I myself have made this very suggestion many times in the past, that schools handle their own hiring, but it makes too much sense I think.

What I have told school owners in the past is that they need to hire someone who's sole job is to find teachers. An Hr director would be in charge of all human resources, and to be fair, finding teachers is a full time job for some schools. With the ridiculously low pay some of these schools pay Chinese teachers, if they employ a lot of foreign teachers, it might just be cheaper to hire someone.

Now for smaller schools who only have a few it might help save money, this is true, to use a recruiter. however to be fair, it's not that hard. It's just that Chinese for the most part don't understand foreigners, or how to attract them. Most recruiters have no idea either.

Take Mandy and Lynn for example. I came to them looking for work because, where I live, the job market is actually very competitive. While they were very good at providing opportunities, Lynn herself was extremely rude. Not only that, but at the same tame I was talking to Lynn, I was also talking to Mandy, not knowing she and Lynn were partners. Mandy claimed to not know I was working with Lynn, and if that is so, then these two are the least familiar partners I have ever seen, and not so good at their jobs.

Anyhow, the rudeness was what surprised me. It was little things, comments she would make about me that were personal in regards to my talking with one school, observations of a personal nature that were completely out of bounds. After I asked what she thought were too many questions she became very annoyed and started to become even more personal. Those questions being if I could talk to the other foreign teachers at that school, and was told no. After that she called me cheap, for asking the school to pay for my train ticket to the school. Then things just got worse and in every message it was like I was talking to some school yard bully, who took every chance he nor she could to degrade and deride me. Whats worse, what can you do, you need them, and they know it. At that point I said I told her I did not appreciate how I was being treated, at which point I was threatened, the job I was to take canceled, by her of course, and was told in no uncertain terms to watch myself or my visa might be revoked.

The moral of this story is, recruiters are indeed bad news, especially these two. No doubt after this landslide of unfavorable posts about them they will change their emails, if their smart, and continue on their merry way.

This is one reason why Chinese schools need recruiters. Just think about it, if they are that bad at recruiting, imagine how bad the schools must be at it.

What you really need to do, if you want to put these folks out of business, is just give the schools you know of a list of all the esl websites you know. Every single one allows advertising. I was quite shocked myself to learn that the two schools they told me I would be hired at had never heard of Daves ESL cafe or this site. Consequently I let them know, and Lynn and Mandy promptly lost those schools as client

You do have power, you can exercise it, let these people know you are not just a commodity, like pork bellies or cars, but a human being with real feelings.