Is it all just a numbers game?

When I was collecting essays for More Than a Gap Year Adventure, I had a chance to have Zoom chats with many amazing ELT professionals from all over the world. Even though their career stories are quite different, there is a personal trait that all of them have in common, and that is being proactive. If you want to succeed in ELT, things are unlikely to fall into your lap. You need to be ready to work your way up and overcome all kinds of obstacles. The following quote from the book really sticks out and demonstrates what I am referring to:

Fatime Losonci in More Than a Gap Year Adventure

When I read this passage from Fatime’s text for the first time, it all felt really familiar. I have sent a huge number of emails and messages that never led to anything, so I know what it’s like. Tiago Bueno, another contributor to the book, told me about a similar experience when applying for jobs. I wonder if this is what everybody in ELT has to go through. Is it all just a numbers game? Do we have to rely on quantity and hope that one of our many emails will be replied to?

Since I’m a very organised person and keep a lot of spreadsheets documenting my activities in ELT, I thought it would be interesting to take a look back on my career and share some data with you. I’ve been in this profession for seven and a half years, so this is going to be a long post, but I hope it can help us reach some kind of conclusion.

My first attempt at finding a job in Medellín
I moved to Colombia in July 2017, a month after completing my CELTA. My objective was very simple: I wanted to find my first TEFL job in Medellín. Sounds simple, right? Well, it turned out to be a complete fail.

I don’t think my plan was too bad. I googled language institutes in the city, sent them my CV by email, and told them I was available for in-person interviews. As expected, most of them never even responded. A few of them told me that they would keep my CV on file. Three institutions replied quite quickly and invited me for an interview. The first one was with a university, but the position they were looking to fill was actually for their partner school and involved teaching kids, which was not what I was interested in.

The second interview took place at a language academy in the city centre. The initial chat with the director went well and I was asked to deliver a demo lesson and take an English test a few days later. I aced the lesson and was offered the job on the spot. We shook hands and I was supposed to get the documents needed for my visa applications in a few days’ time. And guess what I got next? Crickets. The school stopped responding to my emails and left me wondering what had happened. This was the first of many negative experiences with Colombian institutions that I’ve had here. I was not surprised to read about the school’s closure a few years later.

Anyway, after a month of pointless waiting for the documents, I decided to apply for a volunteer position in Villa de Leyva that provided a stipend of enough money to live on. The school in Medellín that had offered me the job eventually got back to me and wanted to resume the hiring process (still without producing the required documents), but it was too late and I left the city with a sense of disappointment. I also received an email with another interview invitation from a Medellín-based academy, though when I found out about the miserable hourly rate the school offered, I decided to give that ‘opportunity’ a pass. When I started blogging in 2020, this bad experience led me to write my very first blog post titled Everybody wants to live in Medellín.

Medellín-based institutions contacted: 63
No response at all: 86%
Rejections: 6
Interview invitations: 3
Contracts signed: 0

Landing my first full-time job
Things went quite smoothly with the volunteer assignment and I started working in Villa de Leyva in the middle of September. The workload wasn’t that heavy, so I had enough time to think about my next steps. I knew the project was going to end at the end of the year, so I quickly updated my CV and began sending emails to language centres in Colombia. My approach was a bit smarter because even though I wanted to go back to Medellín, I also decided to contact schools in a number of cities, namely Bogotá, Cartagena, Ibagué, Manizales, Armenia, Tunja, Pereira, Bucaramanga, and Cali.

Having some experience on my CV seemed to do the trick and I managed to land three interviews via Skype: with a language institute in Bogotá, a university in Cali, and Centro Colombo Americano Manizales. The last one allowed me to teach my demo lesson via Skype, after which I was offered a full-time contract that I happily accepted. Two universities in Bogotá invited me for an interview in January, but I had already made the decision to move to Manizales.

Institutions contacted: 108
No response at all: 92%
Rejections: 4
Interview invitations: 5
Contracts signed: 1

Speculative applications
My first year at the language academy was extremely useful in terms of gaining experience and becoming a better teacher. Even though I had no reasons to leave, I wanted to take a look at other options. I contacted local universities in Manizales, which would potentially be an upwards move. I thought that having a CELTA and some relevant experience with teaching in the city would be enough for them to be interested in having a chat with me. I was wrong.

