Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Oaks]

This is a warning to potential teachers: do not trust the recruiter julice. She has a new posting for an adults position from the infamous BCM (Bundang branch). On her site, it says that the teaching is 120 hours per month at 50 minutes per hour. This is false. At bundang BCM, the teaching is 60 minutes per hour. The contract is for 120 hours of actual teaching. I told her this before, and she changed it, but now she has put back the false information (unless BCM has changed their pay system which is extremely unlikely).
Avoid Bundang BCM and Julice at all costs!

[chronicpride]

Huh? She incorrectly details what the school constitutes a class hour, which may have been a simple oversight the second time around, and you throw down a damning post that she should not be trusted?

Legitimate or illegitimate typos aside, to properly qualify her blacklisting, how did you find her service levels as a recruiter? Was there anything about your experience with her placement record that you found unsatisfactory? Have you had any interaction with her as a recruited teacher? If so, what is her after-service care like?

You also condemn Bundang BCM but give no reason supporting it.

You never considered the fact that she may have posted the BCM job detail directly from her old offline job text (ie., copy/paste) that may have the original incorrect information. And the fact that she was receptive enough to change the first job post to provide accurate information is actually a good trait in a recruiter, which I think you overlooked. Most recruiters don't even respond to the bulk of qualified resume emails, let alone addressing accurate job details that she advertises. You also undermined your claim by stating the possibility that the job post might be accurate, provided that BCM has changed their contract structure.

When not given enough information to form accurate conclusions, try not to assume too much and spread misinformation based on unsubstantiated assumptions. There are a lot of newbies that come here that need good advice and information, and posts like this are not helping anybody.

[rapier]

A negative post on this forum is generally enough to deter me. I'm so used to recruiters and schools being crooked that i'm not about to sign away a year of my life to find out wether the negative reports are really true or not..
I'm on the tail of some schools in taiwan at the mo, and the entries in the "job information journal" on that country are certainly useful for knowing what to avoid.
I'm always going to trust the opinion of a fellow teacher above anything else. But at the end of the day, the entire ESL profession is riven with exploitative cowboy operations, that it becomes hard to not expect being ripped off to varying degrees, wherever you end up.

[lesza]

Chronic Pride I think you are coming down too heavy on the OP. It provides enough information for anyone who has prospects with BCM or Julice to ask some of the right questions such as: what constitutes a teaching hour, what are the monthly requirements, etc. This issue (classroom hour versus 60 min hour) came up at our hagwon and bit the teachers on the butt (part of the reason we're leaving). There is a HUGE difference between 120 classes per month and 120 'hours'. If I were to use the services of a recruiter I would expect that their experience would work on my behalf to ask those kinds of questions of a prospective employer, not disguise the issue with misleading advertising (I'm not accusing Julice of doing that).

The new guy at our old hagwon came through a recruiter and I would argue that the recruiter was not doing his or her job because s/he mediated the new teacher into a terrible contract! If the recruiters are nothing more than an advertising agency for hagwons then they are doing prospective teachers a disservice.

Lesza

[Gord]

[chi-chi]

Also do not use Sam Orange Recruiting, otherwise known as "Stephen."
While he was there talking with the school with me, he tried to bump up my hours by 20 a month, thus removing my overtime.
I refused to sign it in his presence, and talked to the other teachers and will be getting my overtime.
Do not use this wanna be job pimp.
Also he will come by your school and chew you out about stuff.
Freak.

[chronicpride]

Lesza,

When someone comes on here and says 'avoid such and such at all costs' and doesn't provide enough reason to avoid it, I'm going to reply in appropriate fashion to seek truths.

This board gets plagued with misinformation at times and I think it is in the best interests of newbies to ensure that we filter and search for clearer answers.

Naturally, with all recruiter relationships that one would undertake, people should be asking those qualifying questions to them. The merits of the class minutes per hour/month was never the stand alone issue. As my post indicates, I took issue with when someone tries to blacklist based on assumptions. There are 2 sides to every story, we only ever hear the teacher's side.

I think the OP could've chosen another thread title and avoided things like 'avoid at all costs'. Reading it again, I think the OP is the one that came down too hard with his assumptive gavel on this recruiter and BCM. My retort was to merely address this.

PS. I've never dealt nor communcated with Julice (however she's a competitor of mine), but she doesn't usually get a lot of bad press and she has been doing a lot of placements over the years. She's one of the bigger operators over here and I think 'no news' is good news, more often than not, in the recruiter business. And when she gets bad press over what could have simply been a typo or oversight, one would hope that newbies will see through this and qualify her and other recruiters properly themselves, instead of relying on some of these baseless rants.

[Walter Mitty]

As a former Bundang BCM teacher, allow me to say - avoid Bundang BCM. The class hours thing is screwy. You've got to work about 144 hours in a classroom to make your 120 contract hours before you start making overtime. At Kangnam BCM, you don't. They get paid fairly (I know how much some people on this board love to hate that word, but I'll use it anyways.). One 50-minute class = one hour of pay. If I'd had that deal at Bundang BCM I'd have been rolling in it. As it was the two months where I did get a decent amount of overtime left me too exhausted to do much anything else but go home and pass out. And the kicker? Kangnam BCM calls the shots for how Bundang BCM is run - except when it comes to pay.

The manager at Bundang BCM is a little weasel named Terry Oh. He is the stereotypical hagwon manager (except that he speaks pretty good English). He's a compulsive liar who just pulls stuff out of his ass, rather than find out a useful answer for you. He hems, haws and delays on any request for information put to him.

