Oh, my God....
Sometimes I think my thesis on the "Airplane-Glue Theory of Chinese Civilization" is not just the parody it was originally intended to be...and that some foreigners have started huffing the stuff themselves.

Look, in many cases all it takes to sort out the nonsense from the reality is the ability to use a Web browser, a functional literacy level, and a willingness to spend the time.

For example, finding jobs...
Go to almost any of the name-brand EFL websites...including this one. You'll generally find dozens of new EFL jobs popping up in China on a daily basis...even more in the peak hiring seasons. Go to the locally-oriented websites, such as That's magazines, and you'll find many more...often better than what's on the big international sites. Sort out the clunkers from the recruiters and the "McWankers"-type chain English mills, and you're still left with a pretty sizeable body of listings. The fact is, just about any Caucasian mammal with a pulse can get a job teaching English in China...albeit today you may have to have a college degree, or have someone tear a TEFL certificate off the roll and mail it to you, or acquire some other sort of shiny, impressive-looking piece of paper before you can get most jobs.

Sure, it's much harder to find really great jobs...just as it is everywhere. But finding your garden-variety basic teaching job, the ones most incoming new teachers seek, is still LAUGHABLY easy. A lot of schools in China don't find all the teachers they need; supply still exceeds demand. These jobs are generally at least as good as what the recruiters are pimping, and no more (or, necessarily, less) likely to be dodgy than what the recruiters have...AND YOU DON'T HAVE THE ADDITIONAL WORRY OF THE RECRUITER BEING A CROOK.

Please...don't just take my word for this. Go see for yourself.
I know what you'll see there...and one would think the guy inexplicably championing recruiters would know this, too.
(Oh, and beware of people who kindly offer to PM recruiter contacts to you...)

Speaking of recruiters, it's also easy to find info on this. Go to places that have school/recruiter reviews and read some of the endless horror stories that have resulted from the use of recruiters. They're out there for the finding. The notorious Frank Zhang is by no means the only weasel recruiter in China...he's just the most infamous. I do allow that there are a couple of decent recruiters in China; the rest ain't nothin' but a bunch of mangy dogs. I would submit that the odds of stumbling across one of the better ones are overwhelmingly stacked against you...and simply not worth the risk.

Again, please...go see for yourself!

Now...Why do we have forums like this?
To ask questions or discuss issues related to working and living in other countries.
To blow off steam and have fun and meet other people in other faraway places.
To pass on info that might benefit others.
To boldly write split infinitives that no man has written before.

Certainly NOT to find jobs. That's what the job listings are for. Sure, you can find some guidance on jobs in forums, but it's not really what most forums are entirely about. Far from it.

Why are recruiters so profitable or busy? (And many aren't much of either...)

1) Due to reputation, compensation package, location, communications dysfunction, and other factors, many schools can't find the teachers they need. They turn to recruiters out of desperation...a mistake you don't need to make.

2) People are lazy. It's easier to have some local greaseball spoon-feed job listings to you than to go find them yourself...although it's not that much easier.

3) People are naive. Newbies back in our home countries usually don't know and can't even conceive of what business practices can often be like in countries like China. They don't realize how seriously they need to take protecting themselves.

4) There's a sucker born every minute.

One thing I can tell you: if recruiters are profitable and busy, it's usually NOT because they have done anything to try and get a square deal for the foreign teachers they represent. It's because they satisfy their REAL clients- the schools doing the hiring. Recruiters know full well where their bread is buttered. If push comes to shove, the recruiters aren't going to be on your side.

I would add that I am an ardent devotee of the art of teaching. It's a noble and admirable thing to do. I would never myself actively encourage anyone to come here to teach if they don't have the ability to do it, and when I talk to people I tend to be pretty upfront about this.

However, I'm realisitic enough to know that an awful lot of people who have the impulse to come here, but don't have a degree etc., are not going to listen to what I or anyone else says. Most are likely to come here anyway. If they do, I have no problems at least trying, if I can, to help inform them as to what's coming...and I certanly don't feel that the lack of a degree automatically marks one as a target for the sleazeballs in the EFL business.
If the schools were actually any good, they wouldn't be recruiting unqualified people in the first place.

Personally, I think a lot of people make too much noise about "qualifications" and "quality" in China, anyway. There are of course exceptions, but in an awful lot of Chinese schools qualifications (beyond an ability to get you a Residence Permit) and quality programs are the LAST thing they care about...despite a lot of empty smoke and noise to the contrary. I've personally seen cases where trying to teach good classes was actually a liability! No, many of the schools, and even many of the students, just don't care about or want a quality program. They want bread (the schools) and circuses (the students).

TEACHERS often DO care about quality, and trumpet the need for qualifications. Sometimes this stems from a genuine sense of ethics and caring and professionalism. Sometimes this stems from a rather sad attempt to inflate their own worth and ego and self-esteem, and a desire to set themselves as superior to their colleagues. When reading forums like this one, you might take care to try and suss which motivation you're really reading.

I've seen people with graduate degrees and impressive teaching certificates who were hopeless in the classroom. Couldn't find their own butts using both hands.

I've seen former golf-course landscapers who were DYNAMITE in the classroom.

So, go figure. A piece of paper does not always a good teacher make.

Then: "gullobiel"?!? It's _gullible_. "Gullobiel" looks like ...I dunno... Afrikaans or Romansch or something.
No matter how you spell it, all of us who have been here a while know that many such people come to China to teach. Some of us would like to help them; others of us just want desperately to try to impress them. For that assessment...I'm afraid you're on your own.

Finally, we had in a related post: "But they regard themselves as this forum's highest, most authoritative source of information..."
Ouch. That means SO much coming from you. ;-{)