Job Discussion Forums

[Gawain]

Warning to EFL teachers: If you are teaching overseas and enjoy it, but considering coming back to USA for new career, I�d say stay overseas. USA is paradise for millionaires, but hell for workers. Globalization has torpedoed American job market, just as it torpedoed European job market. After years of teaching overseas I have spent years trying to find a good job in USA and can�t find anything worth doing. I take minimum wage temp cubicle slave jobs to pay rent, apply to HUNDREDS of jobs, and NEVER hear back from anyone. For past year I�ve had NO INTERVIEWS AT ALL.

It ain�t just the jobless recovery of 2001-2004 recession. This is STRUCTURAL UNEMPLOYMENT, the same reason why France and Europe have over 10% unemployment for a decade. American service jobs are getting outsourced to India and manufacturing jobs are going to China. Hungry American desperadoes are getting Bachelor�s Degrees. Whether you go into school teaching, business or sales, you are competing against millions of ex-factory workers and downsized cubicle slaves.

With a Bachelor�s Degree in English, I was treated like royalty in Asia. I got off the plane and EVERY SCHOOL IMMEDIATELY OFFERED ME A GOOD JOB! That�s Comparative Advantage! In USA I have no Comparative Advantage, just a temp office slave locked into desperate Rat Race. USA has 300 million people. 299 million of those have a Bachelor�s Degree in English, are expert in MS Office, got tons of business training, type faster than you, and want your job. Overseas, I walk down the street and see nothing but customers. In USA, I walk down the street and see nothing but grim socioeconomic enemies.

You can get your Education Degree and State Teacher�s License, but you are competing with ex-factory workers who got their teacher�s license. Public schools are being starved to death by evil neocons. I applied at dozens of school districts. They just laughed, �Honey yall gotta be kiddin. Our district is bankrupt and we just had to fire 400 teachers, and they get re-hire priority, if our district EVER gets solvent!�

You can do sales if you are a drunken extroverted sociopath, which most good EFL teachers are. But not all of us are extroverted alcoholics. I tried sales several times, never made rent money, and got fired quick.

Email destroyed every job market. I call to see why they never call me. �Honey yall gotta be kiddin. Our email gets SLAMMED WITH THOUSANDS of resumes from all over America for every job we post. We can�t even afford the staff to read them all. Yall resume wasn�t even read!� Resume scanning robots filter out most emailed resumes, especially those from ex-teachers with unstable job histories.

You can GIVE UP and go back overseas. I�m on the fence. Anything is better than cubicle slavery. But North America has the best wilderness. If you like wide open space, pine forests and endless prairies, why would you move to any overpopulated megalopolis? In America I spend every weekend walking across awesome panoramic wilderness. If you are stuck in Taipei, Hong Kong or Tokyo, you know how important nature is�especially if you are a midwestern farmboy like me. Can you relate?

[Boy Wonder]

Great post Gawain!

Yep..I can relate...my heart, family, money and peace of mind are back in the UK but like the US..the job market is a fierce place to be unless you want to work well beneath your capabilities.

I returned back to the UK last June..with a determination to retrain and make a go of things in my home country.

However...the prospect of working my ball$ off for a one bedroomed flat and the possibility of a two week holiday in Portugal every year made me rethink pretty dam quick and I soon returned to the dark reccesses of EFL.

I miss the UK in many ways but have chosen this path of localised semi-fame for the hard cash and experiences I can bank.

After all when I am old and grey ...recounting tales of 25 years in the fantastical world of the Tymperley & Wright sales dept isnt gonna cut the mustard with my grandchildren very much!!

[basiltherat]

i think this a worldwide thing in a variety of fields. as, for example, big corporations vie for their ever biggest profits year-on-year to keep their shareholders happy and the value up, so organisations will seek to reduce costs by employing fewer and fewer workers and outsourcing abroad where labour is cheaper.
to compoud this, age has become a factor. why would a company emlpoy older workers where individual productivity might be lower and where the company wud need to pay higher salaries for the said employee to afford a mortgage, support a family and kids etc. companies prefer younger workers who dont need high salaries cos they live with their parents, have no family to support etc.
im not condoning the situation we are in at all. just trying to bring some logic to it. wat wud you do in their shoes, though ? the same ?
solution ? start up a small business for yourself. not easy but at least you wont be totally broke.
the situation is , i agree, very bad for us and i believe, set to get even worse. I guess we simply have to adapt and prepare for this in our own individual ways. no way to fight it.
regards
basil

[john henry]

It's not just efl teachers returning to their native job market. It's like that for pretty much everyone.

I'd say the best thing to do is try to start your own business.

[sprightly]

everyone is different. my american cousins left Dubai after a couple decades overseas, moved to florida, bought a beach front house and a boat, and both work fulltime, in their fields. (esl and early childhood education)

mind you, they spent a lot of their time building up contacts, and had a rather large nest egg.

personally, i figure i'll be ideally suited to be a therapist when i decide to career-shift; i'll have spent all my time working with people going through psychological shock, and what do therapists do? ask questions they know the answers to.
what do esl/efl teachers do? ask questions they know the answers to.

