Pros
If you're an experienced ESL teacher with generally good teaching skills and like kids well enough at least for one-on-one classes, this is a great job! Most of the students are super cute and work hard, the class material is provided, and there are fairly good bonus incentives each month. Since I started I've had no problems getting classes, and my schedule has been about 98% filled during the hours I request to work. Though the hours for me are quite early (I am in the Central time zone, so work weekdays during peak hours for Beijing, which is 4am-8am for me), it DOES feel nice to be done with my workday some days before my daughter gets up. For those that are naturally morning people, it's not TOO much of an adjustment, though I'd recommend starting off slowly (6am start first week, 5am the next, 4am the next...). I've read and heard about others not having stellar experiences with the hiring and training process or their evaluation results, but I've had good, fair experiences in all those areas. They have a fun weekly newsletter they put out, and the administration seems to be generally on top of things and trying their best to keep things running smoothly. The pay is good for online ESL work, and bonuses are generous. This is a great job especially for those living outside of the country in places with lower costs of living! Tip: pay is determined in the first interview when you do a modified trial class for the interviewer - prepare well and "go all out" to start out at the highest pay (starting pay - without bonuses - ranges from $7 to $9 per 25 minute class). From what I can tell, there are advancement opportunities within the company for teachers on their second contract or higher (contracts are 6 months); hopefully this continues, as I'd really like to go after one of those higher positions later on!
Cons
I think everyone's biggest complaint is probably the "cancellation" policy (I put that in quotes because even for true emergencies, you'll be charged if you weren't able to let them know about the emergency ahead of time - which would make it, by definition, not an emergency). Not showing up to your class for any reason can get you a hefty scoop taken out of your bonus pay for those classes, and if it's less than 2 hours notice they'll take out more than you would have even made. VIP's justification is that they must reimburse parents for the classes they paid for and didn't receive, but the overall message is that they do not want you missing class FOR ANY REASON - if your leg falls off, they'd just really appreciate if you'd find a way to teach through it anyway, because think of the poor students waiting anxiously for their classes! I've heard (thought have no first-hand knowledge myself) that this is fairly typical of Chinese company culture in general: no excuses are good excuses for not doing your part at work. However, as most of their teachers are Americans and Canadians who have been brought up to pretty much always expect a fair and reasonable reaction in the face of extenuating circumstances, it's certainly a big cause of tension and resentment. Communication within the company is so-so. The people who are in charge of teacher communication are Chinese, and work in the Beijing office. They are mostly pretty nice, but sometimes what I suppose is the vast chasm created by linguistic and cultural differences can make their responses ambiguous and quite tone-deaf, and several times I've found myself wondering if it would be inappropriate to ask for an American to respond to me, as the back and forth trying to get an answer that misses the mark by a few inches each time, but in different ways, is kind of stressful and tiresome (for the record, I haven't asked, and don't think they would say yes anyway). The in-class tech-help feature (tech people called "the firemen") works only about 70% of the time, but when it does they are mostly helpful. I've only had really one stressful interaction with them, in which they insisted to me in the room chat (which the children can see) that I needed to switch browsers, and were (in my opinion) pretty aggressive and impatient about it. However, 95% of my interactions with them have been good and helpful, though I think there's a tendency to blame teachers for technical problems when they don't actually have a way of proving that something is on the teacher's end, as opposed to the student's or with the platform.
