Korean Job Discussion Forums

[xpatmatt]

Hi Everyone,

My name is Matt Gibson. I'm a journalist working on an article about teaching agents in different countries around Asia.

In Taiwan (where I live) agents traditionally have had a bad reputation for being untrustworthy, greedy, dishonest, etc. However, it seems that this has been changing in recent years.

Since I have little experience with agents, I am looking for teachers' opinions about agents so that I can find out what the general attitude towards them is in different countries.

I'd like to know:

1) Do you feel that most agents are honest?

2) Do you feel that agents work in the best interest of teachers?

3) Do you feel that agents contribute to lower overall teaching wages by trying to convince teachers to accept less pay (so that they can make more money)?

Also, I'd really like to hear about anyone's personal experiences with agents, or anything else that anyone has to say on the topic. My article will be based mainly on the opinions of the teachers who respond to my post.

If you would like your opinion included in the article (although I can't guarantee it will be) please include the following information about yourself:
Name (just a first name is OK)
Home country
Country you teach in.
This is just so that I can attribute quotes to people, for example, Beth, a British English teacher living in Japan said, ....

If you would like to contact me privately about this, I can be reached at ‪xpatmatt[@]gmail.com‬.

Thanks very much for reading!

Best,
Matt

[RMNC]

I think you mean to say "recruiters", not "agents". I've never seen a recruiter use the term "agent" before in the same sense of the word that most people attribute it to.

1) Do you feel that most agents are honest?

Yes, most of the time, but when a teacher is on the edge of accepting a contract, the recruiter often times will say something too good to be true to get a teacher to sign up, so they can get paid. When it comes to merely introducing schools to teachers, I feel they do their job adequately, but beyond that, I don't expect many promises to be kept.

2) Do you feel that agents work in the best interest of teachers?

No, recruiters work in the best interest of themselves. Most of the time, when a teacher goes to Korea through an agent, the teacher will never hear from that recruiter again. A teacher is merely a paycheck, and getting them on a plane is the only way to make the rent.

3) Do you feel that agents contribute to lower overall teaching wages by trying to convince teachers to accept less pay (so that they can make more money)?

The pay that a teacher gets and the amount of money a recruiter gets from a school are usually not tied together. Most recruiters do not encourage teachers to take lower wages, or any wage in particular. What contributes to lower wages more than anything is the demand to work in Korea being so high. Schools know they only have offer a certain amount to entice teachers to come over, nothing more.

Kenneth
USA
South Ko

[ttompatz]

No, he is talking about agents (like they have in Taiwan, Japan and Thailand (among others).

The agency sends you out and either collects a percentage of your salary or hires you and then sends you out and they collect the whole package from the school.

He has spammed a number of ESL boards and multiple forums with the same message.

.

[Njord]