How to land that job

Tips for getting a teaching job in Thailand.

posted on 30th October 2007

Applying
There was a time when the first place job seekers looked for teaching positions were the two Bangkok daily newspapers - the Bangkok Post and The Nation. However with advertising rates now at about 17,000 baht for an eight-day slot buried somewhere in the inside columns, most schools and institutes are exploring cheaper alternatives like the free service we provide at ajarn.com and those provided by other websites. For schools that have a high turnover of staff, advertising in the dailies can be a very expensive game.

You stand an infinitely better chance of landing a job if you are already in Thailand. Most schools can't be bothered with the person who ‘arrives in three months' or may sound like the answer to a school's prayers but in person bears a close resemblance to the elephant man. When a school advertises a position, they invariably need the teacher to start as soon as possible - such is the wonderful organization of Thai schools the country over.

The best way to apply for a job is by telephone. Find the number of the school, call up and asked to be passed to an academic director or head teacher. Most teachers these days seem to be going the e-mail route, but take it from me, it is extremely hit and miss. Very often, the job of handling e-mail applications will be in the hands of Thai administration staff who a) may not be God's gift to Microsoft Outlook, or probably b) don't feel confident replying to an e-mail using English.

Dress Sense
There is some controversy raging about this one, because there are professional teachers out there who say a person should be judged on their qualifications and experience, and not the quality of their necktie. It seems to be Americans especially who adopt this more casual approach to interviews. Don't believe a word of it! An interview calls for a man with a shirt and tie and whatever women wear when they want to look nice. Thais DO judge a person on first appearance, and a lot of foreign academic directors do too. You may have an MBA in Linguistics and twenty years experience at the Harvard Business School but a casual approach to an interview endears you to no one.

Resumes
Schools often get inundated with resumes. Make yours stand out by keeping it to one or two pages. Avoid what I call ‘the Microsoft Word tombstone' resume with loads of information in a size 12 font. Schools are only interested in what you've done that's relevant to teaching. Building dry-stone walls in the Derbyshire Dales during a force ten gale might well have been character building, but it needs to be cut out of a bio-data. Obviously contact details, and educational background are important, but most schools are looking for experience and whether or not you plan to stick around.

How much is the salary???!!!!
Don't go into a job interview with unrealistic expectations. I recently interviewed a woman from New York who was interested in a teaching/marketing position. Throughout the interview she kept using the sentence "But in New York, this job would be worth......"

So what? This is Thailand, and 42,000 baht with weekends off is as good if not better than what anybody else is offering. If you came here to save a few shekels and perhaps pay off debts, you could be in for a very rude awakening.

Advance preparation
Find out as much as you can on the phone beforehand because you might save yourself a wasted journey. Does the school provide a work permit? Is there a contract? Is it a twelve-month contract? I put this point in because it's something of a hot topic at the moment. Many of the government Rajabhat colleges do not pay a teacher for the month of April (traditional holiday time) If this is the case, are you going to earn enough in the other eleven months to see you through the fallow period? Moving on, are you going to be paid hourly or by salary? If it's the former scenario, how many hours a week are you going to be guaranteed? April, December and January often see a dramatic decline in the number of students. Am I expected to work weekends? If so, do I get two days off during the week and is the weekend paid at a premium rate?

The interview itself
Remember that interviews are a two-way thing. They might want you, but do you want them? Study the interviewer. Does he/she know the ropes? Have they been at the school for a fair length of time, or have they got the position as head teacher because nobody else wants it? (you can't ask this of course, but you get an inkling)

Ask for a guided tour of the school and pay special attention to the teacher's room. If it's empty, then there's probably not enough work to go round (or everyone's in class) If all the teachers greet you like a long-lost friend and shake you warmly by the hand, then that's a good sign. If they are all stuck in their little alcoves and recesses and look at you with that sort of disdain reserved for someone who's muscling in on their territory, then get the hell out. Do you honestly want to work in a place like that?

Tricky interview questions
How long do you intend to stay in Thailand? You'd better be up for at least a year. Where are you staying now? Say Khao San Road or banglampoo and you may as well rip up the application form there and then. How would you explain the difference between a separable and inseparable phrasal verb? Don't know? Then you'd better find out. Actually, it's rare to be given a grammar test, but never say never. I've been to interviews where they've asked me to stand up at the whiteboard and demonstrate how I'd explain the present perfect continuous to a group of lazy teenagers. And why not? As an English teacher, it should be meat and drink.

