Recruiters, they're a popular way to connect teachers with schools, especially in Asia and the Middle East. Hop on any ESL job board and you'll see dozens of job postings from recruiters. Are recruiters the best way to find a job? What are the pros and cons of using them? What are their responsibilities to the job seeker vs the school? I see so many posts in expat and ESL groups with questions and comments about recruiters, that show a real basic misunderstanding of recruiters and their roles. In this article we'll talk about recruiters roles and responsibilities and the pros and cons of using them to secure a job.
Who do recruiters work for?
Well they work for the school(s) that hire them to find teachers. Recruiters earn their money when a teacher signs with a school, once the teacher signs, the recruiter this is paid a commission by the school. This is super important to keep in mind (looking at you new teachers), so they may not be 100% truthful when answering questions about the school, or omit things to make it more appealing to teachers. They may also pressure teachers to sign with a school, especially if they have been working with you for a while, the quicker they get you signed the more money they make and less time they have to spend on you. Once your contract is signed and you're in country at your school, they are done with you. They also have absolutely no obligation to you outside of matching you with potential employers. I've seen no end of posts where new teachers are having issues with their school for various reasons, and are complaining that they've reached out to their recruiter and they're not being helpful. Here's a hard pill to swallow, but they don't care, their job is done and they have no responsibility towards you. If you are having conflict with your school or it just isn't a good fit for whatever reason (hey it happens), it is up to you to either resolve the situation or get yourself out of the job (I'll address this more in a future article).
Why use a recruiter?
In Asia (South Korea, Thailand, China, Vietnam, Taiwan, Japan) and in the Middle East many schools don't post job listings themselves. Using a recruiter removes some of the work for the school as the recruiter posts the job listing and responds to initial applications. Schools may also use them because of the language barrier, there may not be anyone at the school who speaks and writes English well enough to post the job and respond to applications outside of the foreign teachers already employed at the school...and depending on management they may not want them to do this. Using a recruiter can help you filter through the numerous listings to make sure you're interviewing with schools that meet any criteria that you may have (location, age group etc). New teachers often lack the networks and hiring practice knowledge to find and navigate the direct hire process. Recruiters will walk you through the process of gathering the appropriate documents for your visa, where to find expat insurance, and booking your flight. This assistance can help make the process seem less overwhelming for new teachers.
Pros of using a recruiter
Recruiters and recruiting agencies have access to dozens of job openings at any given time,
typically from private language schools (hagwons/academy) and public schools. If you're a first time teacher, a recruiter is a great place to start for jobs search. You can have the recruiters filter jobs by location, salary and age group or any other criteria you'd like. This doesn't mean you won't get sent jobs that don't exactly match what you're looking for, but you can choose which jobs you want to interview for and the recruiter will arrange the interview. Recruiters typically interview perspective teachers themselves before they start to send job listings, this allows them to get an idea of what you're looking for and what your personality is like to help create a better match.
Cons of using a recruiter
So why wouldn't you use a recruiter? Experienced teachers, or those who have really specific job criteria (it's best to be slightly flexible) recruiters may bombard you with job openings that don't meet your criteria, and even be pushy in trying to get you to interview for them. I don't teach kindergarten, won't touch it with a ten foot pole, even after having a conversation with a recruiter where I explicitly stated I wouldn't even consider a job with kinder, half the jobs they sent me still required teaching kinder. Recruiters get paid by commission by placement, so at the end of the day they are trying to match you with a job ASAP to maximize their profit and minimize their work. Recruiters can also be misleading in how they describe or advertise a job, or just omit things that are probably important, but first time teachers may not know to ask about (we'll cover that in more detail in a later post :)). One of the most common things I see in job postings is a misleading location. While the recruiter may say the job is in Seoul, it may actually be in Incheon, Suwon or Bucheon. While all these cities are connected to Seoul via the Seoul subway system, they aren't actually in Seoul. That doesn't mean the job isn't good, but new teachers who aren't that familiar with Seoul it can be a little misleading, especially if you really want to be in Seoul. As one of my old co-workers put, I want to walk out my door and be run over by a Seoul city bus...not literally but you get the idea. If you're an experienced teacher you can be harder to place. While you'd think schools would prefer an experienced teacher, this isn't always the case. Experienced teachers typically have higher salary requirements, and schools don't want to pay. I've heard a lot of stories from POC teachers that recruiters will try to get them to take lower paying jobs, or a job in a city they don't want, as well as telling them that it will be harder to find a job. There is discrimination in Korea, so before you start working with a recruiter, you may want to screen them to see if they will discriminate against you for being a POC.
