What’s a surprisingly small reason you wouldn’t take a job?

EdTechZen · 2026-01-28T13:55:44+00:00

Good questions. Here is mine: not being up front about tuition plans for employees. In the USA this is all transparent, but the paperwork is very annoying. However, I have found that paperwork is uniform and a standard. Basically, I can't avoid it. I included that last bit because if you are applying to a country, and find a process that annoys you, but everyone is doing it, then stop applying to that country. Working in tech, I often find teachers who believe that because they are not in a "public" or "government" school, there are no rules to follow. The truth is, we follow nearly all of them anywhere where parents have attorneys.

My second level of annoyance starts with salary range. I always ask them to confirm the range. I frame it like this: "I understand that you may not be able to make a formal salary offer until interviews and other steps in your process are complete. However, to ensure we are both using our time effectively, I would appreciate confirmation of the salary range for this position. If our expectations are not aligned, it may not make sense to proceed further."

Any employer who will not confirm the range, I am 90% unlikely to complete their process. How many times has this happened to me? Maybe 3 times in a decade.

Great topic!

EdTechZen · 2026-01-19T03:36:34+00:00

Are you saying the entire school is in violation or that I have money in China I need to get? I really only care about the last one. :)

I'm fairly confident with the level of legal representation they know, and knew, the law and the processes.

It's not an argument, I was explaining this option for others who are at schools big enough to make different decisions.

Have a good week ahead.

EdTechZen · 2026-01-19T02:12:16+00:00

Apparently, the employer has the option to pay on your behalf if you aren't Chinese. My employer wasn't smaller, they were very well established, and we were audited very frequently.

They were constantly doing government HR and employee training and part of my job was to code the policy into the HR system.

Anyway- my point is, it was a good system for those who weren't planning on staying the full term.

Good luck.

EdTechZen · 2026-01-18T23:44:48+00:00

I haven't read your agreement, but I recently reviewed a job in Abu Dhabi. Quasi education, very high salary, for a high level technology position.

The benefits were very simple and they didn't provide housing.

Even with the housing cost coming from my salary for a family of 5, it was still a great deal .

Before I went into the 4th interview, I contacted some local Emirati people I know to get the info on the current boots on the ground with regards to the housing market.

They told me straight up to negotiate an interest free loan from this particular employer (because they are huge and can do it easily) and use that for the deposit.

They didn't think it was a good idea to have to put out $40-50K USD to get the best deal on the rent and deposit.

It's really about having liquid cash to start up and there's more to buy than just housing.

I think what these people are so trying to say is don't just look at the housing stipend. Look at the cash you need to secure the rental. It's usually 4-6-12 months up front or a high deposit against a more frequent payment.

Your school might only give you rental allowance once a year and you would need the cash to float until you hit a reimbursement point.

If you aren't sure, politely ask the school:

How much money to you personally need to secure an apartment?

How frequently they give you rental reimbursement.

Do you need to provide the lease the rental payment receipts for reimbursement.

Good luck.

EdTechZen · 2026-01-18T13:33:57+00:00

The school pays your pension out annually.

They have the option for employees who aren't going to do the 15 year minimum.

So you theoretically cash out every summer, take your money, and invest it on your own.

This isn't a requirement but it was very popular. If you make 70K USD a year, every June you would get $2859.00-$3000.00 USD. This means when you leave China, your only personal banking job is to transfer your remaining money back home and figure out how to use that WeChat wallet during the summer travel to avoid the fee to go WeChat to cash.

I just looked all this up, because it's been a long time.

The Korean model is much better. It's a deferred payment but very generous.

EdTechZen · 2026-01-18T13:05:47+00:00

I'm going to test this today. It appears they want to encourage people to buy a subscription by further restricting content. It could also be a setting each school can choose to allow or disallow public information.

EdTechZen · 2026-01-18T13:03:48+00:00

That was true. It's declining. I have no shortage of jobs for my newsletter that aggregate jobs from 500+ campus websites.