Checklist (provided by Steven)

Here are the most crucial bits of information to get. Any waffling or refusal to give a straight answer means unless you're all trussed up and ready to be jerked around like a chicken on a string, you should be outta there:

1. What is the salary? [less than 30K- no way]
2. How many months is the contract? [the correct answer is 12, including pay during school holidays].
3. Do you [CAN you] sponsor me for all paperwork, including teacher's license, work permit, and visa extension? [In the past, a "no" answer meant you had to evaluate your risk. These days, I'd recommend running on a "no." Up to you- the dodgy jobs should pay more to make up for the risk, though].
4. HOW SOON can you get this paperwork processed? [the correct answer is SOON, with a promise to pay reasonable compensation for any visa trips necessary while they dawdle.]
5. If the job is less than 40K a month, you WILL of course pay for all these visa/WP fees, WON'T you.
6. How many hours will I be teaching? [the dodgier the WP and the lower the pay, the fewer this should be- let's say for 40K and no WP it should be about 15-16 max].
7. What kind of insurance is on offer, considering that I am not on the 30B Thai government scheme [try to ask this one with a straight face]. If there is no insurance, naturally you will be paying me more so I can purchase my own private insurance.

Assuming the school passes the bare facts of life stage above, it's time to estimate the bullsh!t level at the school. There will always be some BS- it's inherent in schools, probably. Everybody has his own level of tolerance for such things, and so I can't tell you exactly when you should cut and run- but if your school gives the wrong answer to most of these kinds of questions, you might put them a bit lower on your list:

BS Factors:
1. When are the starting and ending times for work? Are these the REAL starting times, or will I be sitting around drinking coffee while the parents watch their kids doing yoga and singing the dorky school song?

2. About how many events a month are teachers required to attend outside normal working hours [teachers' meetings, parents' meetings, school festivals, seminars, brainwashing sessions, etc.]?

3. Does the school have/provide books [especially native-written books and not that awful Singaporean crap], or is it an unwritten job description that I make/photocopy my own? Will I be getting extra pay for this work?

4. How many management signatures/days distance am I from permission to make my own friggin' copies for my students [especially if you don't have textbooks]? [naturally, you DON'T expect teachers to pay for the copies for their students, DO you.]

5. Does the school have whiteboards or chalkboards, and does the school have markers and chalk for them?

6. Does the school have "special" rules that may seem unusual to outsiders, such as:
a. No fans or ventilation, but airconditioning is not allowed
during select times of the day.
b. Entrances and gates are locked and monitored so that
you, too, will have the feeling that you are in prison.
c. All 20 people in your teachers' room must do all their
paper work on your ONE computer [without printer].
d. Teachers are judged by administration on their
clothing, by their students on how much of a clown
they are, by the parents on how easy they are to
walk all over, and by the tests on how well the
students do. Despite the possibility that one or two
of these may get in the way of three or four of the
others, failure to achieve the desired level in any may
result in immediate dismissal without explanation.
e. That "one old guy" can abuse anyone he likes and get
away with it without being fired, but no one knows
why.

7. Are we required to attend such fine things as "summer camps" in the middle of our holidays in cold, mountain cabins with a bunch of snoring Thai teachers?

8. Is there a discipline policy? What is it? Who will back me up on it when the inevitable snivelling loser of a child goes home crying to his mommy after I prevent him from knifing the guy in the next desk?

9. Of course, all the students pass- it wasn't even a question- but am I allowed to engineer the WAY they pass or there some officially desired result? If so, what is it?

10. Is there a curriculum or am I making that up, too? If there isn't one, who will tell me what I'm supposed to be teaching? If you won't tell me, then will you at least not blame me later for not teaching what I was supposed to?

Finally, on top of this, go for as many goodies as you can. Schools these days are more desperate, and some of them even want to hire real teachers. Aside from the compensations for not having adequate paperwork or asking the teachers to do extra work outside the normal job description of teaching, don't forget to ask for:

1. Resign bonuses
2. Biannual or annual plane tickets to visit home
3. Housing allowances, especially if the school is in an especially expensive area
4. Internet access
5. Raise schedules

Good luck! I'm sure I've forgotten something, so I'll add more another time.

"Steven"

P.S. Naturally, if possible, one should get the answer to as many of these questions on the phone- reluctance for the school to answer may be taken for many items as the undesired answer. At some schools, furthermore, forbidding types may be doing the interview- in which case it might be better to ask for some time with one of the other farang teachers to get a realistic picture of what's going on at the school.