Scams
We can't talk about recruiters with out talking about some common scams that you can run
into with recruiters.
Money
If a recruiter asks you to send them money or charges you a fee, walk away. This may seem like a no-brainer, but many new ESL teachers still fall for this scam. They may not ask you for money right away, they may wait until you are interviewing with perspective jobs or have even found a job that you would like to accept, and that's when they say that you need to send them a fee before you can be offered the job. The schools pay a fee to the recruiters, not the teachers.
Certification
I'm not talking about the recruiter having or not having certifications. If a recruiter is offering a job that "doesn't require" some sort of TEFL/TSEOL/CELTA certification, there's a good chance the job is a scam and could potentially land you in trouble when you arrive in country. Every country I've worked in has had requirements such as holding one of these certifications to be in on the proper visa to teach. Be familiar with visa requirements for the country where you are applying for jobs.
Too go to be true
If a job listing seems like it's too good to be true, it probably is. While there are some amazing jobs out there, they are typically targeting more experienced and qualified teachers...and may be slightly misrepresenting in the advertisement. If a job is offering double or triple the average salary, an abnormally high amount of vacation time, or other perks that other jobs aren't offering, it probably isn't a legit job posting.
Bad grammar & Email addresses
I've seen a lot of warnings over things like poor grammar and email addresses that aren't attached to schools. Here's some things to keep in mind about these points. There are many recruitment agencies where the employees are not native speakers of English and don't speak or write on a neo-native level. Because of this you may see some grammar mistakes in both postings, emails and when talking to the recruiter on Skype. You shouldn't see any major errors, but small errors do happen. I've often heard that if a recruiters email doesn't include the school name, it's not legit. Well recruiters don't usually work for only one school, so they shouldn't have a school name in their email address. They should have the name of the recruiting agency in their email. An exception would be freelance recruiters, their email may be gmail or yahoo as having an email address for your specific domain is an additional fee onto of what you pay for your domain and they may be trying to keep their expenses down.
Poor/Nonexistent Reputation
Before choosing a recruiter it's always a good idea to research them and see what kind of experience other teachers have had working with them. If they have a bad reputation, or no reputation at all, it's best to avoid them and go with a recruiter who has a solid reputation.
Recruiters can be a great tool when you ask the right questions, do your own secondary research and utilize them correctly. It may seem like I bash them a little bit in this article, but they are worth using in your job search. Here are a few recruiters who are pretty reputable in Korea to help in your job search.
Korvia - Korvia recruits for public and private schools in Korea and China. I have several friends who used them to find public school positions in Korea and all of them where pleased with the process and services offered by Korvia. I have used Korvia myself as well and they did a good job of only sending me job openings that mostly fit what I was looking for (no jobs with kinder were ever sent) and even though I didn't end up taking a job through them, I had a pleasant experience.
Appletree - Another recruiter that enjoys a good reputation in Korea is Appletree Recruiting. They have a large inventory of jobs, mostly private schools, and do a good job of trying to match any criteria you may have. They also recruit for English Villages and English Camps along with occasional postings from companies looking for in house ESL teachers.
Seoul ESL - Seoul ESL is another reputable recruiter in Korea. Founded by former ESL teachers, they have job listings at private language schools throughout Korea and opportunities in China via ChinaESL. I have utilized them when searching for jobs in Korea and the jobs they sent me where always close to the criteria I had set.
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