First of all, nobody needs an agent/recruiter to find work, not in teaching or any other field. Why some people insist on using agents, it's stupid. It is easy to find work at universities without using a recruiter.

Would agree though that speaking to teachers already employed at a school will not be of much help. We know that many schools and also universities have lackeys employed to tell prospective teachers what they want to hear. There are Westerners in China who will happily sell out other foreigners for a pittance. There is zero loyalty, and many laowai in China put the interests of China ahead of the interests of the West and that is a disgrace.

I don't know why China attracts the most immoral, deceitful, stingy and uncaring ex-pats in all of Asia.

The thing is this, posters have been telling newbie ft's for years how easy it it is to find a job without an agent but nobody actually tells them how to do it.

Even the noble Turnoi advertised his profile. Who do you think answers all these profiles on-line. It's agents and not the actual schools themselves..

Now, you only need the agent to point the way for you- to gather copies of whatever an employer needs from you. At that point you take over yourself and try and ascertain by using your own judgement what's true and what's not true, and negotiate any changes you want.

Again if you can get contact details of other teachers and talk to them it's down to you to judge whether they are lying to you or not. Whether or not you have used an agent to arrive at that point or not is neither here nor there- except you might not arrive at too many points like that without an agent.

By the sound of it some on this site are suggesting that if you wheedle out an employer yourself there will be no need to interrogate the employer at all.