Job Discussion Forums

[fallon77]

In my quest to find a summer position I have sent out emails-a-plenty. A school near Shanghai replied. A woman from said school called and we had a chat. The job sounded very good. I asked her to send a contract for me to review.

The contract arrived and replied with some questions. What do you know? I never heard another word from the school. Am I surprised? Not really.

This has happened on too many occasions for me to count. Schools are ready to hire you the moment they read your resume. If you ask a question, boom, they fade into the woodwork.

I don�t think asking for the email addresses of former FTs is show-stopper of a question unless they have something to hide. Of course, there are new FTs who will take any position, anywhere, without asking a single question. Perhaps schools would rather have an employee who doesn�t know the lay of the land and will be blindly obedient.

Just my thoughts.

Cheers,
fallon

[China.Pete]

You may be onto something here. I had a colleague who was "dropped" by a school. When she asked them why their sudden lack of interest, they actually said she asked "too many questions!" I have a different modus operendi. When schools offer me a job, ask for my passport, rush-rush after my initial contact, I tend to drop THEM like a hot potato!

[Russell123]

Yes, this happened to me a couple of times. One recruiter even got irritated during a phone interview - more of a 'hard sell' actually - when I asked where in China they were going to have me teach!

I would never even consider working for a school that hasn't realized by now that western teachers with even half a brain are going to ask questions. Can you imagine what else they haven't figured out yet?

In their minds they see a potential troublemaker, meaning of course someone who won't blindly accept the "Chinese" way of doing things, which is how they like to label their own incompetent, exploitative and shabby business practices.

[7969]

whenever i contact a school about a job or they find my resume online and contact me, i always ask several questions. many schools, as noted above dont respond and you never hear from them again. if they cant respond to initial email requests/inquiries, you dont need to be einstein to figure out they quite probably wont reply to any requests/problems if you sign a contract with them and end up working for them.

cant answer my questions = red flag and bye bye.

The school i'm going to go to in the fall has a seemingly good chinese FAO who is planning ahead and has even anticipated some solutions to questions/problems i had only raised in passing so far. thats a rarity.

7969

[Chris_Crossley]

[kev7161]

My school is generally on top of things when it comes to my requests and needs and I've been, overall, very happy with them. Luckily, I was able to visit the school PRIOR to accepting a job and signing a contract. They weren't able to show me the inside of where I am now living because someone else was residing here at the time, but they did bring me to see the surrounding environment, so that was pretty cool.

HOWEVER, on a tangent here, I've recently been told two things: 1) On June 8th and 9th, our school will host Senior 3 students from all over taking that all-so-important final test and we "may" have those two days off. That's less than two weeks away folks and TPTB don't have the foresight to say we WILL or we WON'T have the days off. Well, if we do, I can make some plans on somewhere I'd like to go. When, exactly, do they make this final decision? I'll probably be told on June 7th as I'm heading for home. 2) I asked about the final days of the term, how things work, scheduling, etc. Nobody, so far, has a clear idea - - the last day being a WHOLE MONTH AWAY . . . who wans to plan that far in advance? Am I insane or what?

[Super Mario]

Unwillingness to answer reasonable questions is a warning sign.
"Will I have satellite TV?" is not a reasonable question, though I'm not refering to the OP here! Whilst the notion of contacting current FTs sounds good, a slack/unreasonable/lecherous current FT may be the reason they are hiring, and not a likely candidate for fair commentary.
There are wheels within wheels. Few situations are as straight forward as they seem.

[7969]

[Roger]

Chinese employers do have short fuses, and if you ask two questions too many they will perceive the advantage of having a break with renewed interest.
I once sat in the office of a recruiter who let me see his files containing the correspondance with aspiring TEFLers; since all those queries and replies were made via the Internet it cost him quite some money to print them out...
Some guys actually asked the same question 8 times in 40 emails! Not that the recruiter "forgot" to address it the first time - the email's recipient simply "forgot" he had received the answer...
Besides that, some posters have really silly questions such as "do they sell Skittles in China?" or "can I drink the water from the tap?"

[kev7161]

[vikdk]

What's wrong with recruiters - complaining about stupid questions!!!! Good questions/stupid questions - isn't reading through them a way of deciding who you're going to carry on talking to about the job

Well at least it is in the real world - but then again stupid me this is FT china world where asking questions is sinfull and nasty, when all you have to do is turn up and be white and obedient so someone (inveriably not the question askers) can hopefully make lots of money - the reason why questions are sometimes such a nono is this game