Job Discussion Forums

[JZer]

[Moon Over Parma]

Why are you using a recruiter? There's a 90% chance you're going to be screwed.

[JZer]

I have not seen an acceptable job advertised yet. Probably because a lot of jobs are controlled by recruiters.

[Moon Over Parma]

[JZer]

Thanks for the advice. When I decide to actually move to China in August I will try contacting some universities directly.

[randyj]

Most schools have penciled in their schedules for next semester. A teacher already on the payroll can request a particular schedule and usually be accommodated. Someone seeking employment deals with an FAO. Keep in mind that the FAO and the English department for a typical university are separate bureaucracies with different missions. The FAO probably doesn't know the teaching schedule and would be embarrassed to say so. Adding a recruiter into the equation does not help.

[JZer]

I am not requesting a particular schedule, I am just curious what hours I would be working.

Actually I have a student loan and will need a part time job to pay my loan so it is very important to me to be free in the evenings.

[YankeeDoodleDandy]

You will be free to teach in the evenings. You will more than likely be free on Saturday and Sunday, unless you teach at one of the numerous money making colleges third tier that have no classes on Friday and Saturday, however they do have a full load of classes on Sunday.

[mat chen]

I would like to know about recruiters who care. I understand they get paid a months salary after a month of the teachers work. My recruiter was very upset when I told her my salary was rolled back after three months of work. She was under the impression that I was only making 3,500 rmb a month instead of the 4,500 in the contract. I complained because they were pleased with my work and awarded an aumuntaiton of 500 rmb a month andthen my new contract disappeared and then they rolledit back. China has one thousand recruiters offering the same postings. The market is saturated and the teachers are the ones losing. Good schools don't use them. So many of the teachers here were upset when the FAO told them not to tell the recruiter they had signed.
My school had a woman who sat in the office with my FAO. She would say terrible things about him when I went there to see him. She said she was his superior. It was a good cop, bad cop routine. When people came to complain she would get them a job at another school. Kind of a conflict of interest but very lucrative for her.

[Halapo]

The recruiter has no say in your schedule.

Simplest way to put this

The recruiter buys you from you. Sell high people!
the recruiter then sells you to the school. To both parties, you are a cow/sheep/pig.
Once the recruiter gets paid, they don't care or want to know your problems.
If the school has problems with you, they complain to the recruiter, when really they could simply ask you to stop what ever minor thing it is you are doing.
The recruiter says they will talk to you. They recruiter then calls you and says the school is docking your pay because you did something wrong. The recruiter keeps the money, and then calls the school to tell them they have fined you and you will behave.

Every transaction, the recruiter makes money. They make more money then you do off of you, and you are doing all the work!

[mnguy29]

I am very concerned about what I am seeing about recruiters. I have seen some of this too with my recruiter. He does not seem to be finding me a good teaching job and I need one NOW. He has told me about some crap jobs, but he would never say that of course. Lose his commision!? I dont know if I can trust him. He does not seem to work very hard at it. He has helped me with some other things however. I have found some jobs myself and then I tell him about them and he says they are fake. Is this true? Some of my other online recruiters dont seem to be finding any either, such as Angelinas and Jonathon among others. Schools would rather not use agents? Is that right?

[Halapo]

The school can pay you more then the recruiter and still save money, then if they had hired you through a recruiter.

When I first came here, I came by a recruiter. They said they would take care of everything... Here is the list of what they did for me:
1) Picked me up at the airport

2) Kept me in their office for 3 days for training ( there was none, they just said that to the school. I sat around for three days ).

3) Set up my bank account, so they could deposit my pay into it ( they picked a local bank, not a bank I can use outside of the country... I recommend Bank of China, just so you can use it from almost any country in the world).

4) Put me on a bus heading to my ( then unknown city to meet unknown people ) school.

5) Harassed me every month for my class lists and hours worked. If I only worked 5 days a week, and they could prove it, they would only pay me for 5 days a week, but charge the school for a 30 day month. So in other words I worked a full month ( 22 days ) and the school paid a full month to the recruiter to put into my account, but the recruiter pays me for only 22 days (monthly pay divided by 30, multiply by 22). So 8 days go into their bank account.

6) would not pay my airfare until the end of my final month, and not until they checked with the school that I did a good job. Meaning I didn't get my money until after I had left the country, and it was paid into my Chinese-local bank account, and only accessible to me when I am in China.

7) Repeatedly paid me 3 days late. Money was supposed to be in my account on the 15th, but was never there until the 18th. The school paid up on the 1st of the month, so they couldn't get it there in 2 weeks?

Never called or emailed to check on me until the week before the end, and wanted me to sign on for another year with them?!

So what did the school do for me?
1) Visa, health check, resident permit. Paid for it all, drove me to it all, handled all the paperwork.

2) Told my recruiter I worked 30 days a month ( english corners and extra tutoring on off days ) and thus should be paid my full monthly salary. None of which happened, my students had no time for extra class's.

3) Repeatedly asked the recruiters to come visit the school to confirm that all the point of our contract had been covered, so there would be no problems in the future ( the recruiters said they would come, but never did ).

4) Fixed every single problem I had, or question I asked about how, where or when to do things. Water pipe burst? Fixed in 16 hours. English cable station not coming it, upgraded that night ( and cable wasn't even part of the contract, basic or extra bundle).

So do I think the recruiters work for their money? Not one bit.

They say a job is fake? Take it when your current contract with them is up. They will throw a fit, yell and scream, say you wont be allowed back into the country... and then they leave you alone fore a week... and call asking you if you have really signed with the other job, and wont you consider staying for another year.

They always try to make the hard sell first, and they almost always overplay it. Then they try for the soft sell if the hard fails.

If you can't find a school on your own, for your first year, talk to a recruiter ( or try harder on your own ). Be ready for a crappy contract, and get out of it legally as quickly as you can.

The schools could screw you over to, but so far I have found that they have a more genuine interest in keeping you happy. THEY have to work with you everyday, so THEY want you to be a happy little FT. The recruiter never has to see your face again till the end of the year.