OK, so some years back I decided I wanted to be an English Teacher “Agent” because I knew they made money for doing what I thought was not a lot of work (and that’s mostly true 
.)
The first thing I tried was doing it for free at a kindergarten I had been working for a year. I posted an add, got a bunch of resumes, set up interviews/demo, yadda yadda. I foulnd out what work needed to be done and did a pretty good job of it, but no doe 
.
Later on I got a job through someone that does/did the whole agent thing so I questioned the hell out of the place I was working. How much did they get charged, etc. Then I found out the kindergarten/elementary school I had been working at also used agents from time to time, so I found out more from them.
Then, I got involved with helping another school find teachers (they contacted me through myu.com.tw), but what happened there is I basically handed the job over to friends that wanted/needed work.
OK, now we’re at now. A quick summary of agent fees seem to be 10,000 for the cheaper ones up to about 30,000 for the more pimp packages. What an agent does is produce a replacement if the school doesn’t like the teacher, all the way up to help the teacher and school sort out living and ARC issues.
So what I’ve recently done is hook this one dude up with the PHAT teaching hours (and I told him I was going to have to tax him for the hook up.) He was happy to pay because he wouldn’t have been able to hook it up himself. I’m also going to charge the school because they have trouble finding good teachers (don’t know where to look, language problems etc.)
The key to making this all come together seems to be guanxi (on the school side.) The important thing to do is show a school that you can really deliver what you promise (for free if you have to) then when shit hits the fan, they’ll naturally come to you. Maybe you help them out for free again (maybe not), but eventually you get to be known as the problem solver and they will be more than happy to pay you for your services.
On the teacher side, if you’re working for enough schools and you ask a teacher what hours they want and what kind of environment, and they are unable to find this on their own (lack of language skills or mojo), you simply match them with a school and tell them what the tax will be. If you do it properly they should be happy to pay you for the service provided.
I’ve now made a formal arrangement with school number one to help them find a teacher for September (already hooked one up this semester.) If I made the same kind of arrangement with more schools, it could be a nice chunk of extra doe.
What you’d need to do this is:
[ul][li]Mandarin skills[/li]
[li]People Skills[/li]
[li]An understanding of how the English teaching biz works[/li]
[li]Mojo[/li][/ul]
I actually enjoyed all of the encounters I had this last week (talking to schools and a teacher dude) and everything went really smooth for all parties. If you have been thinking to yourself “Hey, I could tax mutha fuckas for hooking them up with jobs AND tax these bitch ass schools at the same time, all while schoolin’ beers and playing 360,” you might have what it takes to (drum roll please)…
Pimp English Teachers to these trick ass schools. 
- miltownkid (Professional Teacher Pimp Since '007)
Anyone else have further light to shine on the issue?