Yes, forum monkey. I knew you had it in you.

Keep me laughing with your silly antics.

I would be further amused to learn what you believe my other "aliases" to be.

By the way, does "you and both of your aliases" equal three or only two? Some clumsy English there.

Funny though!

Hi Martin,

The first problem is that I assume she has decent reading comprehension but also the common sense to understand the advice isn't to start traveling all over China in some loop and just somehow write down offers then keep traveling around all of China until all schools have made offers and whatever other stupid incomprehensible misunderstanding you have.

Now, you are from the old days and like most people who are a decade old you are stuck in your old ways of your first experiences and think thats how it must still work. You even admitted this by insisting 'Skype and Emails' lol.. what are you from 1997 wow!

So, in case you were wondering she wasn't asking if she should just continue using 'skype and email' talking to the thousands upon thousands of recruiters which would require her to send millions of emails if she was to contact all of them either lol.

Now, if she want to directly email, QQ and phone schools from her home country overseas thats now much better than doing it through a recruiter. (again, she probably understands Im not advising her to just keep phoning all schools in the entire country.

Instead, the best advice from an objective PoV is that a would-be foreign teacher starts by choosing a city they'd best enjoy, fits their budgets, their interests, their tolerance levels. She can do that FIRST above all else. A big reason for that is because what city they live in will be a MAJOR factor in determining their job satisfaction and durability and sanity and whether they quit in 3 months or stay delighted for a year or more.

Once in that city and on a tourist visa they have a 100 schools to choose from in any major city for sure. (as in 5 millionish type cities). In a single afternoon meeting and networking with some foreign teachers in that city she will be notified of a dozen schools looking for foreign teachers. In a few afternoons of simply sightseeing but then popping into schools they spot along the way she will have 20 possible interviews.

But she will have a huge objective advantage using this tried and tested way - absolutely no leverage is over her. She is on a tourist visa and can take or leave anything. She is not relying on any school holding her hostage, she isn't worried about them doing her Z-Visa ASAP.

I'd actually go even further and say she should not just start by choosing the ideal city first but actually go there and find a neighbourhood and ideal district and do that first.

Then go enjoy a sunny walk and quite seriously start by visiting the 5 nearest schools (start by walking distance, travel time) and she will have a job offer AS GOOD OR BETTER than anything your stupid old recruiter by skype only-used-by-dodgy-newbie-exploiters plan.

Get out of what worked for you 10 years ago (and you don't know any different) and get with the times. And start using common sense reading comprehension. Holy hell you sound like your brain is becoming Chinese "Hmm he said visit all schools in China but China is a huge land mass!". Wow. just wow. Chinabrain has set in you poor aging bastard

Don't fret about the peculiar response here, Mr. long term esl teachers board lurker.

No one takes this forum seriously.

It's only good for a laugh.

Keep us laughing, Mr. "O'Shei" (and your other screen names). Your over-the-top vitriol is truly humorous.

Keep on dancing, forum monkey. Your antics continute to bring a smile to my lips.

People tend to focus on just one or two cities when making these trips; only an idiot would try to cover the entire country.

Don't be overwhelmed

Imagine telling a Chinese citizen to fly to the United States to "walk around and stop in" at schools looking for a job.
The land mass of China and the U.S. is approximately the same and China has four times as many residents and countless more 'schools'.
I've been working in China for ten years and speak Mandarin. If I was considering a job in, say, Shanghai, I could spend months visiting different universities and private schools. I would certainly be overwhelmed.
The expense and time commitment alone makes this an impossibility. In the real world, research is done on-line and communication occurs on skype and in emails.
Too often foreigners in China believe that their idiosyncratic personal experiences in China is generally applicable. Communicating your experiences is valid and perhaps valuable, but giving advice is assuming responsibility in a situation with which you have limited knowledge, of both China and the person you have chosen to advise.

So what you are telling this poster to do is break Chinese visa regulations ?

Hello, I'm an ESL teacher already certified. I'm looking for an ESL job in Shanghai. I live in Canada. I'm becoming very overwhelmed with the process. I have read some the articles here about stuff not to send online plus to be careful of so many scams and bad recruiters. I'm so frozen now I don't know where to go or what to do next. Can an experienced teacher please tell me the names of some very good reputable recruiters without referring to further lists and boards with endless reviews that leave me even more confused. Does someone out there know the name of one or two good recruiters that deal with schools in Shanghai? Someone I can trust to handle the whole job relocating process.

Thank you!