04/12/2021
hello everybody so lizzy is here and i'm super happy to welcome you to this
uh itttt live session uh it's a bit unusual uh time to meet uh
because my sessions are um usually on tuesdays
and today is saturday anyway um i'm super happy that um you could make
it and i could make it as well so today's session
uh is going to be slightly different uh because we are going to um
talk with my good old friend on the point of china and i know that many people
are interested about this topic uh so stay tuned because just in
just in a moment he will join me uh to talk about work in china and stuff like that and
if you guys have any questions uh feel free to ask them via the comment section
and as for the um as for the timing for today
we are going to um talk um around 60 minutes approximately
um and uh i hope that we will be able to uh discuss all of the main points and
then um have a short um q a session um and i can see that more people are
joining us so today's topic is devoted to work in china as a non-native speaker um and
my friend is just about to join me to discuss it uh just before that
let me know guys where are you from and are you like um at what stage of your
uh teaching career are you hello guys yeah good morning
uh it's actually early uh in my place it's about 9 00 a.m um at
where i am what about you so at what time zone are you
um i am in yekaterinburg russia uh as many of you might know uh because
we've been meeting uh since last year and we got to know each other pretty well
uh but my friend is located in tianjin china
and he he has been teaching there uh since 2015 i believe so
um he's been pretty experienced in in all of the things related to china
and uh teaching as well so just stay tuned if you have any
questions uh on the topic of china feel free to ask and um yeah
just let's um let's ask my friend to come in and he'll introduce himself
better okay so hi eugene nice to meet you nice to
see you yeah a long time yeah yeah
so um i i want to go to the um questions go ahead just
yeah straight away and let's see what's the first one so we all want to
know your story and yeah the question is when did you first come to china
and how did you get a job there so um i flew in 2015 so it's been six
years since i landed in china and uh i spent a couple weeks in beijing the capital of china
got a couple job offers from there but uh i found beijing a little overwhelming like it's a massive city
20 a 20 million population so it was a little too much um i got a second job offer from a
little town in the province of tianjin which is called echo city uh it's a project developed by singapore
and china so green place i love the atmosphere there um i had some friends
in china prior getting to china i actually had my brother working in china before i landed in so that's how i get
my first job yeah it was uh word of the mouth uh i got my job by referral so
um just see uh it actually depends on your networking right
so is it easier to get a job uh if you have friends there or it's not the ideal scenario will be
as you said like through your network yeah if you have a chance to get a contract directly with school
bypassing the agents or any third party that would ideal scenario for sure so
right now like i'm referring my friends uh my friends constantly contact me like hey eugene do you know anyone like we
have the opening here opening there so we uh we created the community where
as teachers we help each other trying to avoid agents that's what we do oh that's awesome then okay uh
what who are the agents and why are they so bad um i'm not i'm not here to judge right
but uh i want to be as nice as possible like they're not my friends not the nicest people um i can
appreciate what they do like we're all out there to make some money right but there is uh i guess there's ethical ways to make
money and unethical to wait money so i will put them in the box where they're trying to make money
trying to pretty much like walking all over your face all over your head like they have no moral obligations so
are they trying to make the that's it so what's their part of job like uh you are going to be
a teacher and what are they going to do
what's happening with the agents for example they are in contact with different institutions
for example kindergarten schools high school training centers and uh let's say they
hear about the opening so they contact the school or the school contacts them asking for a
teacher if there is one uh next thing the agent does is okay agent says
okay school like i'll find you a teacher i'll take care of your documents i'll take care of the visas
and um pretty much you will be paying the salary to me so agent gets the
salary of a teacher so school pays agent then agent pays the teacher
so that's uh that's how most of the agents operate all right so um well is it
easier for teachers especially for non-native teachers to get uh to china
through an agency a hundred percent yeah it's easy to get through an agency 100 that's
why a lot of people choose to go through the agents right because the uh the application process
in order to get the proper legitimate visa it's not easy right so there is a stack
of documents like that you have to submit like online you have to verify documents
and um hands down like the agents do a great job taking care of the documents that's what
they do that's what they that's why they so pricey at the end of the day yeah so if your first time um if you're a
first-time visitor to china if you are you have no experience in how to deal with the documents and the
immigration process agents do help yeah okay so that's good
to know actually and here's where we move on to the next
question so what are the requirements to get a work visa and um all other documents to get
into china um legally preferably well um yeah i i like that you say
legally right so um let's uh like we're not gonna discuss like the ways to get here illegal i guess right so let's talk about the
legal process china is huge right there are like many different provinces and um the fact is that every province
has its own regulations and rules when it comes to hiring foreigners for example the province of beijing will
have this regulations the province of tianjin where i'm at right now they will have some other regulations
right um the general rule like the rule of a thumb um you need to have at least
bachelor degree it doesn't have um it doesn't have to be with
languages or like um literature it can be economics it has to be ba
at least right um two years of experience in the field of teaching and uh any teaching
certificates such as tefl that's all with uh 220 hours plus
