Job Discussion Forums

[erinyes]

I have been in China for 8 months now, and I am working in a nice small town for a middle school � not through a recruiter!!!
I want to find another job (teaching middle school) but I don�t want to work through a recruiter.

Has anyone managed to find a way to get past recruiters and work directly for the schools? I mean, they take SO much of the cash from the school, and give you next to nothing.

(edit) Okay - I guess what I'm asking is which ones are the good ones???

[tw]

I used these sites extensively and found them most useful:

www.chinatefl.com/indexe.asp

www.teachcn.com/job_offer.asp

www.tefl.cc

Where you can contact the employers directly and not having to worry if a particular job ad is posted by a recruiter or the actual employer.

[Sinko]

tw,
Those sites are run by recruiters. The schools pay them 1000s to advertise on their site. I should know, I was there!!

erinyes,
Why the big deal about not going through a recruiter? Most of the threads coming through don't know anything about recruiters. They just assume recruiters will give you bum jobs for ridiculous pay, conditions, etc. Probably because they have had an unpleasant experience at their previous school/s. Recruiters wouldn't know 99% of anything about the schools that they offer you. Just like you don't know about a school you've picked out through direct contact. You don't know anything until you get there.
How do I know this.....I worked for a recruiter!!!!

erinyes,
If you want a good contact, PM me. And, no, it's not my previous employer. In fact, I wouldn't recommend them.

[tw]

[Keath]

If there wasn't such a high demand for recruiters they wouldn't exist.

There are bad and good recruiters. Most bad recruiters are profit oriented Chinese organizations that offer no other benefits other than to make a placement at any financial gain without making a guarantee.

Then there are those companies and organizations that work with the government who are licensed in the home countries where foreign teachers generally come from. These companies and organizations are generally tied to Universities and/ or are beholding to certain standards and laws that are regulated by consumer protection agencies and the Better Business Bureau.

An organization that guarantees a quality of service is worth its weight in salt.

Colorado, Marshal, JourneyEast are respectful organizations with pretty high standards and good reputations. There are people who are willing to pay for the full service of having visa, airfares, travel insurance, consulting and full in-country services.

I keep hearing recruiter bashing, and some of these stories are really sad, but it seems that many of the people that used recruiters that had very bad experiences used Chinese companies and didn't want to pay a service fee in their home country, -or- they went with an agent that didnt charge anything. . (Usually one or two man run ex-pat operations with a savvy web site)

The bottom line with recruiting agents is that you get what you pay for. Its true with anything in life these days. No agent or recruiter is going to put their reputation on the line or make a guarantee to a school or teacher without some renumeration for the risk of making a placement.
Even despite interviewing candidates and after performing due diligence short of a background check, there are equally a number of bad teachers (or to put more accurately "Mal-Intentioned People") as there are schools.

I've done recruiting before and its a loveless job. There is little personal reward in it. I run a company that does recruiting for the Government, Chinese schools and Universities, I have recruiters that work for me and we have to maintain high standards or wind up on lists like this one with bad reputation.

This list will go round and round on recruiters till the end of time because it is the nature of hating the middle-man, those having great experiences with recruiter placement will rarely post here. Its only the passion of warning others and in some cases revenge on the agent why people post.

You can't make a blanket statement about all recruiters just because there exists a few rotten apples. The government and schools need agents to help them find suitable teacher delegates the same regards that teachers need a gaurantor to make quality placements in safe, legal working environments.

PS> TW: teachcn is an extension of jobeast run by Jason Li, They rent a single small room in an office building in Hangzhou and have a 80% turnover rate on employees yearly. Furthermore, they were responsible for scamming more than 15 teachers out of a summer job recently and they make no guarantee on their placement service or any after placement guarantees. But, you have to admire their website and online marketing.


TEACH ENGLISH IN CHINA
www.JourneyEast.org

[Roger]

So-called "recruiters" - we used to call them 'agents' - are not at all needed, and there is as little genuine demand for them as for genuine English teachers. It is a market game of luck.

A genuine recruiter should have a LICENCE and a physical address that appears prominently on their stationery or emails. How many recruiters have that in their emails?

As a matter of fact, the majority are no genuine agents at all. Who are they? They are ex- or current English teachers who have learnt a few ropes of how to hire FTs.

Many were or are FAO's. If you were one of them you would also see the enormous potential of cashing in on the stupidity of many principals and headmasters. The latter often don't know a school from a factory because they have never been to a factory; they also have zero grasp of the relevant legal provisions that relate to hiring foreign nationals.
They come under pressure from parents, or they jump to the conclusion that a foreign face would be a powerful tool to maximise their school's income.
But who can they turn to in order to find a foreign national?
They have to defer to one of their underlings who speaks English. That underling - possibly one of your Chinese English teacher colleagues - doesn't necessarily want to know the laws too well either - how could he overrule his boss if the latter decided to cut corners?

Once cutting corners has become a practice the FT will himself poach FTs and tell his boss he had to pay a commission which he will pocket himself.

THis is a tried and tested method and I happen to know a couple of such characters personally. At least I know their employers and their dealings.

