Overseas Job Opportunities With
Aeon English School.  Get Tips to Help You Succeed

Overseas Job Opportunities With Aeon English School

If you’re thinking of pursuing overseas job opportunities with  Aeon English school, but are unsure of what will be required of you and how the whole interview process goes, you’re in luck. We’ve put together some tips and strategies to help get you through it.

Withstanding the shakeout that killed off Nova English schools in 2007 and wiped out Geos allowing G. Communications to clean things up with a buyout of around 200 of  their branches, Aeon with its 250 plus schools nation wide continues to offer viable overseas teaching opportunities for many just starting out in ESL teaching.

Their Recruitment Mechanism

Aeon primarily recruits and filters applicants via. their on-line application forms. No need to sweat about deadlines like the JET Program as their well-oiled recruitment machine grinds on pretty much 24/7 with applications accepted year around backed up with weekly interviews in a host of U.S. cities and a few other countries.

Interview Locations

Being primarily U.S. based, their main interview locations are Los Angeles and New York. However they do have  locations in Toronto,   Honolulu, Melbourne, Brisbane and London. If you are already in Japan they do grant interviews for those with valid visas out of their Tokyo branch on a weekly basis. For all interview locations you can go to  http://www.aeonet.com/recruiting-locations/

What Type of Teacher They Look For

Like Nova Holdings , Berlitz, ECC, Aeon and a host of other chain schools mandate that “candidates must have an accredited Bachelor's degree combined with a strong understanding and masterful command of the English language, and a genuine interest in the culture and people of Japan as well as in teaching and business.” Well anyway, that's what they say on their website. And it's true. Teacher turnover is high for Aeon and company as your average teacher stays in Japan 3 years before packing it in.

Like the other schools who basically only hire native English speakers, you can get a position if you have 10 years of education provided that English is the primary mode of instruction. More info. on what big English schools are looking for here.

Overseas Job Opportunities with Aeon and How the Whole Interview Process Goes

Provided you meet their basic qualifications, you fill out their on-line application form. If your application survives the first cut you’ll be invited to an informational meeting and group interview. Their application is about as straight forward as it gets. They want:

• Name
• Address
• Contact Info.
• If you worked for them before
• If  you have a bachelors degree, that allows you to teach in Japan
• If you have a passport
• If you have a current visa
• When you can depart to Japan
• Resume
  
• And lastly they will ask  you to submit an essay on the topic of "Why you want to work in Japan". Note: there is no length requirement to the essay.
  

Their marketing department also wants to know about how you found out about them - it helps in targeting and demographics for their sales dept. etc.

If you choose to attend the informational meeting, you'll get a massive amount of info. on what their company is like, what life in Japan is like, what to expect teaching in Japan, contact or teaching hours and the usual propaganda to try to cut down on culture shock.

If you like what you hear, the group interview is the next step. More info on contact hours here. After they give their presentation, there will be a question and answer session, where you’ll be able to ask your personal questions and get answers to things not covered.

Overseas Job Opportunities with Aeon: The Group Interview

During the group interview, you'll be asked to give a short (and I do mean short sample lesson - roughly 5 minutes.) The other interviewees will be your "students."  This is termed a mock lesson as real TEFL certified and experienced ESL instructors are not evaluating you. You'll also be given a short written test - it's quite basic so don't sweat this part.

Advice For Your Trial Lesson

In a word, don’t be boring. In other words, don’t do rote vocabulary drills etc. Don’t have them read passages from a book, after all, the job is English conversation right? Keep it fun and focused and most importantly simple.

The Next Step

After the group presentations, you’ll be given a sealed envelope, which will tell you if you made the cut. (Gotta love the drama!) If you did, you’ll be invited back on a different day to do a personal interview.

The Personal Interview

In the personal interview, you’ll be required to give a 10 minute lesson. The interviewer will be the student. Again a mock lesson. Usually they’ll give you a few minutes to plan it. Aeon wants to make sure you can move in an organized fashion through the lesson. Basically you want to introduce the key grammar point or concept and then run a short speaking exercise off of it.

There are tons of sample ESL lessons available on the net so you shouldn’t have much trouble finding something that is interesting. If you survive this final cut, they’ll extend a 1 year contract to you, give you details on where you’ll be located, send you a prep manual and start processing your visa.

Other Overseas Job Opportunities

If you didn't make the cut, it's no biggie. There are teaching gigs of all shapes and sizes not to mention a host of other overseas job opportunities outside the ESL arena. Take a look at our overseas job opportunities page for part-time work.

Survival Tips and Other Information

• Aeon will check your references, so make sure they’re legit.
• Wear formal attire. No khakis etc.
• Aeon will run a background check.
• They don’t pay for transportation expenses to the interviews.
• Keep in mind the whole hiring process will take 2 to 3 months.
• Aeon staff will meet you at the airport, when you fly into Japan.
• The recruiter will have detailed information on getting your visa.

If you got hired great! You can get U.S. passport information here.

Don’t know what to pack? No problem check out our packing tips page.

There are scads of overseas job opportunities with large chain schools, not to mention ALT and JET jobs.   See our knock-down and drag-out salary and benefits comparison of the top English conversation schools here to see if Aeon is right for you. If you're not sure, you can look for more work on our job postings page. This is all full-time work. And if you only need a bit more cash in your pocket check out our part-time work page.

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