When I left there this Spring, I had to pay 60,000 won in "cleaning fees" for my apartment to be cleaned and my blankets & linens to be dry cleaned. None of that was done.

They also don't care about the comfort levels of the school. They won't turn on the AC, even when students are roasting in the rooms in the interior of the building. The exterior rooms can open the windows, an that should be good enough for everybody. Reverse situation in the winter. The heating system makes it too hot in the interior rooms, and the windows in the exterior aren't insulated enough to keep the cold out. The only time I got them to turn the heat on was when I carried my personal space heater through a lobby crowded with students as I went to class.

All that said, the students (for the most part) were quite nice and we were always paid on time (though that should be a given, not a compliment). The management alone is enough to keep anybody away from there. They still have the same people there and until there is some major change in how the place is run, I will never suggest anybody take a job there.

After leaving there I was very soured on teaching. A little time back in the US to cool off made me realize why I hated it so much. It wasn't the work - it was the school. Four months after leaving, I'm back in Korea at a great job. I make more, work fewer hours and have management that's an absolute dream to work with. And I got this gig through a recruiter - FTUnion.

Anything else you'd like to know, or does this give you enough reasons to believe the original poster (whom I worked with)?

[Oaks]

yes, julice deserves credit that she changed the class hours the first time around. But I disagree that this is now a simple error. she should be responsible enough to keep the correct amounts in her records. She probably changed it back to 50 minutes per hour because she thought that I wouldn`t notice it this time, or to increase the chances of getting teachers even though the information is false.
there was a vancouver based recruiter called footprints that used to place teachers at bcm, but stopped after getting so many complaints from the teachers. a recruiter with integrity wouldn`t place teachers there (admittedly recruiters with integrity are a rare species). I acknowledge that I didn`t give enough evidence as to why to avoid BCM in the first post, but now my former fellow teacher walter mitty has done so.

[Lost Seoul]

Here are some previous posts about Julice:

================================================
http://209.204.62.79/korea/index.cgi?read=124402
Re: Julice the Recruiter
Posted By: Maca - [email protected]
Date: Wednesday, 15 May 2002, at 5:08 p.m.
In Response To: Julice the Recruiter (Leo)
There has been several NEGATIVE postings of this recruiter in the past 12 months.
Do search in the archives of this forum.
Maca.

================================
http://209.204.62.79/korea/index.cgi?read=129510
Re: julice a good recruiter?
Posted By: Maca - [email protected]
Date: Wednesday, 12 June 2002, at 4:33 p.m.
In Response To: julice a good recruiter? (rosco)
Julice had several BAD posts with in the past 9 months.
Do a search in the archives of this forum
Use at your own peril!
Maca.
========================================
http://209.204.62.79/korea/index.cgi?read=129866
Re: julice a good recruiter? - NO ! !
Posted By: Veritas
Date: Friday, 14 June 2002, at 2:50 a.m.
In Response To: Re: julice a good recruiter? (Maca)
Julice has no qualms in pushing an ageist line.If you are over 40 don't waste your time dealing with this recruiter.
AGEISM = AN UNPROFESSIONAL APPROACH IN THE PROVISION ( ALBEIT, INDIRECTLY) OF EDUCATIONAL SERVICES .
Avoid Julice.
Veritas
=======================================
http://209.204.62.79/korea/index.cgi?read=130464
Re: Julice's Jobs
Posted By: Peter Burke
Date: Monday, 17 June 2002, at 1:12 p.m.
In Response To: Julice's Jobs (Adam)
She's on the Blacklist and represents bad schools...watch out if she offers you schools like Kids Club, BCM just to name a few..she is bad news,,ask around
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http://www.eslcafe.com/forums/korea/viewtopic.php?t=76
Tiger Beer

Joined: 08 Feb 2003
Posts: 29
Posted: Fri Mar 07, 2003 5:34 am Post subject: Julice

I've taken on a few parttime jobs through Julice.. never had any problem whatsoever.. basically they are just the imbetween for a school and for you..

So any problem would really be with the school itself.. everywhere they helped me, I had no problem.. they are just the connection.. the school or organization that wants you.. thats the questionable area.. you have to decipher their honesty, integrity before you take their position..

Again, Julice is in KwangJu i think? somewhere.. they aren't in Seoul or Busan or wherever else.. I *think* they just basically say 'okay we have these teachers looking.. at to the teachers.. 'hey we have these schools looking'.. okay, now you guys figure out if you are compatible type thing.. more or less..

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http://www.eslcafe.com/forums/korea/viewtopic.php?t=7389
rick

Joined: 21 Feb 2003
Posts: 21

Posted: Sat Jul 19, 2003 4:21 pm Post subject:

I'm also a former teacher from that school, and I strongly agree with Walter Mitty. I don't think anything else needs to be said about the school.
On Julice, I found her to be a good recruiter. She's a very nice person, and is generally helpful if you have problems. She'll talk to the school if you have problems.
If you want to teach adults, you should look at ELS. They have more teachers, so you don't have to do the split shift so much if at all. They have a pretty professional reputation and you'll have a foreigner as a supervisor which is probably a plus in most cases. Direct English is also supposed to be decent, including the one in Bundang.

[chronicpride]

Walter,

Thanks for sharing the unsatisfactory experiences that your time with BCM provided. Thanks to Oaks for adding further clarity to his post. And thanks to Lost Seoul for helping me eat a little crow in sharing some other bad experiences that others have had with Julice, that I may have previously overlooked. At the very least, this thread gives the job hunters more basis to make informed decisions.