on it at least right
they they increase the amount of hours right because when i went to china uh the requirement
was like 120 hours oh it's still 120 so when i say 120 plus it
means that 120 at least right like the more the better obviously yeah and again so the changing
laws like china is well known for changing the immigration laws like quarterly right so they have the uh the
party gathering like i think uh was that three times a year right and uh immigration law gets
updated all the time for example if couple years ago having a bachelor and uh two years of
experience was enough you know to apply for a visa right now tefl is a must-have you cannot
apply again legally you cannot apply legally for a job if you don't have va and uh two years of experience all
right so that's super important to know because uh many people want to go to china without any
uh experience without any uh education and they they still expect that they
they are going to get a lot of money um and do not that much yeah
i'll be honest was the case um it was the case let's say five years ago
when i first got there five years ago um you were able to get to china at the age
of 19 right without a degree without any experience
without any tefl or tesla certificates like pretty much speaking in decent english
because the demand was there right the demand was there just pretty much for any foreign nationality to be in the classroom in front of the
kids and deliver the class that was the case five years ago but i mean every year gradually
they filter the filter the stream of foreigners that flows into china and the making rules more strict
and um so for again so we're talking about legal stuff right as i said before like
degree tefl and uh and experience if anyone says otherwise like they're lying to you
right their lines if somebody says hey no worries like no experience no tearful welcome we'll hook you up right like i
mean that um it's it will be illegitimate it will not be legal my advice like if you need to know
if you need to know like what are the requirements go to the government website that's the only resource you need to have
in order to get like the uh the full picture you're the big picture of the documents that you need to be having
upon entering so government websites i think we will link to um we will have like some links later on
right on that yeah i i think that we will do that after the session in the
comments to this video on facebook and youtube because um yeah we we just didn't think
about it uh ahead and yeah we will just give you all of the links
because just simply because uh all different uh provinces in china have
different uh rules all right so i'll give you example i give an
example like for example um just the last week um i'm in this group chat right and uh these two individuals are having an
argument right so one individual is saying well it's impossible to get a visa a teaching visa in china another
individual is saying well i'm in china and i'm on the work visa right now the other one is saying well i'm in
china also but i cannot get one it's it's against the law
and then i'm looking at their resumes and profiles and i realized that you know what she's from shanghai
and she's from um what was that chiang chong right two provinces south
south and north right so they arguing about thing that it's not even a thing right so they have different regulations different laws
right both are right the one is saying that it's impossible to get a teaching visa correct in shanghai you cannot do that
the one who is from uh harbin yeah she can get the visa so that's what
i'm trying to explain and um are you talking about non-native speakers or
native speakers i'm talking about everyone so it it actually doesn't depend
uh on um the origin like um native speakers and non-native
speakers have equal rights right hundred percent okay so that's
interesting to know because so before we move any further um native
and non-native like school will have um school will have it written on their website like natives
only right the province where you're applying for a job will have it on the government website
uh for example natives only if you want to obtain like english teaching position you have to be
native you have to be like from south africa new zealand australia canada yes or uk
right that's the case a lot like for example but many many provinces right in order
to become an english teacher let's say in early childhood education
so i'm talking about kindergarten i'm talking about primary school maybe it's not a requirement right now
it's not a requirement so yeah again you have to go to the government website and you have to read into that right okay
so um work visas are possible for non-native speakers hundred percent yeah
i'm on one yeah i'm on one all right so that's the most important point i believe uh because many people
still still can't um find a solution how to get to china just
because they are not native speakers or they don't uh hold those uh passports from native speaking
countries but it's actually not like that so
um so as i said before do your research right china has i'm sorry i'm bad with geography like i'm
not sure how many provinces are in china but there are many right and each province will have its own regulation
in some provinces like for example i know that um places like beijing since the capital
right it will be challenging to get a work visa for a non-native speaker but again it will
be challenging to get a visa that will say english teacher
it doesn't mean that you cannot get a visa that will say teacher that's a difference that's a difference
too right that's right yeah that's true so guys um number one rule uh about
going to china is just do your research before you apply for jobs there and
make sure you go to governmental websites and check all of
the requirements um related to uh provinces you uh consider because there are a lot
of them and uh if you choose like the the biggest ones like shanghai or uh beijing
um it it can be challenging that's correct yeah that's correct again
for example if you're dealing with the agent right an agent says hey don't worry you know what like we'll get your visa no problem in two weeks like
you want to ask your agent can i please see some proof can i please use some government articles to support
what are you talking about right can you please send me some links right and then if the agent ends
up sailing and sending you some uh some article from wechat
blurry from 2015 ignore that you have to let that person
go they just want to make money or if they're saying like oh you know
