100% Guaranteed Paid Job placement in Thailand with TravelBud

Hi Joe,

Thanks for taking the time to leave us a review. You emailed us with similar concerns and allegations the same day as you posted this review and we responded immediately upon reading it, informing you that we take these allegations very seriously indeed; we and our partners pride ourselves on the level of service we provide, it is the very foundation of each of our organizations. In that mail, we also informed you that we'd need some time to investigate each of the points you raised as they were broad, touching on pretty much every single aspect of your experience in Thailand and we needed to reach a large number of people for feedback, commentary and remedial action where needed.

We do wish you'd allowed us the opportunity to investigate and take action before you'd posted this review. This is especially since this was the very first time you'd presented to us what you were unhappy about, despite multiple opportunities over the past few months where we and our partners had reached out repeatedly.

Our participants having repeated, negative experiences is not something which is sustainable for an organization such as ours or that of our partners. We, therefore, do our utmost to stay in touch and get feedback as often as possible so as to allow us to address issues, remedy them and improve the experience for all participants, those both present and future. It's through these actions and policies that we've been able to achieve such high ratings of the service we provide over the past several years. Without feedback when things don't live up to expectation, it's impossible to remedy.

It's understandable then that your mail and review came as a surprise to everyone concerned. That along with the fact that for our teachers placed in Thailand, 90% rate the experience as positive, this includes the work experience and experience with our partners. Of the participants surveyed in your intake group, 100% rated their experience with TravelBud as a positive. Granted, you had already left the group for your placement to commence when the survey was conducted so we didn't receive your feedback then. We did reach out 3 times since via email to get this and our partners have reached out repeatedly also.

With that aside, we wanted to take an opportunity to address the concerns you raised here.

Your comment that the orientation was unnecessary is concerning. During this orientation, yes, there are fun activities thrown in like a trip to a local market to help you understand how to navigate one or purchase local fresh produce. A visit to a local temple to understand the role Buddhism plays in everyday Thai society. A visit to a dog rescue shelter to help you understand the plight of street dogs so ubiquitous in Thailand. Cooking lessons to help you understand the ingredients and methods which go into local dishes. While these are fun and maybe unnecessary for anyone simply wanting to just find a job and get paid, our programs are set up to be culturally immersive experiences. We want each participant to be a responsible and informed traveler in order to make the most positive impact on those they teach.

That being said, the orientation offers a whole lot more than just these activities. There are history & culture lectures and Thai language lessons which again help you to be a more responsible traveler and resident of Thailand. Then there are sessions on the agent system in Thailand, how to organize your visa to ensure you continue to work legally in the country and sessions on adjusting to culture shock and the emotional stress of living and working in what’s usually a new culture and new field of work for most participants.

Ample opportunity is given to ask questions, whatever these may be, whether that be to the many program staff, placement staff or the team of existing teachers who work on their school break as orientation assistants. Our partners reported that you by contrast to many of the other participants asked very few questions, this obviously made it difficult to address your concerns then and there.

Your point about the placement process we feel is a little puzzling. Your preferences as listed to the placement team were as follows: Location: Big city, preferably Bangkok or outskirts 2nd, otherwise, as close to Bangkok as possible. Age group: no kindergarten, primary preferably, secondary otherwise. Other preferences: location over age, all subjects for primary, can teach Spanish or Italian.

A great deal of effort was made to match every one of your preferences, based on what was available at the time of application and the team was able to match you with a job in Bangkok, with a mix of primary and secondary level students, location was given preference to age-group. Your salary was just above the median for first-time ESL teachers as well. Probably the biggest reason for saying that you shouldn’t reject this position was that it was the best possible position available matching your preferences. Your rejection of the position would have put you at the back of the line again while other applicants received placements and the team would go back to the drawing board to find you another position which matches your preferences. Your start could have been delayed and you likely could have had to compromise on your preferences to ensure you were able to start in a timely manner and start earning a salary.

Finding a position which exactly matches all preferences is extremely rare as it’s all down to availability.

Your point about no background check being done on the school is one we take extremely seriously as it’s something our partners pride themselves on doing thoroughly. It shouldn’t be possible that a school ends up on their network which hasn’t been vetted, this hasn’t happened before to our knowledge, so we’re going to investigate this further and if this has happened, remedial action will be taken immediately.

With regards to the agent system in Thailand - this is something you’ll find across the board in the country, regardless of the organization you are placed through. Only by going to individual schools directly who don’t use regional agents will you avoid working through one. Schools generally contract local regional agents to gather candidates for teaching positions, these agents will then reach out to their network of program providers such as ours for teachers. It’s not the most efficient system, we know, but it is the way it works in Thailand. By contrast, for example, our Vietnam program is different in that there is no agent between the placement team and the school and things often happen much faster there. The placement team has years of experience in dealing with the agents and knowing which are legitimate and which to avoid. Dealing with these agents directly can be very confusing and has led to many people landing themselves either with illegal jobs or extremely poor work experiences.

As for advertising the worst-case scenario for teaching in Thailand, I’m sure you can understand the issue with that. What we advertise is the typical experience, some teachers will go on to earn more than we advertise (such as yourself earning more than the advertised 32,000 Thai Baht or $1000 per month), some will go on to have more time off, less teaching hours, a better location or more benefits than advertised. Wherever the experience is likely to be poorer than average we will either not take on the applicant or we will advise from the outset what it will be like to set clear expectations - this is usually the case with, for example, those with heavy accents or no bachelor’s degrees.

If we take a look at prior feedback reports, we see the following which matches with our advertising material: Around three-quarters of participants report having plenty of opportunities to travel. 85% of participants felt very prepared for their teaching experience by the orientation and, where applicable, TESOL course. The 20 hours of teaching time per week your position requires is around average, the extra lesson-planning time outside of those is also very normal for Thailand or any school around the developing world for that matter. The pay you receive is just above the average salary for an ESL teacher, particularly a first-time ESL teacher in Thailand. There certainly are higher paying jobs out there in Thailand, these almost universally will go to experienced ESL teachers.

This all being said, your review has given us some insight into some areas we can improve on and we all agree with you here on these:

1: We can look at how we can better communicate that this experience will not be a walk in the park and will require hard work. Working as a teacher in a developing country comes with challenges and requires a flexible attitude if one is to enjoy it. This job is as much about an opportunity to travel in a new part of the world as it is about hard work and giving back to the community in which you operate. We’ll look for opportunities to improve our communication in this regard from written content to details shared by our enrollments staff telephonically.

2: We can also make it even more clear that we are not simply a recruitment service, that our services are focussed on preparing participants to have the best cultural experience possible, to be responsible travelers and residents in Thailand and to be impactful teachers. For those simply wanting to find a job without any external preparation or support and for those confident enough to do everything themselves 100% effectively and wanting to spend as little as possible in outlay, we’ll make it more clear that this program is not for them. We don’t think we’re doing anyone any favors by signing someone up to our program if this is what their requirements are.

Joe, thanks again for communicating to us your frustrations. Your email goes into greater detail than you did on this review and we’ve communicated your feedback to the various parties concerned. The placement manager in Thailand, Paang, will be reaching out to you to go through each of your placement concerns in more detail and Saskia, our support manager will be reaching out to you to go over your service concerns.

It’s unfortunate that you waited several months to give us this feedback but we’re hoping to find something which can be done to help ease your experience and make it more comfortable for you wherever reasonable and possible but we will chat with you more about this.

Looking forward to helping you out,

The TravelBud team.