Lewaijiao

I answered a craigslist ad for online teachers of English to students in China. After my application was accepted, I received a clear message from the administrator, who was located in Italy. The interview time had been set, I had prepared my lesson, and I was ready to teach the lesson Id prepared. FYI, the time difference was 15 hours. I was told by the administrator to prepare a 15 minute lesson, which I did. I rehearsed it, I practiced; a lot of thought went into it. First, technology proved to be a problem for the interviewer. But as it turns out, that was not only challenge. She had trouble managing her household, where the interview was held. Her baby was in the room with her. It was distracting. An older man wandered in a few times during the group interview. You could see him on the screen. He had a lost look on his face and he stood there for about 20 seconds. The baby was taken out of the room, but wandered in three more times. All of this occurred during the course of the Skype call during which individuals were being interviewed. As it turned out, my answering questions, as did most of the others in the group, lasted about 30 seconds. I kept wondering when my chance to give the lesson plan I had worked so hard on would happen. Then the interview was over! While I understand that we now all live in a global village, the rules of courtesy and respect still apply. Would you bring your child and one of the older occupants in your household to an interview you were to conduct at a brick and mortar company? You certainly would not. Stay far far away from this company. There are others on the web more professional than Le Waijiao. Apparently, in China, where respect is such a large factor in their culture, it has not transferred itself to the hiring process of this online company. The bottom line? When I wrote to the administrator in Italy and told her what had happened, she was going to speak to the interviewer. Fine. But the professional gesture and the right thing to do would have been to reschedule me with another interviewer. Its my feeling that many of these online companies, Le Waijiao among them, have an assembly line mentality. No one took the time to THINK about the ramifications of this kind of unprofessionalism. I let the Italian administrator know that in addition to SiteJabber, I would notify my social network, who in turn would notify their social network, who will in turn You get the picture.