what um i can't find this article right now but i'll send that to you tomorrow i have to double check it with my friend
if you're hearing any of that noise that's uh you don't want to be a part of this yeah it's ridiculous yeah
and and for example if you still want to go to china you um ignore the rules and you don't
get uh this work visa yeah and you find yourself uh being in china illegally
what might happen well uh the range of penalties they have
for working in china illegally or being in china illegally it goes anywhere from
fine fine can be anywhere from i think you're paying 500
per day rmb for overstaying well it's not important so pretty much you can go anywhere from fine to
deportation to um incarceration they can lock you up for 30 days you can actually end up in
chinese jail yeah so guys just make sure
my friends are involved in all these uh scenarios yeah yeah so let's move on to
the next question which is pretty close to the first ones um so as a non-native speaker what were
some obstacles you faced during your first year in china and actually not just
first year but all of the rest years i would say um i can't recall any
teaching wise like when i got my job right so everyone knows that i'm not native speaker right so i mean i i didn't like trying
to say hey listen like i'm i i know this i i've been there like i have this diploma i have all of that so
i was pretty honest about my uh about my experience about my resume so i didn't have to uh to prove
that i was you know native or non-native so that wasn't the thing um i think the only obstacle not even an
obstacle but it gets a little uh dicey when uh come to communication with parents
right uh unfortunately a lot of parents are not as educated as we we as we wish they
were right and they have this presumption oh my god like my english teacher needs needs to be from
america or needs to be from canada right which is far from truth because like as
non-native speakers so pretty much we went we learned english from the age of seven maybe or
eight or six going from abc so we know how english works we know the challenges that child
might occur my experience while learning the language so in many
many cases there's studies done by a respected with special philologists
um saying that non-native sneaker actually is better in introducing
language to a child right on the first stage because that's what it is right that's what it
is so and again uh but other than that like other than that other than talking to the parents it
doesn't really exist i mean like do i need to prove myself that i'm not i'm a good teacher but i'm not a native
like it's not really i'm not sure where the room is coming from and as far as i remember some schools they
try to make you lie about your origin is that right oh that's right that's right please don't do that yeah please
don't do that so again um let's say the school tells you oh wow okay like you get a job right you get a job you
you start on monday but when you get um let's say when you get approached by the parents
please make sure to tell them that your name is john and you're from kentucky you asked right something like that i
said whoa what's going on right so don't do that but be honest right now my advice to like be
honest in china be honest they don't like lies they they can see right through you they appear to
be seen oh really like it's it
oh something is wrong with the
connection sorry you just for a second yeah yeah so um could you just repeat
uh what you've said like um if you lie so what happened yeah so please yeah
like um i avoid lying right because i mean lying uh is something that they have no
appreciation for they have no tolerance for that and sooner or later like it will come up
right i mean because it's obvious and there's a lot of educated chinese they see right through you right you
tell them hey from us where watson us like you know what street you lived on right it just doesn't make any sense it does
not many be proud like of where you come from be proud of your nationality
and prove them that your hard workers show them the results of your work that's it
that's what you have to do all right so the most important thing is to uh prove that you are educated not that you
are a native speaker that's what's most important and um just moving on to the next
point uh how did you prove that your uh english was good because that that's
actually what parents and schools uh look for
yeah like not not a native speaker but a person who can speak well and uh whose
pronunciation is like neutral right so so pretty much what you want to do is let's say you got a job
at the training center or at the kindergarten or the primary school uh once you have that job on youtube at
one year a one year contract work hard you know what i mean like you show up early
live late make sure parents see that make sure directors see that support provide extra resources for the
parents right at the end of the week hey you know there is some like pdf books for you to uh read at home have a great week you
know work hard like show that you care at the end of the day
um you have to prove to a child that you're a good teacher the
best proof that you're a good teacher is the child coming home and saying hey mommy you know teacher eugene like oh i love that teacher he's great we're
having fun and then child says some words like speak some sentences that's the proof right that proves work
is your proof that's the only thing you can do yeah so this is just the best approach probably
and all this solution the kind of attitude uh every uh non-native and native
speaker um should have because um in my just judging from my experience
i met so many native speakers who just uh came into a classroom uh
just doing some stupid things like singing um twinkle twinkle little
star during the day yeah yeah and that was just nothing um and
but still uh because they they were native um they were judged slightly different
well the problem is so so um the uh so china overlooked that case right for
example they let natives in without um without having to have a degree right
like for example a few years back if you have a blue passport from let's say u.s or canada
you are welcome but then nobody said hey have you been involved in uh education have you taught at all like no one asked
those questions right so when teacher shows up in the classroom has no clue how to classroom management like none of
that right so the classes are terrible kids understand nothing the pace of this
new tribe they cannot slow it down they cannot makes themselves clear so kids make no progress parents can see
