Cultural Background
The country's leaders recognize the essential role of English in their attempts to integrate with the global economy and are actively promoting English programs. Saudis learn English for career advancement, for pleasure, and for day-to-day communications with expatriate workers. Most of the available contracts are for men. It is very hard for a woman to arrange an English teaching job from outside the country. Women's colleges do hire from time to time, as do some of the larger corporations, but their hiring practices are opaque. Because of the special difficulties for unattached women in the Kingdom, companies that do hire women prefer them to be half of a teaching couple. Since there is plenty of local hiring for qualified teachers, if you are a female ESL teacher accompanying your husband to the kingdom you should be able to find work.
Benefits of Working in Saudi Arabia
- You pay no local tax on your salary and receive an end-of-contract bonus calculated on length of service.
- You are provided with furnished housing or with a housing allowance and pay no utility bills except for long-distance phone calls.
- Every year you, your spouse, and your dependent children receive an airfare to and from home.
- Plus your family receives at least basic medical insurance and subsidized schooling.
- Goods and services cost a fraction of what you would expect to pay in the UK.
Average Spend Per Month (Example)
- Food - 500 - 750 SR (per person)
- Car rental - 1300 SR
- Incidentals - i.e. café, taxi, phone – maximum 300 SR
Therefore on a salary of 11,500 SR per month, with company transport, you could save up to 10,500 SR per month.
All of this means that Saudi Arabia is a good place to save money. Adjustment, however, both on the professional and personal levels, can be difficult. Teachers of young Saudi men have described what they do in the classroom as "boy wrangling." Male students tend to be immature and unmotivated. Classes may be large, with up to 30 students, and maintaining discipline can be a real problem. If you don't have good classroom management skills when you arrive, you'll need to develop them quickly for survival. Don't expect to be able to motivate your students through creative classroom practice. Enlightened ESL methodology has not had much of an impact in Saudi Arabia, and you are likely to be locked into a curriculum and materials that defy your best attempts to liven them up. You may find yourself wondering why your employers went to the expense of hiring an expert like yourself (most recruits have a MA degrees) to teach such second-rate materials.
Learning to deal with local bureaucracies, including your own administration, can also be challenging. As in any country, the locals have their own ways of doing things, and you have little choice but to fit in. Losing your temper will only result in you losing face. Patience and courtesy, on the other hand, will open doors. The special difficulties of day-to-day life for expatriates in Saudi Arabia are well known: the need for women to cover up and the restrictions on their movements, the lack of cinemas, the censorship, the ban on alcohol and the heat. These can be annoying at the best of times and deeply frustrating at the worst.
An open mind and a positive attitude will help you to survive. There are compensations (and a surprising variety of diversions) available once you plug into the expatriate circuit. These include trips to the desert, diving in the Gulf or the Red Sea, exploring historic ruins, shopping, crafts, sports, or simply enjoying the lively social life of the expatriate community. These are all activities that can make the time pass pleasantly. Saudi society itself can be quite difficult to penetrate and your contacts are likely to be exclusively with those of your own gender. If you are lucky enough to make Saudi friends, you'll find them to be charming, hospitable, and generous people who will be proud to share their culture with you.
If you can make the adjustment, a contract in Saudi Arabia offers you the chance to step out of the rat race and to get ahead financially. A few years in the Kingdom will enable you to pay off your student loan, mortgage or put together a nest egg for your retirement. It's also a unique opportunity to visit a fascinating country that is still off limits to most travellers.
Although the national curriculum of Saudi Arabia requires English to be taught as a second language, native English speakers are rarely found in the state education system, cultural differences accounting for this. There is, however, a constant demand for English teachers in the region as English is the dialect between locals and expatriates.
Decisive Factors
In a perfect world Saudi’s would prefer to recruit all teachers from the UK but demand is so great the general criterion now is “Native English speakers” can apply which generally means you need to have been born in one of the following countries, hold a passport from one of these countries and English is your native tongue.
