First of all I am not talking bad about the company. I think the company has great potential. However, the interview process is a bit ridiculous. After you submit your resume, you immediately know if you get an interview or not. It must pick up on certain key words. Once you are given an interview you pick your time slot for it. During the initial interview you talk about yourself very briefly and then do a 15 minute mock class with someone in China. This interview determines your pay if you get hired. When I had my interview the lady did not even give me a chance to really talk about myself too much in order to raise my pay, I think they cut you off on purpose, to pay you the minimum. The class went well for me. Keep in mind they have VERY SPECIFIC things they are looking for, that they don't specify unless you go searching online. TPR, props (they say you don't need them - you do!), orange t-shirt (don't need-but it gives you a leg up). If you successfully pass this stage you get your first mock trial class. You must give a lesson to a teacher that has been with vipkid for a long time. This teacher will pretend to be a 5 year old. It is 25 minutes long, with them stopping you in the middle to give you feedback. They are looking for you to implement the feedback during the second half. Again, I passed this stage. They are looking for specific things - do your research! I got an e-mail saying I successfully passed, but my score still seemed not as high as I thought it would be. The lady kept commending me and telling me how great I was. I finished my interview at EXACTLY 25 minutes on the dot. Then in my rubric I got e-mailed to me I saw for suggestions it said: remember timing! Keep track of timing!..... how can that be my feedback when I literally did it perfect....? Next you are required to watch SIX HOURS of videos and reading material.. then you take a short quiz... then you schedule your mock 2 class. This one is different, you do a 15 minute class pretending to be teaching a 5 year old, then you do a 10 minute class teaching to a level 3 student that has been studying English for 2 years. This mock class... I did NOT pass. And let me tell you why. I did my research. I watched a million YouTube videos on tips for the class, how to do the class, etc. I practiced my lessons more than once and included everything they wanted. I had props for every slide, made sure the student talked for every slide, etc. Well, halfway through the lesson we stopped to talk and he told me a few minor things I could do better. The teacher then proceeded to tell me how I should be doing the second ten minute lesson and told me I had plenty of time for the slides. He directed me in a way that was different than I saw on any other teachers YouTube videos and a different way than I planned. To do everything he wanted me to, I ended up not being able to finish the last slide... go figure. I was worried but he had really nothing but good things to say to me. He said I seemed very comfortable with the higher level students... he said he had never seen someone include the Chinese flag as a prop, etc. Basically I stopped worrying I didn't make it to the last slide, because he only had good things to say and he literally said "don't worry about it". We said goodbye and then the next day I get an e-mail saying "Mock Class Failed: Account Deactivated", with no explanation. Ok.............. So I literally devoted hours and hours of my time to this, planned perfectly , got told how great I was by the mock class teachers.... and then fail because that certain teacher had a very specific way to teach that wasn't consistent with the others and made me not be able to finish in time (when he said I had plenty of time). I was recording the time, I should have paid closer attention I suppose. Just seems a little ridiculous. For the mock classes there is definitely a factor of luck which is dependent upon who you get as the teacher, which will determine if you get hired. They all have little differences in the way they teach and if your style doesn't line up with there's it won't work. I think this company is great and I hope it can get better in the future! It seems that they change a lot of things often because they are so new and are adapting to make themselves better. They should probably fix their interviews to be a little more beneficial. They should give the people who apply more specific direction. I can re-apply in 3 months, but I am so upset and frustrated with all the time I lost, I'm not sure I will.
Oh and yes... I am a teacher... Just like all the countless other great teachers that have failed to get this job.