that like whoa what's going on like i can i understand that john is from states but like my child learns nothing
it doesn't understand what's going on now so chinese parents chinese schools
they do understand it now so that being from a native speaking country
it's not enough like you need to be an educator you need to have uh you need to have a training you know
what i mean type of training in order to be in the classroom that's what it comes down to yeah just a quick remark uh guys
if you are not if you are native speakers uh don't think we uh just blame you for that uh it's
it's just great but the point is everyone uh must be educated and uh experienced in
the field because it's just not enough uh to be from somewhere
it's also about your qualifications and experience all right like i mean uh if
the any natives like i want to address you guys like i mean it's it's not like we're trying to uh
you know underestimate like your capabilities or whatever what i was saying like we have uh we
have people from non-native countries are just embarrassing right just embarrassed you know the entire nation or whatever it
happens to it happen to all of us right and i guess what i'm trying to say is that um in china they do value the formal
education of like before you enter the classroom right so be involved in early childhood
or primary they need that training they need that training regardless of where you're coming from
all right just uh also want to uh say that there are many people from
different places uh around the world like from pakistan right now uh illinois uh
california and haiti it's so cool to know that we are global
and thank you guys for coming to this session uh we we just appreciate it and
uh we hope that um this life is going to be um valuable and you'll find it helpful
uh somehow so thanks a lot for joining us and uh as for myself and eugene
we um we are in different places right now i'm like in russia and eugene is uh in china
uh and by the way if you have just joined us uh we are talking about uh china
and all stuff related to it eugene um has has been working there
since 2015 uh so if you're interested in this country and in working there
just stay with us and you'll find everything you need okay um all right so let's move on to
the next question um so i believe that we've already
discussed like how chinese companies um understand your qualified
but um let's just quickly uh talk about salaries so
yeah um what is an approximate salary range in china ranges i've seen inches
anywhere from uh 5 000 rm per month to like 50 000 the range is wild the range is
wild and if we just uh transfer it into uh the us currency or something
so how much is it approximately we go anywhere from a thousand and uh up to five
six easily so uh just simply speaking um
salaries are quite the same like uh all over the world but sometimes uh you can get like
high you can get paid higher right so and what does it depend on
so um again like back to the um back to the conversation about the agents
when you're working for an age and chances are you're only getting like a 50 of what should be getting a pretty high
right because as i said before working through the agency um pretty much agent
ends up collecting your money first and then agent pays you a percentage right for example agent
gets 100 percent of your paycheck and then decides okay lisa like you deserve 60
here you are have a good day right that's what's happening so again um
try to work try to be in um try to work directly with school right like with no agents so you'll be
doing direct paychecks if you get if you're working directly with school let's say the first year if it's your
first year you should be getting anywhere from at least i would say
2500 u.s so it's anywhere from 15 000 17 thousand
that should be your bottom line when you're working with school it should if it's less than that
uh i will reconsider okay thank you so that's also important to
know you you can actually find better uh conditions what about
some benefits are there any benefits provided by employers uh
quite a few again depends on the school so you can negotiate the benefits or sometimes it will be like uh
in your contract in my case like i do get um i do get a round trip airfare like
pay for once a year uh so pretty much school covers they covering almost
how much they cover fifteen hundred dollars so i can get like a fifteen hundred dollars reimbursed
paid vacation medical care is anywhere in the world i guess where you can negotiate the package yeah
yeah okay so does it mean that your employer is interested in you staying there longer
absolutely yeah absolutely yeah any school any employer like because i mean they um
chinese parents chinese parents they do not like when school changes teachers every once in a while right they don't
like that they want consistency right they want to make sure that okay so my child goes to school i want to make sure that teacher
staying with the kid for you know years and years and years because like when as we said before
you know when it comes to changing teachers let's say the child gets you gets used to a teacher then for for some
reason the teacher ends up leaving there's a new teacher so the the child needs to adjust himself what's
happening new accent new attitude nobody wants that right nobody wants that so uh definitely the
uh the employee the employer is trying to make sure that teachers are staying yeah yeah that's right so um
it's it's actually also about uh building trust and uh relationship uh
so just one year is not enough definitely and no yeah okay
thank you and what's next and yeah let's get to the most uh
interesting topic of pandemic so did the situation change compared
like if we compare um the time before pandemic and just past pandemic periods
um yeah things have changed for sure yeah it's been uh it's been quite a journey
so uh it depends it depends what you want to know like change a lot of things change obviously like
you know the way we teach change right the uh the amount of the amount of teachers
in the school change right a lot of things change like what do you want to know like what
uh yeah for example uh when the pandemic started did you stay there or you went back to
russia oh actually no um um i had a i went to thailand i went to thailand
for 10 days right and then so i'm on the beach you know having some beers and then i'm hearing some news that hey you know what
like it sounds like there's a pandemic happening so uh i i thought for a minute then i can't sell my
i cancelled my flights i uh cancelled my hotel i rebooked my flights i'm sorry i cancelled my hotel and i flew back to