You seldom get talked to by a principal in your emails that follow a job offer upon the publication of your CV on any website - it inevitably is one of those FAO's or a Chinese teacher.

[Keath]

Principals and decision makers RARELY get involved in the decision making process of hiring foreign teachers other than to than to Chime, "We want a girl. No drinkers."

They would rather have a subordinate hire the teacher and be fully responsible in the event things dont work out. However, that being said, they do assume a great deal of risk once the foreign teacher is introduced and the contract signed and stamped. Headmasters usually have no idea about the workings of foreign affairs, the laws governing hiring foreign teachers, they leave these things to younger Chinese teachers, give them a title of FAO, and make them fully responsible.

Thats good, a few of these headmasters have no business running a dumpling shop let alone a school.

There are some very unique and special headmasters out there though. I've been fortunate enough to meet quite a few well educated, well meaning headmasters that spare no expense to take care of the needs of their foreign teachers. Their expectations are what you would expect, make the Children and the parents happy, and dont give any reason for them to lose their reputation. If you keep with that, then life is good.. Fail to; then get packing cause trouble is too small a word to describe the hell that cometh..

[erinyes]

So I guess what everyone is saying that there are some good ones and some bad ones.

This summer I went to work for a school. The school itself was pretty good, but the rumor was that the recruiter were grossing just under 30,000 RMB per teacher AFTER paying our salary. EACH TEACHER. Over just 20 days.

I have no problem with recruiters, having never truly been burnt by one, but what I would like is to get all the money I earn.

So apart from the ones people have mentioned, does anyone really like the people they are working for right now? AND what�s their name?

[Sinko]

Erin,

What Keath and Roger may or may not know, there are 2 types of "Recruiters". The genuine ones and the base school agents. The latter is becoming more popular now, unfortunately. This is when a recruitment company approaches a school and tells them they will handle all their foreign teacher's affairs for a price. Let's just say School X pays Y company Y100,000 for a year. Y company then would pay the FT's salary, travel allowance, insurance, return airfare, medicals, visas, etc., for a total of Y70,000. Yes, they will do everything as cheap as possible. Then they would pocket the Y30,000. That's why your salary would not be as high as you would like it.

The genuine recruiters are the ones you approach and they will find a school for you. They will send you an employment package. If it doesn't meet to your liking, then you can reject it and ask for another one. When you decide on a school, arrangements are then made for your arrival. Documents, visas, etc., finalised. After commencing your job, the school and recruiter get in contact with each other. If the school is happy with the FT and the FT is happy with the school, payment is made to the recruiter. This is usually around Y3000, but I stand corrected on this. If there is a disagreement between FT and the school, the recruiter will provide the school with another FT before any payment can be made. The recruiter is acting as an intermediary.

Erin, to know which is a genuine recruiter is very difficult. If I was in a situation of signing a contract, I would insist including an appendix stating that no third party be involved and the school is to be responsible for all payments to you. There are some genuine recruiters that are run by Chinese. This can be difficult, not because they will lie to you, but they just don't understand the requirements and needs of foreign teachers. There is also a lot of misunderstanding in communication because the staff don't have a good grasp of the english language. They misinterpret a lot of things. God knows how many times I had to contact prospective teachers to explain what was meant to be said. I also got narked off with a lot of FTs who wanted to stay at the Ritz on Bush's salary, working when they liked and where they liked. They are usually the ones who would write in to forums like this whinging about bad treatment. Re-read Keath and Roger's threads if you want to know more of the intricacies of a recruitment office.

I don't work for a recruiter anymore and have now found a job teaching again. I did not contact any of the schools advertised. Instead I went back to the genuine recruiter who I used a couple of years ago when I first came here, because they were run by foreigners. The China Teaching Network is one of the largest companies in China. When I ran into strife a while back, they helped solved the problem for me as they have a support system. Erin, I can recommend them if you choose a recruiter. I can't remember what their e-mail address is and I'm not sure what internet site is. Just google them for details.

Good luck with your job hunting. Incidentally, my previous employer was a base school agent.

[Keath]

Sinko,

You bring up a good point. Never sign a salary contract with a recruiter. That is a sure sign they have already been paid both a commission and your salary.

[SimonM]

Luck.

There is a guy right now in the states who is considering coming to work at my school. The closest thing he has to a recruiter is me. We started babbling in pinyin on an MiRC room and I asked him if he wanted to work in China... He said yes.

But that is entirely dependant on luck.

I went through a recruiter and had no problems; why do you want to avoid them?

PS: Only sign a contract with the end-employer. I didn't sign with my recruiter. I signed with my school.

[erinyes]

Thanks to sinko for the recomendation, I really didn't intend for this thread to be a recruiter bashing one.

I have contacted The China Teaching Network at the email address: [email protected]

Good luck to me!

Yes, I guess I that recruiters are a good way to go, but I didn't want to be in between 2 contracts at the same time.

Does anyone else know the contact details of these reputable organisations?

[NateM]

www.TEFL.cc is the infamous Alin Buer's website, and I would highly recommend that anyone not wanting to get ripped off avoid it like the plague.