Contacting Schools

I am in the process of looking for teaching positions in Taiwan. I started out by using a recruiter I’ve used in the past, but I’m also looking at schools on my own. Should I try to contact the schools about any open positions on my own, or should I send the names of the schools to my recruiter and ask them to help me with interview, etc.?

I’m also curious about whether or not I qualify for private-public school positions (Wego, Yan Ping etc.). I have a bachelors degree in English, and a TEFL, as well as two years of experience in another country, but I am not qualified to teach in my own country.

Any information would be helpful!

You can rule out all public schools if you don’t have a teaching license. That’s an MOE rule, so even if you have open work rights, you can’t work at any of those.
My understanding of the private schools is that some hire if you have experience but no license. I do remember applying to a private school once that had recently been purged of all foreign teachers because none of them were licensed. Check their recruitment info and make sure you’re not breaking laws, because it will be on you, not the school, if you are. Remember that kindy is never legal for foreigners, regardless of qualifications.
Do you trust the recruiter? In my experience they’re a bit shady— better to go directly to job postings on Tealit and apply to the school yourself

The difference between private schools and buxibans isn’t really clear to me, but it looks like some places are considered private schools but not buxibans. When my recruiter explained it to me, they said a buxiban is a private school. I know I qualify to teach at a buxiban, but I’m not sure if I would qualify for some of the private schools I mentioned above (Wego, Yan Ping).

I already know I don’t want to bother working at any place that could potentially be illegal, so I won’t even go into those.

Private schools are usually “day schools”, where students go from 7:30-4 to learn at school, so instead of attending public school, the kids go to a private one.
Buxibans (aka cram schools) are after school / weekend programs where kids (or adults) go to learn extra things. “buxi” means something like “support study”. So technically they can be anything from math and English to art and Karate. If you teach in a cram school your hours will probably be something like 4-8pm weekdays, with earlier in the afternoon classes on days where elementary gets out early (Wednesday?).
To work at a cram school, you need to be a native English speaker with a university degree in anything, so that’s probably the easiest type of job to get. Some schools do outright discriminate against people who aren’t white or who they consider to be too old. Private schools I’m not qualified to speak on, as I have no experience with them

Thank you so much! That is very helpful. Because of your explanation, I think I would prefer to teach at a private school as opposed to a buxiban, and I am hoping Tealit will have some good options available.

No problem! Good luck!