china on the second day right so i cancelled my entire trip um came back to china and a couple weeks
later they shut down the borders yeah and a lot of my friends end up staying at the beach like you know all the
different places in the world they could make it back yeah they could make it back so what happened
is uh for almost how for almost five months um i was the only teacher in my school
like we used to have nine foreign teachers nine foreign teachers so um yeah for
almost five mile was just me like and we obviously would need uh online teaching so like my house became
like a studio right like you know microphones and lights and cameras like yeah yeah it was a different experience
for sure yeah and what about those who who couldn't come back
excuse me what about those who couldn't come back uh well this they still they're still
not here okay so the the school just stop the contract
with them so what happened is like for example um
everyone was supposed to be back by the end of february 2000 was at 20 right now the school is not
not open obviously right so it goes like february april march may everyone is getting paid
regardless right everyone is getting the full paycheck right so this school is encouraging them hey
you know what like can you please send like a video in the group like five minutes something right like we understand that you outside of china
whatever you are but um yeah everyone was getting paid and then um when china realized that borders
won't be open anytime soon and uh it's kind of doesn't make sense
to keep waiting for these teachers to come and say hey you know listen like we asked you like a billion times please
come back we kept asking and asking and asking but you decided not to like you know i sort of say that you
know we we just stopped paying you and the contract is done so your uh your employer actually acted really
uh professional and oh there was one yeah make sure that everyone come
back uh come comes comes back but yeah just all right so that's
that's really interesting excuse me yeah go ahead yeah just really interesting
it depends cool so my school uh my school's been around for almost uh 17 years right like we have campuses we
have like 12 campuses across china right so it's um it's a good school
right so they they do take care of their of their teachers and as i said like they were like four months in a row they were
paying like full salaries with teachers who are not even here right you're getting direct deposit like you in africa or like in uk
in canada you're getting your money deposited regardless right so yeah they were pretty yeah but again
it's not uh i'm not saying that it's a norm i also had teachers working for some agents well let's go back to the agent's
scenario and agent says hey sorry no work bye that's it right i had teachers
you know they had like zero money they couldn't go back home they were making like zero income they
were suffering right they were suffering because again if you're working for the age and if you're working for some
training centers uh the training center is getting paid when when students
are in class right they're collecting money every month right so they collected you know hundred
thousand here's your card like here's your ten percent and that's how you're getting paid right so that's the difference
and again so then there is an agent right who he wants his cut right so again you end up having not no money
yeah yeah so that's that's really sad actually so yeah yeah many people um just
suffered yeah i'm talking about teachers like i have teachers like they you know they're married right they have
kids i'm talking about this kind of teachers too right it's it was exactly yeah and again
the same situation for both natives and non-natives right oh it doesn't matter
we all live under the same sun yeah yeah okay yeah all right and
um the next question is like what is the demand right now uh
obviously before the pandemic uh it was pretty high and yeah just anybody could
find a job there but what about now the demand has been high for years right
it's high like it's still there demand is still there but as i said like i mean china still need all these
establishments like the training centers schools high schools kindergartens they
they crying for teachers they desperately need teachers but the problem is the educational
sector and the government and the immigration they're not necessarily on the same page in terms of you know how many how many
people want to let in what are the regulations for letting people in in times of pandemic right so that makes it a little bit
challenging because right now um i just read it like last week the government issued the documents saying
that if you want to reapply if you want to get a work visa the first thing you need to do get a vaccine
chinese vaccine only so if you decide to go to china if you want to apply for chinese
documents only with chinese vaccines
i'm in china if i want to go see my parents in russia if i want to be hosting my friends in canada
um if i want to fly back having the residence permit having the work visa and let's say i
forgot to get myself vaccinated with chinese facts and say hey sorry eugene bye that's it
yeah oh gosh yeah yeah and there's no way around it right when
it comes to china like if there is a law the law enforcement they will take care
uh we you know we're abide by that law yeah yeah you should follow it
yeah please yeah this is the way they regulate everything and china actually functions
this effectively yeah yeah like um you know what our friends
all over the world and you know since last february um you know we're catching up constantly hey what's happening so i have friends like
in us in russia ukraine canada europe and um so i'm just following
how the countries deal with pandemic and what are the rules and in terms of the quarantining themselves
and stuff like that uh china has impressed me a lot like like real
advanced strategists in order to fight that and again so a lot of people will argue
well there is no privacy because of your wechat and you want to know all these thousands cameras well you
know what i'm okay with that like i'm not breaking loss i don't mind if my face is like a thousand cameras at the same time it's
pretty safe pretty safe in here yeah all right so thank you for this information as
well and um the last question i would like to ask you
is um what are the ways to find jobs there right now like the most out there uh
updated services and um the most efficient ways to find a position
um there are websites uh government websites private websites wechat groups like wechat is huge in
