Job Discussion Forums

[trillian584]

I have a BA in art history and history and recently finished my TESOL cert class. I'd ideally like to go to Turkey but most of the job listings i'm seeing ask for at least 1yr experience, which I obviously don't have. I'm wondering if anyone has any pointers as to how to find a position without having previous experience. I know s. korea, japan etc seem to be the big employers for people like me, but I'm not terribly interested in going there. Should I just apply for the jobs that ask for experience anyway and hope I get lucky? A lot of what I'm hearing seems to suggest that it's easy to find a job if you just show up in Istanbul and start looking, but I'm reluctant to do that for obvious reasons. Any ideas?

[coffeespoonman]

Show up, go to the right pub, introduce yourself to the foreigners there, you'll have a job the next week (or the next day). Finding the right pubs may be the only tricky part, but I'm sure some people on here can point you in the right direction.

[Chaplin]

It's usually easy to find a job without experience as long as you have the right qualifications - TEFL Cert & Uni degree. Many schools advertise the requirement of one or two years' experience. However, this doesn't tend to end up excluding those fresh of their CELTA etc. The flip side of this is that any school which does insist on the experience are usually better employers as they will have kept most of their staff (low turnover) so have less vacancies to fill and therefore can be more 'picky' in their recruitment process.