Institutions contacted: 4
No response at all: 100%

Moving to Bucaramanga
The main reason I started looking for a new job at the end of my second contract in Manizales was money. After getting my Delta Module One certificate in 2019, I asked for a pay rise and was offered just a tiny increase that wouldn’t even cover the inflation rate. At that moment, I knew that staying at the institute would be a waste of time, so I contacted language schools in other cities: Pereira, Bucaramanga, Medellín (including the newly-opened International House branch), and Ibagué.

I felt that I was making steady career progress and adding the first Delta module to my CV made me stand out a bit, and my success rate did indeed improve. I got one interview invitation from Ibagué and two from Bucaramanga. I opted to fly to Bucaramanga where I attended both interviews. The one at the local branch of Centro Colombo Americano was more impressive, and even though it seemed like a sideways move, I switched to being hourly paid with a much better rate, which meant working fewer hours. The COVID-19 pandemic hit the world just three months after my move to Bucaramanga and in the following year and a half I completed my Delta, started this blog, and learned how to teach online.

Institutions contacted: 12
No response at all: 67%
Rejections: 1
Interview invitations: 3
Contracts signed: 1

Returning to Medellín
My time in Bucaramanga came to an end when I found out that having a full Delta and excellent feedback from students did not merit a pay rise. I started looking for positions that were more aligned with my professional profile and sent my CV to five institutions. As expected, the results were pretty good and just one place (a university in Ibagué) never responded to my email. The British Council in Bogotá didn’t have a suitable vacancy for me, but my priority was moving back to Medellín anyway.

I attended three online interviews (with International House plus two universities) and all of them resulted in a job offer. In the end, I chose IH since they offered me a chance to work on a freelance basis, deliver online classes with IH Bogotá and do some in-person non-teaching work with IH Medellín as well. Four and a half years after starting teaching, I finally began making real progress in terms of money and professional reputation.

Institutions contacted: 5
No response at all: 20%
Rejections: 1
Interview invitations: 3
Contracts signed: 2

Looking for private students
Of course, one of the most important principles of freelancing is having multiple streams of income, so I decided to set up my own teaching business shortly after moving to Medellín. I knew I was good at teaching but the problem was I didn’t have any private students. What I had was: (a) the experience of teaching hundreds of people during my time in Manizales and Bucaramanga and (b) access to their emails and phone numbers. I made a list of those who had already finished all levels at the language institute and contacted them with an offer to attend an advanced course (either one-to-one or in a group).

I knew that most people probably wouldn’t be interested, and that proved to be the case: more than half of my emails / WhatsApp messages were left without a response, and 65% of those who replied didn’t take the advanced course with me. There were quite a few cases of people accepting my offer and then completely ghosting me, which was a bit discouraging. Fortunately, I still managed to get enough students to get my business started without having to use third-party services. Some of the students also recommended me to their friends or relatives, which helped me a lot at the very beginning.

Running my own courses has been a very rewarding experience and I’m proud of being able to make this work. I still teach a steady number of lessons per week, and I haven’t had to look for new students since 2022. In fact, I have to keep saying no to those who have heard about my classes through word-of-mouth recommendations.

Potential students contacted: 158
No response at all: 56%
Rejections: 30
Instances of being ghosted: 16
Students who accepted my offer: 24
New students gained through recommendations: 6

Freelance opportunities
In 2023, I finally stopped relying on speculative emails and actually applied for two non-teaching freelance positions that were advertised online. One was with Oxford University Press and the other one with another big name ELT organisation. I felt that I was a strong candidate for the former role, and after a lengthy recruitment process I started working for OUP as an independent contractor in May 2023, almost six years after becoming an English teacher. I work on an assessment-related project and it has been a brilliant experience so far thanks to the amazing people from OUP who I am in touch with.

