Job Discussion Forums

[chinook]

I got an email from this guy, and have read the threads on him. The thing I found concerning is that his email contained people I could email for references, I have done so and I sort of think at least one of them might not be real. Have other people ever doubted the references given? The English in the email was really shoddy. The second email was really impersonal.

do I have to worry that when school's give me references by email from other teachers that they might be faked?

[brian]

This is a good question. I raised this possibility a while ago only to be rubbished by another user of this site. Now it seems that my concerns were warranted.

I too have read the threads about this person and I couldn't recommend that it would be in your best interests to deal with him. Even if the references were legit, there are still some concerns about the way that he does business. If however he is offering fake references then it is very helpful to know this.

Maybe one way to feel this is out would be to ask the email referees whether you can give them a phone call to speak to them personally. Any reluctance would seem to confirm your suspicions.

My advice is to try to contact schools directly and avoid agents if you are happy to do so.

[chinook]

I do think I will be avoiding recruiters. However, his email made it sound like he was from a school and so I started looking into it before I realised.

I suppose that many people tend to use fairly bad English in emails or have typos etc, so I can't be sure that it wasn't legit. There was just something a little bit funny about the tone of it.

[brian]

[alexandra1818]

Actually, yes, Andrew is a recruiter, but despite the fact he doesn't put across a very good image, I've heard both good things and bad things about him.

My sister went to Taiwan thanks to him, and actually got pretty lucky - she had a great school, and she said that although he did have his bad points, she would recommend him.

In fact, if I could find him, I would probably go through him as well.

[sterlingjon]

I worked at a school that Andrew Lin found for me. I was broke in Hong Kong and he found me something straight away when I flew over to Taipei and he put me up in a hotel while all the arangements were being made. It's just that he is a certain type of recruiter that you get in Taiwan - he makes his money by taking a percentage of your pay from every pay packet throughout the whole year. You will find yourself earning less that the going rate (I was getting 50,000NT working 8.30-6.30) and for full time you should expect 55-60k for probably less hours than I was working. He is making the difference. He relies on the fact that people with no idea about Taiwan don't like to come abroad with no idea of how/where to get a job and no idea of what it's like. You know, "shoud I pack toothpaste in case I can't buy it over there?" Well it's pretty normal over here so relax about that, you can get Colgate in the 7-11 and everything! If you come with some money, check in to a hostel like the Formosa hostels in Taipei so you can talk to teachers who know the score, check the jobs on www.tealit.com (you can also find apartments on there etc.) you will get a better deal.
The upside of the way Andrew Lin operates is that he has an interest in treating you well if he thinks it will make you stay in a job. Like I said I stayed in a nice hotel for over a week and he bought me dinner and everything. It's just that the job I got turned out to be not so good a deal.
There are better agents who take a cut from your first month's pay and that's that, and they will probably find you a better job. One I reccomend is Jenny Lai on Taipei 0223621695 but you really need to be here first to meet her and she will probably find you something outside of Taipei which is a lot more of a culture shock. There are others, and you can get their numbers off the boards in the Formosa hostels. Vivian 0227034598 is a back-street operation who will send you to different schools in Taipei every day where you get tokens you cash in for money (550 per hour) each friday. She's Good for filling a gap in your schedule or for earning cash while you are waiting for something better. David, 0958851339 is not too bad I've heard. "Steve in Taiwan" [email protected] is pretty good too.
Basically I found Andrew Lin to be ok but you could get a much better deal on your own if you just bring 1500 US with you to make setting yourself up, waiting for a job etc. easy and stress free. The other thing is he looks like a cross between Elvis and a used-car sales man.

[Aristotle]

Please read this,
http://www.geocities.com/taiwanteacher2002/Success.html
Good luck,
A.