china right so pretty much that's your social media platform where um joe jobs gets posted where you
know people exchange news linkedin will be a great way to find a job right because linkedin is the source where
it's legitimate right i mean if you find a job on linkedin you can you can trade the contacts you can see what job is
coming from um so again um i would i would suggest like and again so for example do your
research right like for example you feel like uh flying into nanjing whatever right so
go on and find the list of kindergartens find the list of primary school universities go
to their websites right and they will have like hr email or hr try that right i mean do some work right
because i know what everyone else is looking for okay like i need to find a job fair where i just show up with my resume and
i have like five job offers yeah sure but
so it's still important to be proactive and if you want to find a solid position the
best approach would be to create your perfect resume uh write a cover letter and then
send it directly to hr um well hr managers at a particular school
try to get us try to get as close as possible as you can to to the school itself right like
bypassing any third parties or force parties because you will because you have to understand that if you're dealing with agents or
like hiring agents right um you have to realize that they're getting like stacks of resumes
from all over the world especially now when no one is flying you know everyone is pretty much like in
the you know travel mode you know like i'm just waiting for the borders to open up i'm already back my suitcase my passport like i'm good to go
right it's it's all over the world right now so the they get blasted right now with the
resumes and couple letters so you wanna you wanna bypass that right
you wanna bypass that and try to get as like for example if you find the school that you wanna be
involved with so you found a school you found the province try to find the community of teachers
who belong to that city say hey you know what like i'm not currently there but is anyone working there do you guys have
any uh connections with the management right start start there
by the way right yeah by the way um on our website like
tefl of course that net uh yeah usually we try to post we try to keep it updated and we have a
job section where job offers are posted constantly yeah and they are posted by uh direct
employers sometimes so some of the uh job offers are from agencies uh some of them are
from real schools uh and you have this opportunity so make sure you go to
the itt website and check out that section um how to get there
so right now you guys can see uh this qr code here somewhere
um on the right corner yeah right corner of my screen
yeah that's right so if you uh scan it with your cell phone you can get directly to the itt website
um with this qr code you also can get a 30 discount of any itt
tefl courses yeah you can try it on um and uh also
uh you will be able to see the whole website all of the sections uh job section
particularly uh and yeah i i just want to um
send the direct links there as well so you can see it on the comment section
right now so if you want uh to see the job sections on our website uh just go
follow this link and you will find everything you need okay um and i think
that is all for excuse me i just wanted to add something
um back to the agents right so um i used to deal with two types of agents
and the most common is when agent decides to take care of you and then pretty much you sign a contract with the
agent for a year then you sign another contract with the school for a year and then so the agent ends up collecting
your salary right so that's one time there's another type that's not very common but that's the one you want to have
in case you want to go to the agent so some agents they will collect one-time fee one-time payment for
example agent might say hey you know what lisa are you looking for a job yes i am well there is a job so what's
going to happen is i'll hook you up with that job but i will need let's say 50 of your salary equivalent
of 50 of your salary let's say you're applying for a job and that pays like 20 000 a month right and then the agent will
say um you know what i'll get you the job i'll take care of i'll help with the documents maybe that i'm not sure about that but i will need
one-time payment of ten thousand rmb once you get that job that is
sent from the first salary right it might be it might be 50 it might be 100 it might be 30 it
depends on the agent but it's a one-time thing right then once you pay that money there is no obligation so as you you know
thanks for you know thanks for finding me the job i'll talk to you later let's be in touch right and then you get split ways
that's the agent you want to have right that's normal practice right it might sound oh wow like hundred
percent of my salary will go to the agent but you know it happened once right and it's normal you know agent did the job right
but then you will never see him again right cons so if you uh so maybe if you're dealing
with the agent asks the conditions right because uh different agents different conditions like are you going to be with
me for a year or i just have to pay you once so i'll never see you again so try to distinguish that like what's happening in terms of your long-term
relationship yeah all right so thank you thanks a lot uh and let's just move on to the q and a
section this is where you guys can ask eugene any questions
you have so make sure you type them into the chat box right now um
i i could see several questions there um and let's yeah
let's address this one um can this person apply for jobs in china
what do you think so again as i said like when you uh let's say you see a job description
right it's the job description minimum experience required minimum that requirement of this required
uh send a letter say hey my name is this you know i do not have that
experience but i have this qualification would you consider again it says be honest right because i
mean uh every employer is looking for like ideal candidate oh i want to have like masters with five
years experience they the you know the reality is it's never the case right every
employee is flexible everyone is flexible right like if you prove that i mean if you um
if the employer will say you know what i think i want to work with that girl or with that gentleman right it's possible approach like if you see
that you not mean what i'm trying to say is if you're not meeting the requirements listed on the website or job description