The other organisation sent me a polite rejection, which was a bit disappointing, but when I saw who eventually got the role, I immediately understood why I wasn’t considered. The person was much more qualified for the job and completely deserved it. I don’t want to digress too much, but I have to say that I don’t think it’s helpful to take every rejection personally and make baseless claims of discrimination on social media, which is something I have seen happen lately. Sometimes you just have to say fair play and accept that you are not the most important ELT professional that has ever lived and there are actually more suitable candidates for the role you applied for.

Positions applied for: 2
Contracts signed: 1

Looking for book contributors
Thanks to the fact that my freelancing work started producing decent income, I suddenly found myself with more free time than when I was an employee. This blog helped me in terms of visibility in the online ELT community, and I’m sure it was the main reason why I managed to collect 23 essays for More Than a Gap Year Adventure. There were a few complications and even one instance of being completely ghosted after what I thought was a positive Zoom meeting about the person’s essay topic – by the way, this is why there aren’t any guest essays written by professionals working for Colombian institutions in the book; I did try hard, but it wasn’t meant to be. That said, my overall experience with inviting people to contribute to the book was very good, and I’m really happy with the final result.

Potential contributors contacted: 62
No response at all: 37%
Rejections: 13
Instances of dropping out of the project: 3
Essays collected: 23

More freelance opportunities
One of the best things about being your own boss is being able to choose how you’re going to spend your time. After finally publishing the book, I took a short breather and then started looking for something that would push me to learn something new. Thanks to LinkedIn, I found about two assessment-related positions with Cambridge University Press & Assessment and British Council Global Assessments. I received a positive response from the latter and signed a short-term probationary contract after a 6-week training process.

Positions applied for: 2
Contracts signed: 1

Main takeaways
To a certain extent, trying to get a TEFL job is a numbers game, and this is true especially at the beginning of your career. Not surprisingly, contacting institutions and people that have no idea who you are is tough. According to my experience, most of them will never reply and some of them will even let you down in a way that isn’t very pleasant. And you know what? I don’t care. Sending a hundred speculative applications and getting a job is a much better result than having no job after applying for just a few positions advertised on an online job board.

The good news is that your odds of succeeding significantly increase if you are willing to make your own luck. Once you get relevant experience, obtain advanced qualifications, and build up your reputation in the ELT profession, you will find it easier to achieve something meaningful. At that stage of your career, you can be more selective when it comes to doing what you like, and being able to stop relying on quantity is a realistic position to aim for.

► If you’d like to read more about career development in ELT, I recommend that you get a copy of More Than a Gap Year Adventure, a collaborative book featuring thought-provoking essays written by experienced professionals.

Let’s talk about money

Country guides on TEFL websites can provide you with a rough idea of how much you will earn and spend after moving abroad, but they aren’t perfect. The information may be inaccurate or outdated, and those guides usually don’t reflect the fact that there is a variety of teaching roles available. When people ask me about money in Colombia, I always tell them that your income and expenses will depend on a number of factors. I think it’s important to have access to information in order to be able to make your own decisions, so I’d like to share some concrete figures with you.

Some course providers try to sugar-coat the experience of moving abroad to teach English, but the reality is that most entry-level TEFL jobs don’t pay well. There are very few locations in the world where you can make good money as a new teacher. Latin America isn’t one of those places. Colombia is a developing country that quite a lot of its citizens wish to emigrate from so they can have better opportunities abroad.

First, let’s take a look at the currency. When I moved here in 2017, I would receive 3,000 Colombian pesos for one US dollar. The currency has weakened since then; in fact, the exchange rate reached 5,000 in November 2022. The situation is a bit better now, and you’ll get around 4,000 pesos for a dollar (at the moment of writing this text), but the bottom line is that the local currency isn’t very strong. It’s very difficult for people to be able to afford a trip to another continent when earning Colombian pesos.

When it comes to common expenses, I really enjoy going out to have lunch. After moving to Manizales in 2018, I used to pay 7,000 pesos for a full lunch menu. Five years later, I usually pay 13,000 for the same kind of food in Envigado. Please note that I prefer going to small, family-run restaurants serving typical Colombian food. There are many other places where lunch menus cost much more; I just want to illustrate how much prices have risen in recent years.