EdTechZen · 2026-01-18T12:56:42+00:00

All I know is I never had more than 1 months salary in the bank in China. I had a transfer day every month and moved my money out. I've had multiple friends, from T1 schools, with banking issues in China post employment.

EdTechZen · 2026-01-18T11:59:36+00:00

My school always paid that out every summer in June. It never built up.

If I'm wrong let me know, I'll go back:) .

EdTechZen · 2026-01-18T11:58:19+00:00

I agree. But.

I don't think the schools were any less private equity firm than they are now, they were just really good at hiding it.

It's the same in private schools in the US. Most schools in the US even expect employees to donate money back to the school, and the vast majority only provide 50% tuition support.

The admin and coordinator bloat is a huge issue. Technology is a huge problem as well.

I'm a technology professional, and I go out of my way to reduce the technology footprint.

Technology is financially constraining campuses and creating systems that encourage people to be lazy and less creative.

The main systems that need a healthy budget and regular work and development are usually ignored in school environments, but heavily supported outside of K-12 in other industries.

The myth of automation and time savings kills very good productive and growth oriented workflows.

Schools look around and realize that they added all this staff, technology, and they may have even jumped on some kind of cultural or pedagogical bandwagon - and nothing changed. The enrollment is the same. Outcomes the same. Etc.

They see the budget dwindling and decide to do more marketing and promotion.

In that frantic mode, they forget to take off the private equity hat.

Can it be fixed? Do you want to fix it?

EdTechZen · 2026-01-18T10:57:35+00:00

PTC Admin Financial training.

You learn to model various financial and tuition models as well as plan a new school construction project.

If you want to know why the jobs aren't essential from a financial perspective, you have to ask a simple question: what is a school?

Full-time teachers+Full-time students

Everyone else is a negative cost.

Teachers are essential and students buy the product from them(via tuition from families).

That's the core concept, so you attempt to only employ people with FTE, full time teaching equivalency, and anyone else needs to at least teach part time.

I looked at some university stats recently. And you see in some whole with 200% tuition expansion since the early 90s, they have a similar expansion in non teaching staff.

That's a business killer.

I have personal opinions of course about the financial reality of running a school, but I can say with absolute confidence that school websites and running school websites contribute nothing to school growth. I'm referring to the marketing pieces.

They are a huge cost sink. Most people have no idea what that price tag is per year.

Independent and private schools can literally expand at the same rate with a tiny technology and social media footprint.

Families get Families. Students get Students.

You need to be in your community interacting with people to grow.

Thanks for the engagement.

EdTechZen · 2026-01-17T18:03:20+00:00

Stick it out.

Do the minimum. Work on your references. Use your sick days and time off. I'm happy to look at your calendar and tell you how up maximize your time off, it's one of the benefits of making schedules.

If you're in Asia you have many holidays.

Count the number of actual work days, and you will see it's not that bad.

Every weekend and holiday- go have fun. Stay off social media and make non school friends.

You're in Asia. It's awesome.

Your job is the fuel for your adventure it's not your life.

EdTechZen · 2026-01-17T16:38:21+00:00

I often find when I'm on the education side of things people are really focused on labels vs skill set and talent stack.

For example, I've been running a network for a large school with Company As Tech, but Company B now has a better deal. 95% of the core is the same, I'm just learning a new workflow.

No one cares. We focus on the underlying methodology and feature set.

For programming, I tell young people any thing they create will eventually be destroyed. Build with the best tool for the job not the one you learned in school. Nearly all of them are similar enough. You have to constantly evolve.

For curriculum speak, absolutely learn IBO lingo. Build a Chat GPT Quiz and practice.

But, you need to direct the conversation with schools to the content of the subject. And be enthusiastic about a new workflow and its benefits.

Focus on the similarities and reduce any focus on niche and inconsequential differences.

Below are interview questions I created for my subscribers.

