Korean Job Discussion Forums

[eamo]

Hey Ben

Why do you put the resumes of teachers talking to other recruiters on the 'back-burner'?

Surely, if you can place that teacher in a job to his liking then you get the fee.

So really, it's up to you and how well you can place teachers.

Would you turn me away from your used-car lot if I told you I'd just been to the other car used-car lot down the street?

BTW, can you get me a job?

[Milwaukiedave]

I voted no, mainly because I have had a bad experience with a recruiter. The people were pushy and ended up putting me in a hogwan that literally tried to SELL ME to another hogwan once they wanted to get rid of me.

The short end of the story is I came over in Jan and replaced a teacher that left due fact they had a sick family member. After a month the person decided they wanted to come back. Since this teacher was "popular" the owner wanted to bring her back to finish her contract.

I contacted the recruiter and they didn't do a thing. I'm not even sure they are in business anymore. Anyway, I was able to find another job in Daegu and a much better one at that.

I ended up contacting a recruiter that placed me at the second job. They were very nice and helpful. So, I've had one good and one bad experience.

[Kim Jong Jordan]

I posted earlier that Ben and Footprints recruiting didn't know who I was despite my repeated e-mails. Well I sh*t you not! After that post (the day before yesterday) I sent them another e-mail thanking them for their "efforts" in trying to locate me work (if that's what you call whatever the heck it was that they did for me) but that I had already secured a position and guess what? Ben calls me with new job offers! I told him that I had e-mailed him several times before articulating this but he played stupid. I then double checked the e-mail address by checking their website and I had it right all along. I don't understand. Conclusion, stay away from Footprints, they will suck you in pretending to be an exceptional recruiter by claiming that you have "qualified" and have been "accepted" (the lady at that time actually told me that they only accept "about 40% of the applicants for job consideration...") but in the end I swear they don't know who you are. This girl even referred to Footprints and their members as a "family." I thus expect to receive job offers throughout the year, despite my polite and humble efforts.

[chronicpride]

[Kim Jong Jordan]

Exactly.

[Ben Glickman]

I find it quite remarkable that a complete stranger claims to know the inner workings of our company- I didn't realize that our employees were taking the time to post misinformation about our company.

Seriously though- you make a series of untrue statements based on assumptions, rather than what we do as a company. Tackiness? All e-mails are responded to personally, within 48 hours whenever humanly possible? Since when is this tacky?

One of the few coherent points you make is, "More importantly, though, is that a teacher who is talking to XYZ amount of recruiters always remains a high risk, because even if he signs through you, he is still getting shopped by other recruiters throughout the process, right up until the E2 is secured and he steps off the plane."

You are right- why would we spend our resources on someone who is high risk and not loyal to our company when we have teachers that rely on our services, and in turn receive benefits and perks not available through other agencies/schools. If you want an elaboration on this, contact me personally - I don't want this to sound like an adverstisement for Footprints.

However where you lose the plot is where you say,

"But what he's not mentioning is that he shops your photo and resume to XYZ amount of hagwons, telling each one how exclusively available the teacher is to that school, meanwhile, the same resume/photo sits on an innumberable amount of director's desks, from him and other recruiters.

A little smoke and mirrors with your hypocrisy?
"

On what factual basis do you make this crass assumption? We operate on a basis of transparency and honesty- and our clients feel secure in using our services because we introduce quality candidates available to them that trust us, and by extention our clients- part of the reason they use our services are because we don't introduce high risk teachers to them. Why would we? We are not looking for quick one off placement, we cultivate relationships over a period of years with quality schools?

Another off base assumption is that teachers that apply everywhere get what they want.

You state,

"
Teacher plays the full field, gets exactly what he wants, even if he has to step on a few heads to do it. Boohoo. It's a tough industry. "

This is simply not the case. It is a frequent occurrence that teachers, apply to us after applying everywhere and then getting deluged with competing and contradictory job offers. Furthermore, on almost a weekly basis we get e-mails from teachers that decided to sign with other schools/recruiters and then ask us what we can do to help them because their school is going out of business, they aren't getting paid on time, etc.

