Skyeng

Comments and Reviews for Skyeng

Skyeng is an ESL teaching company from Russia that wants teachers with a university degree and a TEFL/CELTA certificate. It appears that non-natives are welcome to apply, (it look like many of their teachers are Russian) They use the “Vimbox” platform. Skyeng pays $4-5 USD per hour.

Please leave us your comments and reviews of Skyeng.

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  • I was employed by SKYENG in March 2020. I had quite intensive training and was in 7th heaven that I got this job with them! I really liked their set-up, and the methodologists were friendly and helpful.
    As soon as COVID 19 hit the world -all the new teachers were 'let go until September 2020.'
    We were all just 'locked' out of all our accounts...Slack, etc.
    I never heard a word from them, and when I contacted them, they said that I must re-apply!
    The job I had with them was as an official teacher, but when I applied for 'conversation classes' I was rejected???

    They could have been decent in how they handled the COVID situation. They just 'discarded' us. No matter what your contract or letter of agreement/appointment says; treat your teachers well, and you will not get bad reviews like this one.
    Not professional at all.

  • Guys, just don't apply there. I've been working for them for 1.5 years, getting quite good money but they cut my lesson rate twice after 2,000 lessons that I've taught. They change the contract clauses all the time, and I'm just so tired of them that I wish you all to find something opposite to this school. Just don't apply here. Not worth it.

    • Hi Anastasia! I absolutely agree with your opinion. Been working at Skyeng for the past 1.5 years as well. At the moment looking for another school to switch.
      Bureaucracy and KPI is just driving me crazy at Skyeng. Also that they want teachers to sell more hours to the students, which I believe is a job for sales department.

  • As of March 2020, I am not taking on more clients at Skyeng due to the reasons I've listed. I've moved back abroad, working full-time as a teacher, and have other online tutoring companies that I can get supplemental income from. I hope everyone looking for information about this company reads the reviews here and makes a solid decision. Good luck!

  • Now that I am no longer full-time at this company I can say it is OK to work for as stated previously in my other comments. I still do believe however that there are better companies to work for as the KPI policy is still in place. As a tutor you shouldn't have to beg your clients to have multiple classes with you. It's their prerogative if they want to or not. But now they are paying bonuses so you're getting +2 USD added to each session however if your KPI levels are low, you might have very low amount of classes.

    Don't think as a tutor that's what you want. But that's a judgement call you would have to make.

  • I've been working for this company for almost year and I really love it. Yes, they payment is not high ($4-5 per 25/40 mins lesson) but they're really flexible guys. This is one of those school that provides you with students, materials, great platform Vimbox and not bothering curators. I'm non-native English speaker but if you are, their payment is much higher (up to $20). This is a growing company, they also provide you with qualification courses and all the materials you need for teaching. I would definitely recommend it.

  • Some updates.

    Payments are now stretched from 24 hours on Monday to 72 hours (Monday - Wednesday) . This isn't good.

    They still haven't addressed the regulatory slap they've received from the government about showing improper content to young students (not editing for their audience, teaching students 16 and below content for adults, not using a curriculum fully, etc)

    How is booking?

    The scheduling department books new students for you. Once you establish a good relationship you can book classes with your students independently. You can move classes around, put them on vacation, and delete their classes (if they have a paid up account).

    Enough students?

    They give you enough students but the quality of students has changed and the number of faulty no classes but scheduled has increased.

    I remember when new students were orientated to Vimbox, had laptops or desktops, and had a Skype account. Now there are more students who aren't orientated to Vimbox, work from a tablet or mobile (which doesn't work for Vimbox or with online teaching as a whole), and don't have a Skype account. Plus there are students added to your schedule that hadn't paid, taking that session away from someone that has a paid up account. This happens constantly. You can get around it by checking the student's profile or moving the student to a different location on your master schedule page (because you can't really delete the class once it's at a zero, your manager had to do it. You used to but not anymore). It's a bad thing and takes up time and money.

    About the website? Bonuses?

    Nope that's a lie. Bonuses aren't given like that just for having silver and gold students. If that was the case I would be paid more. In order to get bonus, retention has to be at 90%, discipline at 90%, and intensity at 5. Hardly anyone gets it and when people do, they don't pay on time. The slack account is riddled with people asking, "Where's my bonus money?"

    Opinion:
    If you want to work here, cool, but you can find higher paying, lot less complicated hiring, better edited, online English tutoring company than this one. Granted they have clients, but you gotta ask yourself, "would you be selling yourself short working for this particular company?" Many more on this website that pay double or triple what they give non-natives. Native workers would get the hours so it depends on other factors whether you work here or not.

  • I don't mind working for them, they seem very chill about everything. It is true that they leave you alone. At first they asked for us to submit recordings of any classes done over skype instead of the platform. I haven't done it in months and noone has confronted me. I've been teaching for a while and make 12USD.

    I have no complaints about the work or the company; my supervisor is very kind, the materials are good and it's very low pressure. The KPI policy above by Miss Chicka doesn't actually risk your job, it just qualifies you for a bonus. I don't put effort into this and it doesn't bother me, although I am not looking to depend on online ESL for long periods of time.

    I am a Canadian and would prefer to work with a Canadian ESL company so I don't have to worry about taxes.

    If anyone who teaches/has taught at SkyEng who is in the Ottawa/Montreal area, it would be great to get in contact, compare notes and meetup if that's cool.

    Alex

    • They pay 5$ per hour. They expect a university degree...
      Who in their right mind would do this for 5$ even without one?
      They should ask that you've visited the ISS to boot!

    • Hey Alex I just got enrolled in this online school and I am from Montreal. I am currently working as an English teacher in Japan. If you want a buddy message me back. Take care man.

    • Hey. Thanks for the quote. The KPI's are actually not that great as most don't get the bonus as well as low KPI's will prevent you from getting new clients. I'm glad you're not depending on online ESL work. :)

  • Stay away! This company is actually dangerous. I had a lot of older men who suddenly wanted lessons and there was a lot of sexual nuances. I was disgusted. One was sitting on his couch drinking alcohol while I was trying to teach him. He didn't take me or the classes seriously. When I complained I was told to just teach the class anyway. One was in his office and kept fiddling under his desk and switching the video camera on and off. I stopped these classes. I was reprimanded for that as I "lost" students. No one was interested in listening to what happened. I sent countless messages and emails and nobody cared. Then some students don't come to class and you wait for half an hour. This happened so regularly that I was amazed when someone actually showed up for a class. Sometimes they book a student and no one knows who the student is and you wasted your time waiting for the student to arrive. They are disorganised, very rude and don't make sure their teachers are safe online. Please don't waste your time with this bunch. They treat their teachers very badly and won't even listen to your complaints.

    • Hi Jane,

      I have an interview upcoming with Skyeng this week. I would be really grateful to you if you can give some headups on what kind of grammatical questions they ask. And what is the pattern of their interviewing? I would be really great if you can tell me some main topics that I can emphasize more on.

      Regards
      alna

  • Lousy school and unprofessional behaviour from the staff. They are unsympathetic and short-tempered with teachers.

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