Job Discussion Forums

Ramblin' Man · Joined: 16 Nov 2008 Posts: 105

Hey all,

I am looking at some job offers in Beijing, and would just like to get some info/opinions on some of the companies.

Here are the names:

ChinaESL

Best Learning

Expertise Education Co.

Easy English

Unique English agency

Can anybody give me more info on any of these? Any I would probably do better to stay away from?

Regards

Ramblin' Man

The Great Wall of Whiner · Joined: 29 Jan 2003 Posts: 4946 Location: Blabbing

Do any of them offer a home, an apartment, like every other place in the rest of China?

This is the question to them.

ChinaESL is a recruiter BTW...

Ramblin' Man · Joined: 16 Nov 2008 Posts: 105

well I was mostly trying to find out if any of them are totally untrustworthy. I know there are a number of companies/recruiters in China that aren't trustworthy, or have been known to do some things that are sketchy or just plain bad.

It seems to be, in particular, I've heard that Easy Best isn't a good company. And I seem to have seen threads that mentioned others that were equally untrustworthy.

So, does anybody have any majorly negative experiences with any of the companies I listed?

randyj · Posted: Wed Apr 14, 2010 11:06 am Post subject:

An eight-year-old I tutor was reading a story about a man who befriends a wolf. After the man helped the wolf over a couple of rough spots, the wolf tried to eat him. "How could you do that after I helped you?" asked the man. "I'm just a wolf," replied the wolf. The moral of the story is that man cannot be a friend of the wolf. It kind of reminds me about the nature of recruiters. Their breed mostly cannot be trusted.

amemorylost · Joined: 22 May 2009 Posts: 29

Just to counterpoint the above post a bit, I think recruiters get a pretty bad rep a lot of the time from people entering into a relationship with one thinking they're trying to employ them. That's not what recruiting is: you're both basically trying to get something from each other, there's no loyality there and recruiters generally get the blame by schools who get bad teachers and teachers who get bad schools, when the reality is that they're not your parents and they're not your boss, they're just a middle-man who has something you want and wants something from you.

Post-rant...I'd recommend Angelina's ESL Cafe as a recruiter purely because they found me the job I have now and it's fantastic. No idea how trustworthy they are, but I gave them my CV, specified I wanted to teach Literature and they set up an interview for me with a University that wanted a Literature teacher. And that was it. If the University turned out to be horrible then that was on me.

sharpe88 · Joined: 21 Oct 2008 Posts: 226

I haven't met *any* organization in the TEFL industry that really qualifies as "trustworthy"..

SnoopBot · Joined: 21 Jun 2007 Posts: 740 Location: USA

I lived in Beijing for 7-years and never heard of any of them.

(I left a few months after the Olympics finished so possibly a few of them might be new agencies.)

AnomanderRake · Joined: 06 Feb 2011 Posts: 29 Location: Beijing

ChinaESL is something other than a recruiter. It is run by a woman named Rebecca out of her apartment. If you interview with a school through her you can never work for that school! She has teachers sign a contract directly with her, not the school. She takes half your monthly pay and gives no benefits. The contracts state that you can't ever be hired directly by the school and she pays off administration to keep them happy. She is not trustworthy and has been caught in several lies including incorrect pay.