to place teachers.

[tw]

I agree with wondered that some (if not many) schools don't know anything about hiring foreign teachers (other than probably that we want a lot of money). I met someone online who owns a language school in a suburban city of Dalian. He didn't know anything about needing a license to hire foreign teachers (his school has only been operating since August 2004) and he thought that asking for free accomodation and return airfare was too much since he had a small school. I had to explain to him about typical contract conditions, license and procedures to have a foreign teacher legally teach at his school.

His credential? An English major graduated from teacher's university a year ago and under his parents suggestion/advice, decided to open a language school since (1) it would make him a boss and (2) his major is in English. But he has no business idea (has never done advertising or any kind of promotional activities) and his parents practically tell him what to do.

[Roger]

Hiring FTs gives schools a marketing edge over other schools, and because of this the pressure on principals to find a foreign face is formidable.
However, the laws are pretty straightforward: only colleges and universities are allowed to hire FTs; middle schools and primary schools have been disallowed for maybe two years. Kindergartens are operating in uncovered terrain. Training centres are businesses that can hire if they meet certain requirements.

The part the recruiters play is only as a go-between; they have NO DUTIES toward you. They are the window on the world, and from the world to China.
Very few recruiters are trustable; to be that they would have to assume some responsibility for you, say, to look after you if you got unfairly dismissed. I only know of one, perhaps three or four such agents. Most others only have an Internet presence. They have no licence. They pay no taxesd either.
It is also true, alas, that most schools do not have the relevant approvals to hire foreign nationals. The procedures to be allowed to hire FTs are not unlike in any modern western country: they have to get permission from the labour bureau and from the education authorities. Most of them don't see that hiring a foreign national requires approval from a national authority that checks whether the position can be filled by a national job applicant first.

It is naive to believe agents can wave a magic wand and remove any legal restrictions. The vast majority of these agents are people who just happened to be in a position to see how foreigners get hired, and by whom; typically they are ex-teachers themselves (ever wondered why their English is above average?).
And many of them are FAO's or principals. That is, they often have a cushy school job, and make extra money by peddling foreign job applicants to other takers.

I think we should not encourage these folks any more!

[tw]

Roger, maybe in your part of China middle schools are not allowed to hire foreign teachers, but I know of at least one that can and that's Qingdao #2 Middle School -- the best in Qingdao. Recently I saw a CCTV program here in Vancouver in which they showed foreigners teaching in a public middle school in Hebei province. Also, while I was in Dalian I had students tellings me about their foreign etachers in middle school. One student was from Shenyang so I know they exist. The problem is that because middle schools aren't as big and as such get that much money, not too many of them can afford to have foreign teachers. I think generally speaking the ones who are top-tier can afford to have foreign teachers.

[tony lee]

[quote]However, the laws are pretty straightforward: only colleges and universities are allowed to hire FTs; middle schools and primary schools have been disallowed for maybe two years. Kindergartens are operating in uncovered terrain.[/quote]

Any official source for this info Roger?

[Noelle]

I've not had much experience with recruiters either but I'm using one now and so far they have been excellent.

Maybe do a google search on Footprints Recruiting and see what you come up with. There is no fee and they're awesome about staying in touch. I don't think they advertise on Daves either so you're not likely to see them on job boards.

Good luck!

[rellio1]

Thanks for the input everyone, as usual it's illuminating.

I had run across footprints, and journeyeast, and they seem quite reputable, as compared to the fly-by-night scams tw and Roger have described here. Has anyone been placed through either of those agencies?

[Roger]

I seem to stand corrected on the middle-school FT issue as I cannot prove what I said - it was all hearsay back around 2002 and 2003 (I was then working in a kindergarten and they had to bend a number of regulations to employ me, and that's when I was informally told that middle schools in Guangdong can't hire FTs, which was borne out by the fact that I was placed in a number of middle schools by go-betweens, i.e. teraining centres).
Thanks for the correction!

[Noelle]

Hey

I've just been placed by Footprints. I would recommend contacting them especially for jobs in China, Japan or Korea.

Good luck!