Post an Application and Resume for Language Schools in Ukraine

last update: Sept. 11, 2011 (notification)

IMPORTANT UPDATE: Sept. 2011
This service is still available, but there are some important developments to be aware of. Due to changes in Ukrainian immigration policy, it appears that the days of expats being able to teach English in Ukraine "under the table" and remain here long-term are coming to an end. English teachers will need to seek employers who are willing to apply for a work permit to hire them officially. This process is currently lengthy and tedious for all involved (see TryUkraine blog entries on the subject), and as a result the numbers of native English teachers appear to have dwindled in recent years.

Prospective teachers will need to find someone to hire them officially within their first 90 days in Ukraine, if they wish to remain here year-round. Or they will need to have established permanent residency through other means (i.e. marriage to a Ukrainian). One can also stay in Ukraine year-round as a university student, but the law doesn't [yet] allow foreign students to work during their studies, so any English teaching work would be unofficial.

For years foreigners wrote to me asking for help finding English teaching work in Ukraine. Rather than trying to help people one at a time, we have created an inexpensive, yet effective service to help native language teachers and the schools that are looking for them find each other directly.

This service is simple – teachers pay a small fee to have their materials posted (application, CV, photo, and brief summary in Russian that I write), and language schools receive updates about new teachers on TryUkraine.com and can contact anyone they choose, for free. We have extensive contacts with language schools and teaching firms in Kiev, Odessa, Lviv, Kharkiv, Dnepropetrovsk, and Crimea, and make new contacts in new cities as necessary.

As more and more schools and native teachers participate in this service, its effectiveness increases as well. We keep a page of success stories to show that both teachers and language schools are benefiting from the service. We know for a fact that a large portion of those who have posted their info on this site have been offered jobs and have received teaching work in Kiev and other cities of Ukraine as a direct result of this service. There is almost always a shortage of native English teachers around Ukraine (particularly good teachers).

Here is how you can take advantage of this service:

1. Download the application form for native language teachers
2. Send your completed application form and resume to
3. Make payment below for one of the three periods shown using PayPal — a secure online payment system owned by eBay (our prices for this service are at the bottom of the page). If you do not already have a PayPal account, it take just a few minutes to set up, connect to a regular bank account, and transfer money. This account can later be useful for buying things on eBay, etc.
4. Expect an e-mail confirmation from me within 2-3 days with the link to your online information and the exact period when your information will be shown online, according to your payment (here is the page where everything will be posted, in Russian)

Please do not send us resumes and applications without making a payment. We will not look at them until receiving notification from PayPal that a payment has been made.

We accept materials from teachers of any language, but remind you that the languages that are in the most demand are English, German, French, Spanish, and Italian.

To extend the period that your information will be shown, just make an additional payment at any time without resending your resume and application. We will send you an e-mail confirming your new display period.

How we help you find teaching work

After receiving your materials and payment, we post your application form and resume on a special page of the Russian version of our site and write a brief comment in Russian next to your name (for example — "20 years experience teaching English in Korea" or "recent graduate with a knowledge of Russian"). We periodically notify the language schools in our database of new language teachers that would like to teach in their city (as often as once a week) and send them links and summaries in Russian. They may or may not choose to view your materials and contact you, but it is likely that with our frequent notifications they will look at applicants' information multiple times. If we currently do not have any schools in a city that an applicant would like to teach in, we will make contact with at least 2 or 3 schools and add them to our mailing list.

It is up to language schools to make contact with applicants themselves. They may ask you questions, ask to see certificates, and make you any offers they see fit. Sometimes they also call up candidates for a phone interview. We are not responsible for what happens between you and language schools after your information has been posted and cannot guarantee that you will receive job offers from them. However, we have done our best to find language schools around the country who are interested in what you have to offer, and continue to add new language teaching institutions to our data base as we come across them.

Positive and negative factors influencing language schools' decisions:

POSITIVE   native speaker of language   language teaching experience   TESL and other teaching credentials and certificates (even from online courses like www.onlinetefl.com)   living experience in Ukraine or former Soviet Union   TOEFL qualifications   currently located in Ukraine   plans to live in Ukraine for long period   knowledge of Russian or Ukrainian   photo included in resume; well-groomed and professional appearance

NEGATIVE   obvious spelling or grammar mistakes   no higher education   main motivation is emigration to Western Europe   main motivation is meeting women

With these factors in mind, it is up to you to decide whether to have your resume and application posted on our site. If you have happen to have none of the positive factors listed above, we will still post your information but will put an honest comment next to it in Russian (i.e. "unqualified electrician from Ghana").

Recommendation
Many people who post resumes are expecting a firm commitment from a language school before they decide to go to Ukraine. The reality is that we are constantly approached by schools that need native teachers right now and cannot find them, and they cannot wait 3 or 6 months for someone to finally come to Ukraine. Most of the time, any decently prepared native English teacher can post his or her resume and application here and start working within a month of posting or less, especially in places like Kiev.

Post your questionnaire and resume for 1 month ($20 USD)		Post your questionnaire and resume for 3 months ($30 USD)		Post your questionnaire and resume for 6 months ($40 USD)
If payment through the above links does not work for some reason, contact me through the guestbook for instructions.

We're PayPal Verified

If you do not yet have a PayPal account, find the "Sign Up Now!" link near the top of the page and follow the directions to set up an account and transfer money from your regular bank account. It's not too hard to do, and it will come in handy for making other payments (for items on eBay, for example) or receiving money over the Internet.