Teaching Nomad Reviews

There were some really uncomfortable aspects of this job. Screening for teachers based on age, gender, race, and nationality was incredibly uncomfortable. When I started this position in 2019, teachers were divided by levels of hireability. L1 meant white people and L2 meant everyone else. This probably the reason for the lack of diversity in this office as almost every person in a leadership position is a white male who has no problem with this selection process. The turnover is extremely high in this role because the position is not at all as it is advertised. The salary is based on a false expectation of commission and the reality is that you don't start to make commission until around 5 months in if you're lucky. They also don't tell you that you are only paid commission 90 days after a teacher has started at a school and you can expect about half of your placed teachers to drop out before that time. Overall the atmosphere of the office was uncomfortable because Brett (the owner) is always looking over your shoulder and would prefer complete silence. This is why despite Brett paying a lot of money (that the company doesn't have) for a nice office with a great view, everyone dreaded coming into the office when they could have easily worked from home. Not everyone is a people-person understandably but the owner definitely has a talent for creating uncomfortable silences throughout the office with his off putting energy. Overall I wouldn't recommend this position for anyone who values diversity, transparency, and a livable wage.

I had hoped that, in joining such a small company, I would find that there were more opportunities for growth and development, as well as more benefits and incentives to stay rather than moving to a larger company with perhaps shinier opportunities. However, I really didn't get those things at Teaching Nomad. There are scheduled promotions, but they're really just an increase in commission. If you want to get more experience and do more things within the company, you have to be very persistent in asking, and it's not clear why certain people get promotions over others beyond seniority. You can start managing accounts with the schools after a year but there's not too much else that you can do in terms of more responsibilities, unless the team gets bigger and there's a need for a second team lead. If you want to just put your head down and focus on recruitment, that's fine, but don't expect too much exponential job growth. For me, it got monotonous without new things to learn and do. The commission model is also not for everyone. Because of the nature of how commission works and how the company gets paid, you get the majority of your commission in October. For the rest of the year, your paychecks are pretty much just the base salary, which, when I left, was $30,000 per year. So you have to be really mindful of saving those big commission paychecks. It's also super important to note that they require 1 month's notice before leaving. If you don't give a month's notice, you don't get your commission. For some people this is fine, but for some people this did cause a problem, and people did wind up losing their commission when they got a better offer and needed to leave sooner than a month, which is thousands of dollars depending on how long you've been there. Because of the nature of the work with countries in Asia, you can also feel some pressure to check your email in the evenings and early mornings to stay in communication with the other office, candidates, and schools. This was never required, but it was encouraged, and if you want to do really well, you pretty much have to be available to talk with candidates and schools at any time. Management seems to be working to make the company policies more compliant with American standards, but small perks that other companies give like MLK Day, President's Day, summer Fridays, etc., are nonexistent at Teaching Nomad. It's not for everyone, but some people I think really thrive in this environment, so just consider heavily what you're looking for and what's important to you in order to feel that you're maintaining a solid work-life balance.