The Strategy for Contacting Universities

If I'm not mistaken, the best way to go about contacting universities is directly. Simply put: Find the area you want and contact all/some of the universites in that area.

Through reading on this board and contacting specific members that really seems to be the strategy to use. But I have some question that I was hoping to pose to everyone so I could garner some wisdom.

1. Regarding Timing: When is the time Universities hire? I know July and August was hiring rush for the first Semester(considered the Fall Semester in USA). But what about the Spring Semester..does hiring happen for the second semester around December/January?

Regarding Hire Date: Also, should I not worry too much if I want to start teaching in China for the second semester but still dont have a job by December. (I kinda want to prepare myself so I dont freak out if this happens to me)

2. This question is about manipulating recruiters. I know an advanced strategy exists. One in which the person in question contacts several recruiters getting them to do the legwork and find hiring Universities and then the interested party looking for a job then just asks enough questions from the recruiter (such as: Where is the University located? What is it best known for?)

What are some good questions to ask to garner from them what University it is that they did the legwork to find?

Additionally, When is the point that the recruiter will say to you 'hey I connected you two, gimme some of your paycheck'? Should I stop my relationship with the recruiter just short of him giving me their email?


 

Most recruiters get their kickback from the school.  Of course, there are some who will try to get paid on both ends.

If you want to play this game, set up a different email address and a fake name.  If necessary, use a fake resume that gives you about the same level of experience. Then try your plan to pump the recruiter for clues could work.  Just don't give any info that could tie you to "that other person who happened to contact the school directly".

To combat this, some recruiters will want scanned copies of degrees, passports, etc. before talking to you.

Sometimes, recruiter ads can give you just enough info to figure out the school name.

Your last challenge will be to find the proper contact info at the school.  Chrome can do a pretty good job translating websites for you.  See if you can find anything about Foreign Affairs Officer, English Department, or just Employment on the school website.

I really don't think all that crap is necessary, just doodle about on university websites using a translator if necessary and fire off a bunch of emails. You'll get there eventually.

Has anyone had much success in a university where you need to translate a webpage just to find an e-mail address?  I can't imagine they're very concerned about their foreign staff if that is the case.

Most recruiters that want a payment from you will be operating as "volunteer" programs or offering some sort of (usually bogus) TEFL certificate. Straight up recruiters almost always get their kickback from the school, not the teacher. Even if they are taking a percentage of your salary, they aren't relying on you to hand it over, the school will pay them that percentage before you ever even see it, and most likely they won't tell you about it either. It would be like this: Recruiter tells you the position pays 4000rmb a month. In reality, the school pays 5000rmb a month but they're skimming 5000 off the top.  No one, not the school or the recruiter, would ever tell you this though. This is only "your" salary in the sense that it is money that was allotted for the payment of foreign teachers, but which is going to a recruiter instead. Lots of recruiters just take a flat fee from the school too.

Has anyone had much success in a university where you need to translate a webpage just to find an e-mail address?  I can't imagine they're very concerned about their foreign staff if that is the case.

How did you find your job? Did you use a recruiter or word of mouth? Did your university or college actively seek prospective employees on their webpage and keep the information up to date? Many don't. Most of the English pages serve as p. r. for the school and they exist for foreign schools who partner with the university. Forget about some laowai who wants to earn an honest living! It isn't out of the question that some universities are poor in their treatment of foreign instructors, but your suggestion that a lack of English employment information on the page is pretty naive. Do you understand the hierarchy of getting things done on an administrative level between different departments in a mainland university? The politics involved can be mind blowing. I have to observe this first hand with more than a few schools. I'll meet a foreign affairs officer who laments their inability to provide the school with all of the foreign instructors they desire. The school won't assist them in advertising on the school's webpage. Why not? Some fool in a department completely unrelated to teaching and h. r. can't wrap their thick head around the idea that a foreigner even visits their university's web page. Besides, they're a "laowai" and why should they bother? So that puts the fao in a bind. It is easier for them to go straight to sites that don't charge an administrative fee for posting a job because it is quicker and easier than dealing with the office goons in charge of the university web page. The channels they have to go through may not be worth the effort. Being a foreign teacher exposes you to some of the absurd bureaucracy, but not even half of it. A website without an English page means nothing. It may, or most likely may not be an omen for what a prospective foreign teacher may encounter. Believe me, I'm not out to defend the system here, but your suggestion seems naive for someone who appears to have been here for a while. The schools that have a substantial foreign teacher retention rate never have to advertise, especially on the university's web page.  