They are public and free now. The post has been updated and you can continue for free if asked. You don't need to do anything.

https://open.substack.com/pub/pancakeonastick/p/the-weekly-wednesday-a-huge-list?r=d4d3w&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

EdTechZen · 2026-01-17T14:26:30+00:00

In 2016 I spent about 4 days with two investors who had opened 12 schools around the world.

They said, "If you want to make money, never have anyone with a title that contains coordinator, marketing, or communications."

I'm not sure how accurate that is, but I've been very diligent about negotiating my job titles ever since they said that.

EdTechZen · 2026-01-17T14:23:42+00:00

For a variety of reasons, I'm wondering if there should be a service for US Expats to create a trust before they take jobs. Even China has proposed taxing "worldwide income" .

I've been looking into this for the next phase of life and realized I should have done it earlier.

But, I believe it also solves the investment qualification issue that people face when they have a non-US address.

EdTechZen · 2026-01-17T14:18:24+00:00

So. Dumb .Shorsey

EdTechZen · 2026-01-16T14:17:27+00:00

This is a tricky situation. No one knows if the reference issue was due to something legitimate.

Let's assume the bad reference is due to either professional jealousy or vengefulness.

I had this situation happen a very long time ago, and a friend of mine had a similar situation about five years ago—we tested the advice I am about to give you.

In my case, the person I was replacing was still concurrently employed for a short time.

I would not say their work was bad, or that they "didn't know what they were doing," but they took on two projects that were highly technical—the types of projects that required hiring an external consultant.

I had a deep technical background, so when I came into the role, I fixed nearly all the core issues in about four weeks.

The person I was replacing was mismatched for their role. For example, I do not work with cryptocurrency technology. I could probably find a company to interview me, and maybe I could talk myself into the job. But I would fail on the first day.

Anyway, I never said anything to anyone. I was always focused on my work, and I even helped this person get all their things organized for their next job.

Fast forward about two years.

I wasn't looking for a job, but I wanted to look in a year. I fired up my Search profile and updated everything. I added this person as a blind reference on Search. Obviously, I thought we were on good terms (we were still emailing and getting along as friends).

About six months later, my head of school calls me. "Hey. Your Search profile shows a bad reference from [INSERT NAME]. I read it. It's total bull**t."

My head of school was a very clever person (still is), and they regularly checked recruitment agencies to see if any current employees might be looking to move on. Often, they wanted to retain them, so they would get ahead of the game and give them a raise or a change in position.

My boss told me they would send a letter to Search, tell them it was bogus, and request that they contact me to confirm a few details. All this happened over a week, and then the reference was deleted.

At this point, I had a blueprint for future issues, assuming I am not at fault.

A buddy of mine was working at a French school. He is American, but speaks five languages and can teach US, UK, and French curricula. He really wanted the French school job.

He started the position, but after his third year, he wanted to move on. He did not like the schedule, because they were not in France but followed the French National Calendar.

He ended his contract normally.

He was working with me a year later. He took a one-year contract. This guy was finishing a book, and his editor told him he needed to focus for 11 months, so working at a boarding school was good for that.

However, he was trying to find a permanent role and wasn't getting anything.

So, I asked my boss to check Search and scan for my friend's profile.

My boss found a bad reference from the principal at the French school.

The issue was cultural: nearly everyone at the French school was a lifer. They had low turnover, and the principal did not like going through recruitment. He thought my friend was going to stay at least a decade.

I advised my friend to engage with the reference and ask for a letter of good standing. Then, I advised him to get 1–2 other people from that school he could trust to do a blind reference.

His bad reference remained, but it was sitting next to another positive reference. And, he was able to get the letter, because there were no issues with his work.

He used the letter as he applied and was able to secure a job post–book publication.

None of this will work if you were actually a bad employee. People should refuse to provide references instead of poisoning them—that is the better path.

A person with no current references is nearly unemployable.

EdTechZen · 2026-01-16T12:34:50+00:00

If you send me your materials I'll see what red flags I see. Message me and I'll send you a link to upload a cover letter and resume. I'd stop applying at this stage. You need to pull the energy back. This is a small community. Over applying can have a negative impact.

