Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Kiddirts]

for a 2-hour class that the wife of one of the businessmen wants to put together for 4-5 high school students that meets twice a week. I told the guy I would do the 2-hr class for 120,000. On months that it meets 8 times it would naturally be 960,000...9 times, 1,080,000 of course. He said that they contacted English teachers directly in the area and they said that they would do it for 600,000. Are we really lowering our gigs to the point where they are as cheap as pay we'd expect from recruiters or is he trying to negotiate a better deal? I can't see doing that class for less than 100,000...considering it's being put together w/o recruiter involvment.

[chronicpride]

No, it's definitely not a dilution issue from a teachers POV. There are a lot of enterprising closet recruiters out there. And this wife might be one of them. Organizing the money and scheduling of other people's kids and she charges them and turns around to you, and tries to make the profit. I've seen this so much. With businessmen, budongsan reps, hair salon ajummas, even dry cleaners. People who have a good network of contacts that have kids, and they happen to know a private foreign teacher. The business culture here is ripe with introduction/middleman business mentality, and it doesn't take much for them to hatch a scheme, if all the ingredients are in place.

Your rate is very reasonable. Many teachers give reduced rates for groups, that would hover around 15-20,000 per head, if it involved 4-5 students, and your quote is near the lower end of that.

IMO, they are new to this racket of putting together classes on the side, and don't know what to charge. They probably have already made the slip-up of quoting the students, before securing the quote from the teacher, and they want to line things up, rather than having to go back to the student's mothers and upsell on the price.

I'd stay very firm with your quote. If there was actually another guy quoting 600,000/mnth, the businessman would not have kept the door open for you. Don't go down, just because he says that he knows other private teachers. We're not like budongsan reps on every corner where one can shop around. You're the only one he's talking to.

[Kiddirts]

thanks for your thoughtful reply