Must admit I used the ChinaTEFL site [Zhejiang Helen], which is much criticised, but used the direct contact info they naively include. I was lining up work for the Spring semester initially, coming from the Southern Hemisphere. I applied around Sept/Oct, got the position, and then they hounded me to come early to back fill a resignation!
No-shows and sudden cases of sick mothers are endemic in this game: they're always trying to fill vacancies at the last minute.

Has anyone had any success with this strategy? (ie. fooling a recruiter then contacting the school directly?)

@NATO: It may not be necessary, but I feel like letting the recruiter do all the legwork is well worth it. Does anyone here disagree?

I figured out which schools a couple of recruiter ads were talking about and made contact.  One of them might have worked out, but I wasn't looking for a full one year contract and the school was.

Has anyone had any success with this strategy? (ie. fooling a recruiter then contacting the school directly?)

@NATO: It may not be necessary, but I feel like letting the recruiter do all the legwork is well worth it. Does anyone here disagree?

YES we disagree.  See thread below
   
Why Raoul Wants You To Avoid Recruiters- ALL Recruiters, Everywhere, Any Time!
http://raoulschinasaloon.com/index.php?topic=6827.0

Quote from: DC@54055 on September 23, 2011, 04:14:35 PM

Has anyone had any success with this strategy? (ie. fooling a recruiter then contacting the school directly?)

@NATO: It may not be necessary, but I feel like letting the recruiter do all the legwork is well worth it. Does anyone here disagree?

YES we disagree.  See thread below
   
Why Raoul Wants You To Avoid Recruiters- ALL Recruiters, Everywhere, Any Time!
http://raoulschinasaloon.com/index.php?topic=6827.0

While I do agree that to actually find a job it's not necessary to contact a recruiter and actually go through them to get a job I HAVE used a recruiter in the past to get details of a job and then ditched the recruiter after conning enough details out of them.
My Uni job came from a recruiter and I just asked some simple questions about the job they had (note I never gave them my details and they had a secondary email of mine) All I had to do was get some small details from them and then I knew which University it was. After that I simply contacted the Uni (it was in the same city where I was living) headed over for an interview and had the job, no recruiter involvement.
The Uni had been using the recruiter for 3 years and had never advertised a position in that time outside of the recruiter. They job turned out to be very comfortable and worthwhile but when they opened a new campus waaaay out in the sticks it was time to bail.
I also have noticed that they ditched the recruiter in their latest search for a teacher.

If you can get some good out of a recruiter and are skillful enough to then ditch them before the payoff comes, I have absolutely no problem with that. But it's not easy and it's not for everybody, and you're dealing with some real snakes here.

One problem that comes to mind is that if a recruiter realizes they've been cheated out of a placement, they will have no qualms at all about complaining to the school, badmouthing you, and generally making your life as miserable as possible...and possibly still getting their cut after all.

This is not a strategy for the inexperienced or the faint of heart.

I did this with my last job.

The only thing that was a bit irritating was the recruiter kept bugging me after I'd ditched them. It was almost comical because they called me and said something like "the school really likes you and wants to hire you, can you come in tomorrow and sign a the contract?" To which I had to reply, "Yes, well I'm aware they like me and want to hire me because I signed a contract with them 3 days ago." This got their panties in a wad and they called me several times trying to convince me to sign "their" contract. In fact, in the end, the peon who I guess was in charge of this "account" called me in tears, no doubt because she'd been told off by her boss for letting me slip through the cracks (cracks which were created largely by the peon, who sat by and allowed the principal to put his personal business card into my hands when she brought me in for an interview).

In the end though, there was nothing they could do. That's the risk you take when you're the middle man -- it benefits everyone if people can figure out a way to cut you out, so if they can do it, often they will. I told the recruiter that whatever business they had with the school, leave me out of it, because I had no obligation to this recruiter, in fact, if I'd known that I was dealing with a recruiter I probably wouldn't have even shown up for the interview. As far as I was concerned, the contract was signed, and if the recruiter felt there was some breach of protocol, then she needed to take it up with the party who was actually paying for their services. Anyhow, I told the principal that the recruiter was harassing me and he put a stop to it. Don't know if he ever paid them or not (it was supposed to be a flat fee, I know that much) but I suspect not.