Job Discussion Forums

bluetortilla · Joined: 18 Apr 2006 Posts: 815 Location: Henan

I asked this question on the General Asia Forum a while back and got an expert answer: always write cover letters that stand out and are specific to the job you're applying for and the organization you're applying to. Generic cover letters generally get less than 10 seconds of attention and are then ignored.

This was the advice of a man who was in a hiring position (in Asia but whereabouts unknown). Great advice but what do you with sending out resumes to colleges when you don't even know if they are even hiring or not and probably aren't (I know the next semester is February, which is what I'm shooting for).

I'm using China TEFL, which lists tons of uni's but that's about all (at least, none of the nuts and bolts of the site such as registration and such work at all), and Wiki. I generally try to get an idea about the college through CTEFL's site, Wiki, and the home page (all in Chinese of course), and at least in the cover letter let them know that I'm familiar with what they teach, where they're located, what seems exciting about the school, etc.

Would it be better to find an agency to help me with this instead of just sending out email packets down the list by prefecture?

All of these schools, in addition, have phone numbers. Should I give a follow up call?

7969 · Joined: 26 Mar 2003 Posts: 5782 Location: Coastal Guangdong

When job hunting I send my resume and a scan of my passport as attachments, and a short paragraph about what I'm looking for in the body of the email. I send this email to a number of schools (Bcc - sent it to approx. 20 schools last time i was looking for work) and wait for replies. After a week or so I take the next step, reconnect with anyone who showed interest and see where it goes from there.

I've never had to phone a school, they have called me though. A phone call can't hurt, and could be helpful. Why not phone?

bluetortilla · Joined: 18 Apr 2006 Posts: 815 Location: Henan

That sounds good, I'll do that. After all, it would take weeks and months to research every school.

When you say 'schools,' that's good for uni's too?

The only thing I think I'll do differently is make sure I got the school's name on each mail, but obviously you've had luck without doing that.

I'll phone too.

Thanks.

choudoufu · Joined: 25 May 2010 Posts: 3325 Location: Mao-berry, PRC

generic. in most cases. in china. in my opinion.

*most of the uni folks i've come in contact with have limited engrish.

*they are simply hiring an easily-replaceable foreign face.

*you got passport and whiteness? OK! bs degree and tefl? how nice! you spend time helping old folks, love beaches and rainbows? who cares!

if a general university or mill, no need to spend hours composing the
perfect letter. the prestidiginous schools or international schools would
probably appreciate a lovely cover letter.

mass mailings with scanned attachments should be sufficient. just
remember to change the school name in the text.

7969 · Joined: 26 Mar 2003 Posts: 5782 Location: Coastal Guangdong

Yes i meant universities.

I sent an email to 20 schools last time around, got about five replies and all of them told me who they were and what the name of their school was. Only one of them answered the questions I asked in my original email, and that's the place I've been for the past six years.

bluetortilla · Joined: 18 Apr 2006 Posts: 815 Location: Henan

Miles Smiles · Joined: 07 Jun 2010 Posts: 1294 Location: Heebee Jeebee

A placement service MAY ask for a cover letter if they're trying to ascertain whether you have mastery of English. My guess is that if they are placing a recruit in a top-tier university, they'll send the letter to the school.

My experience with recruiters is that they never even sent the school my resumes, just the usual docs and a copy-and paste of teaching experiences. In one case, all that was sent was a synopsis of teaching experience with the docs. Relevant work experience/information was never sent.

Last year, I had a brief discussion with the dean of the languages department, and he was surprised that I had a publication list. He was interested in seeing my CV.

I sent it to him.

Interestingly, it made the rounds of at least 3 teachers in the department. They had never seen an FT's CV before. The FAO admitted that he'd never seen my CV or cover letter.

YMMV

MisterButtkins · Joined: 03 Oct 2009 Posts: 1221

IMO the ability to discern whether or not a piece of English writing was specifically tailored to a specific job or whether it could have been sent to a dozen other schools is considerably beyond the English ability of most FAOs/English department workers at a Chinese university.

In other words, assuming they even read it, they aren't going to know whether it was written specifically for the position or not.

Oh, by the way, I've been sending the exact same cover letter to schools for the past two years, and have gotten several replies along the lines of "Wow, you seem really interested in this position" or "I can tell you're passionate about teaching" or "You seem really genuine". Yes, no BS, one of the schools told me I seemed really genuine, after they got the same cover letter as 40 other schools.

Basically there is a spot in the letter where I paste the name of the school in and another spot (right after Dear) where I try to paste the name of whoever looks to be in charge of recruiting. Other than that it's all the same.