- England
- Scotland
- Wales
- Ireland
- Canada
- South Africa
- New Zealand
- Australia
- USA
A “Native English Speaker” excludes the old Commonwealth countries of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.
Qualifications
Every institution will have variations according to local needs but the following are the general guidelines.
- Native English speaker and a copy of your passport will be required to verify that you were born and brought up in a native English speaking country. Should you have been born outside of the UK it will be necessary to explain the back ground.
- Minimum BA in relevant field (English, Education Linguistics, TESOL)
- Candidates with MA/PhD and other advanced graduate degrees will receive priority placements
- An absolute minimum of two year’s experience teaching English as a second language and those with more than two years are more likely to succeed.
- References – only those of relevance, a maximum of 3 to show third party views of the candidate’s competence.
All the above should be accompanied by a detailed CV. This is your calling card, your door opener, spend time getting it right and please spell check it.
Package
Yet again this will vary from institution to institution, read it carefully and if comparing offers we suggest you carry out the following:
- Establish the credibility of the organization to which you are applying. Many use agents like ourselves but whilst the name of the client is unlikely to be revealed until an offer is made you need to do an internet check on the agent and principal/client before making a decision.
- The offer will be made generally with a basic salary linked to experience and requirements at the time. Saudis do not follow a set pattern and it is impossible to predict the offers that will be made which makes it very personal on one hand but a bit of a minefield throughout the process. Visit job boards and other internet sources to establish current salaries.
- The benefits – here they do vary but generally include:
- Reimbursement of all visa costs
- Provision of a one way ticket to get to the location
- Annual return ticket
- Medical Insurance
- “Free” accommodation, but find out what free means
- An overtime rate for hours above a minimum per week
- End of contract bonus
- Generally 30 days paid holiday
- If you want to take family it is much more difficult to get an offer but it can be arranged
- We recommend candidates use a spreadsheet and don’t be afraid to ask questions but do undertake your homework before asking.
What next?
You need to get organized.
- You will need a reliable internet connection
- An email address that accepts and can send attachments
- A Skype connection that can be downloaded free from the internet
- Originals of all your documents
Useful Tips.
- Update and spell check your CV one last time
- Establish the notice period with your current employer
- Decide when you would like to start, remembering that visas take 3-5 weeks from the time of you signing a contract
- Work out your current salary
- Indicate your package expectations. If they are silly your CV will be ignored
- Decide your contact point for the next 30 days
- Sent a brief email – with your name in the title – vital if you have an idiosyncratic email address
- Attach all the documents as Word or PDF files only
- Zip the file if possible, but not essential
- Ask for an automatic read receipt
- Keep a copy
- Prepare to wait, response times – if you get one – vary enormously but if more than 2 weeks elapse you are unlikely to get one
- If you receive an offer study it carefully but quickly as very often multiple offers are sent out as many candidates get cold feet during the process The offer will often be a headline one from people such as ourselves and acceptance is non binding on both parties until an interview has taken place, most often by telephone generally using Skype and a full contract sent and accepted at which point the visa process commences – do establish your nearest Saudi Embassy especially if you are already working abroad
- Allow 6 weeks from acceptance before you are likely to start your job and a realistic timeframe from application to commencement of work is 90 days.
- Most Saudi educational institutions recruit year round so accommodating candidate’s contractual obligations is usually possible
- A word of warning – if you are already working in Saudi and wish to change employers a “no objection” letter will be required from your existing employer. Poaching of staff between institutions is frowned upon.
Role of European Recruitment Agency
We are an agent not an employer. As you would expect our role is to know who is looking for teachers and then to access qualified candidates. We have to abide by international recruitment standards but the jobs are in Saudi Arabia and Saudi practices apply. The terms and conditions are set by our client and not by us. Over time we have established preferred clients to work for in various markets and Saudi Arabia is no exception. We do not believe you can be all things to all men in any market place but this particularly applies to the Middle East.
As you familiarise yourself with the area you will see that whilst working in Saudi Arabia can be very rewarding financially and culturally, it can be challenging socially and you must be aware of these challenges before embarking on your personal journey to Mecca.
