Job Discussion Forums

lovetoteach · Joined: 12 Oct 2011 Posts: 17

Hi,

I recently discovered midwested.us which is a recruiter for many different countries. I have found my dealings with them quite confusing.

The employees'(2 of which have contacted me) email addresses are their personal ones with gmail as opposed to that of midwested which is unlike any other online recruiter i've dealt with.

Also, a male employee was very unprofessional in that he was trying to start casual conversation through gmail chat, which had nothing to do with jobs, and inapproprialtely commenting on my looks as he had received my CV photo.

Having said all that, they seem to be sending me valid information about their "partners'" job offers.

Has anyone else dealt with them? Shocked

spiral78 · Joined: 05 Apr 2004 Posts: 11534 Location: On a Short Leash

I've just had a glance at their website and it seems a bit strange in a couple of respects. This is just from a quick look-over, so if anyone wants to take the time to dissect the website in more detail, that would be useful.

Firstly, their TESOL instructor seems to have very minimal ESL/EFL qualifications - her degrees are all apparently in something unrelated. MA TESL/TEFL and/or DELTA holders are pretty commonly employed as teacher trainers these days - it seems a bit odd to advertise someone with unrelated degrees as a professional trainer. Both the academic director and CEO seem to have related qualifications, however.

Secondly, the website lists a wide variety of European countries but does not make it clear that only UK passport holders will be legally able to take up TEFL teaching positions in most of Western Europe - they seem to imply that all candidates for their training programme will be eligible to work in the countries they list.

I'd say that so long as they are sending you job offers for countries in which you could find a job legally on your own, that's probably above board. If they are trying to lead you in the direction of places where you could not legally find a job on your own, given your nationality and qualifications, RED FLAG.

So, the salient questions are probably: where are you from, and where do you want to go? I am guessing you are from the US, as one of your posts requests a salary equivalent to 1500 USD, and I guess you are interested in Europe among other destinations as you posted a query about CERAN, which I have answered. If this is correct, you will want to educate yourself on the significant limitations for non-EU member citizens in Europe - you'd be essentially limited to Central/Eastern Europe legally. Asia is a different story!!

Glenski · Joined: 15 Jan 2003 Posts: 12844 Location: Hokkaido, JAPAN

The way they write on that site, I wouldn't touch them as a student or prospective teacher.

Mixing pronouns (they and you in one sentence, to refer to the same person), using poor grammar sometimes (despite the PhDs on staff), the odd use of capitalization for certain words (unnecessary), run-on words, need I go on?

The CEO got her degree at Argosy U, which Wikipedia shows with a checkered past.
The Academic Director is listed as having a doctorate but they won't say from which uni. I wonder why?
The TESOL Instructor got her master's degree from a distance learning institution.

Hmmm.

lovetoteach · Joined: 12 Oct 2011 Posts: 17

I'm from Ireland and want to go to Oman, UAE, South Korea or Taiwan. Well anywhere that pays well really. I'm at my wits end at this stage. I want to go asap. I have two years pot CELTA experience and a degree.

Glenski · Joined: 15 Jan 2003 Posts: 12844 Location: Hokkaido, JAPAN

tttompatz · Posted: Tue Oct 25, 2011 11:25 pm Post subject:

sofaspud · Joined: 28 Oct 2011 Posts: 7 Location: UK

Ttompatz is right. Putting together the documents take a while.
Even though I'm receiving offers from KSA that I've accepted, Korea is my back up and so I've had all my documents set just in case I need to send them off. It depends where you are from and what you need to send off. I needed to get my documents notarized, then signed and stamped from a solicitor and then apostilled, along with other documents. Best to have them all sorted before hand!

Yes I had been in correspondence with them a while ago. The lady I spoke with seemed quite helpful, although I didn't take up their offer. However, she did sort of erm tell me to re arrange my work experience a bit more (blag). They wanted me to do an 'online webcam interview'. Before I had a chance to do it I got an offer from somewhere else. I remember when I had to make a CV/Resume video of myself on youtube for a job in Dubai, two minutes long and it took me the whole day to rehearse, ahem.

Sofaspud Razz