still contact the employers as if is there a flexibility ask about that ask about that and
uh from your point of view what's the best type of resume
um they they want to see experience they
want to see experience anything related to current position right and because you read
like for example if you read job description job description before you apply get some of that job
description in your resume right yeah that's right so you just need to
make sure that your resume is um following the requirements from the job
description uh that's a general this question is you know are you good
with kids you know um can you sing songs and let's say you don't want to write a uk i i've been doing some plumbing for
the last couple years i'm a great plumber like oh my ranged keys like don't do that of course right so yeah
yeah so just relevant experience that's it irrelevant stay close to the job description yeah
steal from a job description put it in your resume if you have to right but as i said before don't lie right but be
be realistic right be realistic and what's the way they interview like
uh you uh you meet your you meet your employer your prospective
employer for the first time and what would be the way uh they interview you it depends on the
company so when i got here i had uh i had a three-stage interview so um i had um i had two phone calls i said
hey like you know this is like sally from hr like do you have five minutes out yes i do you had a quick chat right
then two days later say hey is john from hr say i just have to sell a couple this oh
yeah no that's another chance so there's like their department different stages right so they um depends on the company right
um this day and age like most likely it will be like a zoom or wechat or like some kind of
conference call yeah very standard just right if you pass one stage go to another
yeah and oh and uh be ready like uh record record one minute self intro
one minute self intro and if you can record like a demo class like five minutes four minutes demo
class where they can see you interacting with kids that helps because if you say like oh my name is eugene i've been working with kids for
10 years words don't matter as much right but i mean you say you know what uh instead of
wasting your time i have a video handy do you have a minute i'll send it right to you
and uh for example if someone uh doesn't have this experience like of
working with kids what would be the the best way to approach
uh this job application pro process oh that's me right there like five years
ago when i came i'm a translator by trade like i'm a russian english translator and um you know so i i flew to china
from canada and um so what i said is listen i i never work with kids
my job was to translate so my job was to make people understand each other and i believe that you know i can i can make
it happen in the classroom yeah it's like whoa you know that sounds sounds great yeah so i just showed up like full of enthusiasm say you know what i think i
love kids i don't have much experience i i had zero experience of the day at the moment right but i said you know listen um it excites
me like give me a chance i said okay whatever yeah yeah and yeah
you care i guess show them that you have some passion for the industry yeah uh did you get any training any
specific courses or whatever um once i before got the job or
uh well before or in the process so since i um you know since i landed in
china i i finished i don't know five different courses all about like real child communication yeah
i'm constantly trying to like look for something yeah yeah yeah yeah yes by the way eugene is also our
alumnus uh he finished um 120 hours tefl course i did yeah
it was uh yeah it was like three years ago i think yeah something like that so um that that's
actually also helpful and one more time it's uh super important
uh for the visa application if you guys want to get this work visa yeah yes i
can tell a little story about that so the reason uh the reason i needed that uh the certificate because i did have one
that i did online like years ago right but the uh the immigration bureau they wouldn't accept they said listen like we
need a paper we need a paper we need something that we can hold in our hands right so the one i had online
just simply didn't work so i said listen i do have it like i mean i i've done that before
say yeah and also we need something else so yeah i end up uh you know working with these guys like i
itt and then we got a certificate and that's what i submitted to the application center in uh in beijing and it worked
yeah no problem yeah i just want quickly to show you the way our certificate looks like and it
actually has a special number uh this number is super important uh
for the job application process because employers and embassies would
probably want to check if it's valid if it's real because many people want to
uh just uh make a fake copy uh using some pictures from the internet
uh so for this for the sake of avoiding it they yeah our certificate
so let me tell you something about like uh fake copies right again so when um what six seven years ago you go to china
if you want to get like a work visa yeah you buy a printer computer and you
just like okay i have masters from new zealand right you just admit no problem right it works i'm uh
you know i'm a doctor from kentucky whatever you know anything works anything flies right right now um every
application online so you're submitting your documents online so if you decide to submit something
fake like do not do that no the times have changed right if somebody says oh
china they know nothing like this really there no no one is silly like the immigration
officers they they do the job the cops they take care of that uh make sure you have the legit
documents for sure don't don't play games with chinese government and here is the next question uh
what are what were the questions asked in the interview uh did you get any specific questions
they want to know like if they want to know if you're right fit for the job right because they're really concerned like will you be able to work with
kids do you know how to work with kids are you patient do you know how to play with them do you know how to uh calm them down do
you know how to solve problems do you know how to be safe how to make sure that your classroom is safe right because you have to
understand that um the industry made one of the major concerns like forget about the english
the the first concern everyone has in china like when it comes to early childhood education is safety
right safety is number one right so when parents send their kids to training center or to
