Recruitment Agencies

Whilst I'm here I may as well rant on these as well!


I signed up with Select Education (also called Teach Anywhere) because they appeared to be the only agency operating for international/expat schools. They also seemed to be the only place even advertising these jobs - there's no website called "International school jobs dot com" - so Select were my only option.


Somehow I got 'stuck' with a recruiter who couldn't give a rats arse about me. I'm pretty sure I've already ranted and raved about how she wouldn't respond to my emails until I wrote to another recruiter. Well, I've tried to escape her clutches and sign myself up to another Select recruiter again but instead they keep forwarding me back to her. I got excited when I saw they were advertising what looked like her position for a January start (I even thought that perhaps this might be the reason she was so unwilling to put any effort into finding jobs for me) but so far she hasn't gone away.


I stumbled across another agency: Teacher Appointments based in Brisbane. This is a much smaller operation and were initially a lot more friendly and interested in where I was coming from and what my goals were (as opposed to Select who nod and smile through the initial phone call then proceed to send you just about every irrelevant and out of the question teaching positions they can find!). However, as this recruiter was handling the China job that I could not accept, once I emailed the school to negotiate fewer hours, they readvertised and the recruiter disappeared into thin air.


Hays...well, don't even get me started! They didn't even start. I emailed the contact (someone called Olivia) a few times without response. Eventually I think I signed up on the website or sent a CV or something and she got back to me. Now, she was and still is, advertising teaching positions in Asia with ONE YEAR CONTRACT written all over them. Yet, when I told her I was interested in a one year contract she dropped me like a hot coal. Please explain?


SANZA: I thought they only dealt with jobs in the UK but noticed in my extensive trawling through the jobs pages that they also had jobs in New Zealand and some in Asia. I signed up. I got a phone call from a very nice girl called Karen, who told me she'd look into NZ and Asia for me (I told her I was interested in ANYTHING in either location) and get back to me. She phoned back to ask if I'd consider the Middle East (no I already had and decided against it) and then a few days later sent me an email saying they had nothing to suit and please get back in touch (in a few YEARS) when I was looking for work in the UK. Hmm...NOT BLOODY LIKELY. What the hell???? So although they are still advertising all these jobs, they don't want to fill them? Instead of keeping me on and letting me know if anything came up, like EVERY other recruiter, they just ditch me???


And at the end of all this, bloody Timeplan send me an email asking if I know of anyone who might be interested in the position of Australian coordinator in their London office. Well, SURE I DO! I would be interested in the position but I am cursed with a bloody Australian birth certificate and can't live there, so I can't do it.


I have had just about enough of this shite.