Most people look for a job teaching English abroad or any job for that matter by doing a search online or going to certain job sites to look. Nothing wrong with that, but what they often overlook is the here and now.
What if you went out in the real world and asked around for a job?
What?
You might say that it's impossible if you are in your home country looking for a job abroad. That's kind of true, but there is still another way to look for a job abroad using Google Maps.
I found many of my jobs teaching in Taiwan by going door to door. And that was pre-smartphone and Google Maps in 2004.
You can do the same, but you can also use Google Maps.
First off this tactic is more geared to the person who is already there or willing to go there and look. You could also use Google Maps to find schools from home too and I will mention that later.
As I mentioned in how to get a good job you could go the old school way and go door to door. I did that everywhere I ever taught and that was without Google maps.
It wasn’t always successful, but sometimes it was.
How to do it
So choose your location or city wherever you are and then you can try search terms like:
- english school (insert city)
But “english school” might not work well so you can try:
- eikaiwa (if in Japan)
- buxiban (if in Taiwan or China)
- hagwon (if in Korea)
- training centers (if in China)
What are these?
Eikaiwas, buxibans, hagwons and training centers are all private academies that are usually held after regular school hours.
But eikaiwa or buxiban or hagwon or training center might not work well so you can translate it to Japanese or the native language and search it again like in the pic above and maybe you will get better results.
For example:
- 英会話学校 fukuoka
That gave me many more results than "english school" or eikaiwa.
You can try the same for public schools too.
Not abroad?
Then you can also try getting the names and emails of schools in a particular area and then contact them.
It's not easy, but it's another way.
You know it depends on the school and location, but many schools prefer teachers that are already there vs. teachers in their home country. Korea tends to hire teachers from abroad and some other schools in various countries do too, but pretty all schools prefer teachers there.
Why?
It's better for them because they can see who they are hiring and better for you because you can see who you will be working for. That's one of the benefits.
It’s easier to search online for jobs than it is to pound the pavement. And you will get more rejection by going door to door as many schools won't be hiring, but there is a lot of turnover in TEFL.
And...
Sometimes schools find teachers by word of mouth and those are sometimes the good schools. They don’t advertise or you could show up the day or week before they place their advertisement.
It also gives you practice meeting and talking with schools.
Ohh and I should add the big benefit of this
One of the big benefits of this is that you get to choose your location. If you go through a program like EPIK or JET then you don't get to choose your location, they do. Some programs and big companies are like that.
If you really want to be in a certain city or location try this! For example I see on Reddit a lot of people want to be in Seoul or even Tokyo so if you really want a certain location then after all other options fail try this.