Unfortunately there isn't much we can do in this situation if a teacher already has an E-2 visa. We check the references and financial condition of every single school before we take them on as clients- so why wouldn't we want to introduce teachers to them that work only with us? High quality schools deserve high quality teachers.

You then state,

"What the hell do you expect when you advertise in markets that are heavily travelled with other recruiters? If you want exclusivity, then spend the extra cash on Monster or Hotjobs or nationwide classified ads. It'll bring your cost per placement up a little, but you will have the exclusivity that you want and you will be virtually guaranteed to be the first recruitment relationship that the teacher will form, and most likely keep. If you pay for *beep* advertising to generate your resumes, then don't complain. I've bought ads on Monster and classifieds, lost a little on my margins, but retained more exclusivity and loyalty. And everyone of those guys that I placed, never had a gripe. I was even able to screen and do reference checks, which you probably have never done with anybody, judging from the teachers that I've personally met who've come through you. "

Thank you for stating the obvious. We never could have figured this out on our own. When can we hire you to head our marketing department? If you had actually done any research before posting your supposedly informed remarks you would have realized that we don't advertise for teachers on the well traveled ESL sites. We wouldn't expect our clients to pay for our services if they could attract the same teachers for free.

Thank you for your thoughts concerning our business plan. Again, if you actually knew anything about us, or bothered to read anything about us, you would know that we are leaders in the industry- that we keep in constant contact with both teachers and schools to ensure that both parties are satisfied. We offer our teachers and alumni (teachers that finish one year contracts through our agency) benefits not available elsewhere. Furthermore, we are an equal opportunity recruiter, and one of our prime parameters for considering new schools as clients is that they are equal opportunity employers as well. We have one of the best records in the industry in terms of minority placement. Again, if you bothered to ask me, or do rudimentary research, you might know this.

Here's a thought for you- why don't you actually do your research before stating things which are by turn blindingly obvious and simply untrue?

[Homer]

Many people here consider this topic from the teacher's perspective only.

Mr. Glickman made good points about how the recruiters are not always the bad guys here and about how they have to make business decisions based on the quality of their applicants.

I know of two other recruitement agencies out there (both also based in Canada) that operate on a quality over quantity basis. They are both run by people who were teachers here for a number of years. I know the director of one of these agencies personnally as I worked with him in Korea back in 1998.
He is a professional and is very serious about recruiting. After reading the many threads on here about recruiters it was surprising to me how people assume that they know it all about the recruitement business or just lump together all the recruiters and stamp them bad based on the fact that there are a few yahoos and unscrupulous jerks running recruitement agencies out there.

The agency that is run by this friendof mine (we became friends when we worked together in 1998) and his business partner is run on a strict quality over quantity basis and on a honesty above all else policy. They work with a good and reliable partner here (based somewhere near Seoul) and only place teachers at schools that have been visited and evaluated by their partners. This requires a lot of effort and ressources on their part and means they only select teachers that they feel are qualified.
Yet you would be surprised at the number of teachers who apply with them and cannot even follow the simplest of procedures or present themselves with a minimum of professionalism and yet expect to be placed at high end jobs right away.
As far as I can tell (from what he told me) it requires a significant amount of time and ressources to evaluated and recommend each teacher. They respond to their emails (since the point was raised in this thread) within 24 hours and are not afraid to end the recruitement process with un-professional teachers. After have asked him and his partner, it is clear that teachers who shop themselves around with too many recruiters often end up shooting themselves in the foot. He was clear however in saying that it is perfectly acceptable and even smart for teachers to deal with a limited number of recruiters (this is where he differs from Footprints it seems).
The main point here (as I have rambled on!) is that they received heaps of applications through email everyday and that they carefully choose who they select. They take the time to answer every email, even to those they will be unable to select and explain in detail why. This requires a lot of time and energy and they get no money for this. It is a question of professionalism.

Also remember that recruiters (the good ones anyway) have to deal with a lot of teachers who have no qualifications or real relevant experience and yet ask for the moon.

This business has two sides and as there are bad recruiters there are also many bad teachers who grossly over-evaluate their worth. There are also teachers who play recruiters against one another (unprofessional in my book) or teachers who lie on their resumes, post fake degrees, accept a job and then disapear, get on the plane but do not meet the people waiting for them at the other end and the list goes on....