[Stephen Jones]

The number is pretty minimal - less than 1% of the job market.

The reason you can't get anything other than a Macjob in the States is that that is all you are qualified for. TEFL experience qualifies you for more TEFL - - nothing else.

When you went abroad you jumped off the ladder of whatever career you were in. If you want to settle back in your homeland yo're going to have to start off a couple of rungs below where you started. Same thing would have happened if you changed career but stayed in the States.

[Lynn]

In January 2001 I came to New York City after years of Japan thinking I could land a job because of my language skills. (business level Japanese, level 2 proficiency test)

I applied with several employment agecencies and all were very impressed with my skills. They said I could do import/export and this and that. Well, I waited and waited and meanwhile kept doing my own job hunting. After a few months I finally got a call. At the interview I should have known not to take it, but I was so desperate I did.

In short, I ended up being a tea lady for an office of 3 Japanese men. It was my job to speak to them in NOVA type English so they could fee good about themselves, but whenever there was a problem they would rattled it off in Japanese. I just felt so uncomfortable having to cut the cake and serve it to each individual man. So I just cut the cake into slices, put it on plates, and said aloud, "Cake is cut for whoever wants it!" and scurried back to my desk. Bossman was not impressed. Later that night I put in my two week notice.

The next 3 years were filled with bouts of umemployment and picking up hours here and there at various ESL schools. The work was so unreliable and so unsteady. I was working at 5 different places at one time and still only totalled 19 hours.

I moved to Seattle about a year ago and got very steady work in the airline industry. I love the 40 hours and can even pick up overtime! I get health insurance and fly for free. But the pressure is sinking it again. It is very low pay. We could never afford to buy a house if I keep working here. The pressure is on from my husband especially. He thinks this job is too "low-level" for me; that I should be doing something more creative.

It's said you shoud listen to your heart, but when I listen it's saying, "Lynn, what the hell do you want to do with your life?"

[Celeste]

[Gordon]

This is everyone's fear. My wife and I have talked about it countless times. When do we move back? Where? I want to find a good enough job to support my whole family which will be a tall order. As you progress further along in this field and your family grows, the number of schools or jobs in this field gets narrower and narrower.

[scot47]

I was 58 last week and still can't figure out what to do when I grow up.

Several attempts to make a go of it back in my native Caledonia led to disaster - so here I am TEFL-ing away.

[sidjameson]

I think you have to go back with a very definite plan. Usually this would involve having a real target to train and become a something. It's become a winner takes all world. "Ok, I'll go back, do a law degree and become a lawyer" 5 years on, you're probably a lawyer. "Ok, I'll go back and see what I can get. Must be something, afterall I do have these years teaching EFL and a second language under my belt" 5 years on, you're probably penniless looking at the jobs borad of Daveseslcafe.

[Stephen Jones]

[carnac]

You wrote "With a Bachelor�s Degree in English, I was treated like royalty in Asia. I got off the plane and EVERY SCHOOL IMMEDIATELY OFFERED ME A GOOD JOB! That�s Comparative Advantage! In USA I have no Comparative Advantage, just a temp office slave locked into desperate Rat Race. USA has 300 million people. 299 million of those have a Bachelor�s Degree in English, are expert in MS Office, got tons of business training, type faster than you, and want your job. "

That's the problem right there. Seems to me that in the US, a Bachelor's is what a high-school diploma was 100 years ago (or less). Times have changed. A Bachelor's is now the most basic of qualifications. Dime a dozen, as you correctly imply. Solution: go back to school for whatever, retrain, refrain from complaining that you are not wanted. You have to make yourself wanted. The world does not care about you or me or anyone else.
Many people come to America with the expectation that upon arrival they will be rich, not understanding that Americans, if they succeed, work their tails off. All are created equal, the equality being the opportunity to succeed or fail. Most fail. For every Bill Gates there are a million (or more)people in desperation. You, as an American, are expected to understand this. Without this understanding, you become an intelligent, sincere, hard-working hamburger-flipper and wonder why it isn't working.
While I am not unsympathetic to the problem and your discomfort, I truly believe that the answer to a marketing problem is to come up with a marketable product.
Reinvent yourself, or go abroad again with the skills you now possess.
IMHO,
Carnac

[Deconstructor]

I have to agree with Carnac. BA is not enough. Every Tom, D*ck an Harry has one. (I can't believe I can't say D*ck in this stupid forum!!) Your problem is compounded when your BA is in English of all things.

Once you get a MA, than things are different. You can work at community colleges, and many other educational institutions.

One thing that people often fail to understand is that teaching overseas doesn't count (or counts very little) as experience even worth putting in one's CV. Never once has an interviewer asked me, "OK, tell me about your overseas experience". On the other hand, the places I've taught at home have carried great deal of weight towards my new jobs.

I think there are jobs out there and there is no need to despair if one knows how to go about getting them.

[donfan]