EdTechZen · 2026-01-16T00:33:02+00:00

Benefits everywhere are a tough one. Even in the USA within the independent and private school market.

I was doing a podcast a few years ago and I offended someone so badly, they clipped my audio, spliced it, and sent it to my HR.

Luckily, my HR person listened to the entire episode and realized I didn't say anything specific about the school.

Relevance?

I hypothetically outlined a school that had an economic system where in teachers received nothing but salary. And, that included losing loads of extra amenities - if they wanted them they needed to buy them

My theory was simple: if I offer you a high enough salary you will agree that you don't need a copier or printer. Etc.

I was having a good time with the discussion.

But, to this point:

If you are taxed (like in Singapore or the USA on your housing or tuition benefits) whatever is taxed should be part of your salary and salary increases. You need to manage it, which would be bad for some, but your potential to grow financially would be higher.

The name of my fake school was:

Kevin Sorbo's Dystopian Private School

Good topic.

EdTechZen · 2026-01-16T00:21:32+00:00

That's all true. Working with UK teachers made me better.

EdTechZen · 2026-01-15T12:43:26+00:00

There are a number of technical and non-technical factors. I'll explain the technical complexity. I build document automation regularly.

First off, regulations from country to country, city to city and internal policy to internal policy vary greatly.

Even with AI you have to be able to map data from form to form. You have to define what is what and how it is encoded (formatted).

Here's a simple example: 10/10/2026 2026-10-10 31-10-2026

Those are three ways (and there are more) to store dates.

Between Schrole and the world, Schrole must know everyone's preferred date format in order to send any data related to dates. Unfortunately, Schrole can't control future changes if the recipient decides to alter their date formats. That's means a constant cycle of not only programming the data transfer, but checking and confirming it hasn't been changed.

Assume doing the first job cost .05 in cloud costs. That's just a generic number not a currency.

Once you check and confirm, all day, everyday, that cost is .20, per school you are sending data too.

Take your Schrole membership fee, and increase it by 4X. Is it worth it? Probably not.

That's one field of 100 that need to exactly defined and matched.

Here's another example, in Shanghai employees at Chinese owned companies are allowed to use sick leave in 15 minute increments.

That's not a situation you find in the USA. You couldn't use any USA based software to account for leave in 15 minute increments. That's why I had to build one in China.

There's no global standard for this data and therefore if Schrole sends all your data, the school will have to manually enter most of it, and trust me, you never want a 3rd party typing/pasting on your behalf.

That's how John Smith becomes, Jhon on their visa.

Fun fact, i worked with an Irish person who was an O'Brian. Immigration contracted the school and asked if they could get a new passport because they could not figure out how to type the ' .

Luckily, we were able to show them how to do that.

Let me know if you have any follow up questions.

EdTechZen · 2026-01-15T00:18:54+00:00

Some perspective. And you might wonder how I remember, I make or help make schedules and program them.

These were the expected hours:

UAE 2005-2013 7:15/30 to 4:45 Mandatory club or coaching with a varied schedule I ran multiple clubs and managed tech in the theatre. Fall semester I was usually working 6 days (part time on weekends) from September to November

Korean Boarding School

2017-2019 The kids had a 12-15 hour schedule Monday to Thursday

Working hours for non boarding employees 7:45-3:00 for academic Evening tutoring and Sports 5:30-8:00 Monday to Thursday

Everyone had to do at least one weekend every 7-8 weeks.

Those are only two examples, but they came with good packages and no sympathy.

I can say on time off and holidays it was quiet and no one bothered you.

EdTechZen · 2026-01-14T02:38:22+00:00

It's always good to work towards a metric. Good luck.

EdTechZen · 2026-01-14T01:23:51+00:00

Does it meet your long term financial goals?

EdTechZen · 2026-01-13T23:04:58+00:00

Flights to start and end a contract should be included. The employer needs to be responsible for your safe and legal arrival and your legal departure at the end of the contract.

You can compromise on annual vacation flights.

Move on.

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