grade one or two kindergarten they want to make sure the child is safe that's it right so they do ask a lot of
questions about um how are you with kids like what do you do like so
be prepared be prepared to uh tell them story yeah you know what i actually uh
you know i was uh tutoring like 15 kids back home you know they would come to my house every friday you know
we played games like did this puzzles did some crafts something like that yeah
okay and um what's the age of the kids you've been
working with since i've been here um i went anywhere from like
toddlers two years to like eight nine ten i i did kindergarten i did primary
school i did middle school i still combined both right like my primary job right now um
is uh kindergarten so i'm teaching five six but i also do uh grade one two grade
three on a part-time basis yeah i did some i did i did some i did some training for um
we did um for air china it was like a temporal thing so we did
like uh flight attendants and uh stuart did that to with adults okay so um
it's it's actually possible to work with uh adults as well not not only
you can work like oil gas uh like the the air um you know the airlines that's a huge
industry yeah and what about some online opportunities are there any online uh teaching jobs
uh in china like available for people who actually stay somewhere else
there there is but uh i think uh this market is a bit overcrowded
right because right now like no obviously there is um not too many in-class teachers so in a
lot of the the market was overcrowded before the pandemic right because you will have a lot of part
members from across the globe right you have some i had some friends from states doing
that like you know at night time i had some friends from italy doing that and um
uh to be honest with you like i'm not really interested in online teaching like i i didn't do a lot of research but
from what i heard um the wages are not that great right and uh but i'm sure there's still
opportunities there but i'm not i'm not direct by the way guys uh before before this session
we had uh a lot of um other uh live life sessions
related to online teaching and that's actually my huge interest
and i created many videos related to teaching online and
if you're interested in this opportunity as well you'd better check out the previous
videos because uh there are actually a lot of opportunities to
get this experience and just um again be proactive that's all
okay so um if you guys don't have any further questions to eugene
uh we we will probably wrap up this session uh because it's it's been
like one hour already and uh i think that we all are
pretty busy uh and it's time to move on and do our regular um
weekend stuff uh that was super interesting uh to chat with you thanks a
lot eugene um and uh once again if you guys have any further questions
uh it's there is actually an option you uh can address your questions uh
in this chat box and uh i'll go back to them later and we can actually create
uh a blog post uh with uh some other questions related to uh
china and working there so just feel free to ask and um yeah that's it
sounds good yeah if you guys have any questions like if we are something else you need some coverage on like we'll uh
we'll certainly be willing to help for sure because i mean i've been here for years and uh i know there's a lot of like
misinformation a lot of misleading uh the same things coming from china where people just get confused like what am i
hearing like is that true is not true so yeah like if you have any questions we'll try to help as much as we can
yeah so there is the last question i would like to address too uh so yeah um as for
online tefl certificate and uh in-class tefl certificate
uh there is actually no difference because you you get the same amount of hours um
the same amount of training uh so just if your certificate uh has this um
120 hours thing that's enough um and it the certificate
actually doesn't state that you took it like online uh so you just uh prove with this
certificate you just prove that uh you finish that training and you
uh have it that's all i think i think what she's trying to
i think like the answer she's looking for is uh like you want to have a hard copy right like if you you you finish the
course like you want to have a hard copy in your hands that you can take your immigration office so that's what you want yeah
that's right wow it doesn't matter like where you spend your hours at as long as you have the uh the paper
itself in your hand yeah that's right and i know that many uh providers uh don't issue
this hard copies right now but not many ipcc we we have this opportunity we have
this option and that's actually uh really important so make sure you uh get this one
i just had a friend a friend like so my friend uh decided to uh to obtain one of those wine things right
and then so when it came to getting like the actual paper so the um
so the company says well you know what like we uh we go green right now there's your link right like download like free
downloads and then well that's right it goes to the office right uh to uh chinese immigration he wants to
extend his visa and he's trying to say well you know what the guy told me to go green like you know they didn't understand that
things so yeah go green like okay it's actually a great strategy and uh
i believe that tefl providers save a lot of money avoiding issuing those hard paper
certificates but that's something just not applicable to job markets uh
not indianapolis yeah not internally maybe it's okay in korea maybe in japan but in china you need to have
they like china is very old school right they love the papers they love the stamps like you show up with a suitcase
of documents like you're good yeah there is no going green so well no going green yeah
no going green okay so that was super super exciting and thanks a lot
for this um huge interview um yeah
it's been fun yeah for sure yeah so thanks a lot again and guys thanks so much for coming to
this session uh in some places it's still early morning somewhere it's late night uh thanks a
lot for spending this hour with us and i hope to see you
soon next time again uh just to remind you that i go live uh
every uh tuesday usually normally uh today was
a bit different and yeah just see you next time guys and have a
good day uh if you still have any further questions feel free to
ask them in the comments to this video and i'll i'll go back to them later
and try to address uh every single question and i'll ask you jen for help
so thanks a lot and yes just see you next time bye