When I used to go grocery shopping, I could buy a lot of stuff for 50,000 pesos. Nowadays, it’s not uncommon for me to pay double that amount when going to the supermarket. In fact, using a 100,000-peso banknote isn’t a problem nowadays compared to the past when some shopkeepers didn’t want to accept it due to its high value.

The most important expense you need to take care of is your rent. There are various ways to find a place to live in, but what is clear is that prices have risen way too much in recent years. In 2018, I found a fully furnished apartment in one of the best areas of Manizales for 800,000 per month. Finding a similar deal would be impossible these days. Two years later, I got a nice apartment in Bucaramanga for 1.2 million. Again, I can’t imagine being able to get such a price in 2023. It’s also important to add that cities like Bogotá and Medellín are more expensive, and renting a furnished apartment in a good area costs a lot more these days. When you check Airbnb and Facebook groups, you may be surprised how pricey some places are. This has caused some tension and quite a few locals openly complain about gentrification and its effects on their city.

A very important figure is the minimum salary, which is what millions of Colombians earn. When I moved here in 2017, it was 820,000 pesos. It has risen to the current amount of 1,160,000, but that’s quite clearly not enough when you consider the inflation and how much more expensive everything is now. At most, that kind of salary allows one to live paycheck to paycheck in very humble conditions. Even if you are just a tourist passing through Colombia, I think it’s important to be aware of this reality.

When we turn our focus on TEFL in Colombia and what English teachers may expect to earn, it’s very important to emphasise that it’s not possible to come up with a single number since there are so many different jobs one can do. I’m going to talk about my personal story, which started in 2017 when I landed a volunteer teacher role in Villa de Leyva that involved receiving a stipend of 1.5 million pesos per month. That was enough to pay 500,000 for a private room and leave me with a million to spend on whatever I needed.

In 2018, I found a job at Centro Colombo Manizales paying 2.1 million per month. It wasn’t much money by European standards, but I had a full-time contract, which meant paid holidays, health insurance and pension payments covered by the employer, a 13^th salary (prima), and a bonus to be paid at the end of the contract (cesantías). That kind of money helped me cover all my expenses and save enough for a couple of trips in Colombia. The disadvantage was that I had to work long hours, so I decided to move to Bucaramanga and work as an hourly-paid teacher instead, which allowed me to focus on my professional development and finish my Delta.

If you approach language academies now, they should definitely offer you better terms than that due to the fact that the prices of everything in Colombia have almost doubled in the past six years. I do think that working for institutes such as Centro Colombo Americano is good for gaining experience as a teacher. However, I don’t see that as a long-term option since you won’t be able to save much money for the future. If you plan to settle down and stay in the country, you may need to look for other kinds of jobs.

One of those options could be a university that has its own language centre. Those are basically language academies with higher requirements, which means that they pay a bit better. At the beginning of 2020, I was offered 30,000 pesos per hour by a private university in Bucaramanga. In 2022, a university in Medellín would have paid me 40,000 per hour had I accepted the contract. I turned both offers down for various reasons, but working for a university language centre is worth considering. There are also other, better-paying university roles (e.g. a lecturer), which usually require more advanced qualifications, such as an MA in TESOL or a PhD.

As you can see, typical teaching jobs in Colombia don’t pay that well if you convert the hourly rate to US dollars or euros. The highest fee I have seen advertised was a teaching job with the British Council that paid 75,000 pesos per hour. That is good money by Colombian standards, and I think it would be a nice option for a Delta-qualified teacher, but since I have absolutely no interest in living in Bogotá, I didn’t even apply for it.

Inevitably, many teachers realise that offering private classes can be financially more interesting than working for an institution. This is a popular choice especially among those who have a resident visa with an open work permit. You can look for students by yourself or use platforms such as Preply. If you have an entrepreneurial spirit, you can easily earn more than what language academies and university language centres will offer you. My personal recommendation is to run online courses for groups of students. If you manage to find five or six participants, you can expect to make more money than when teaching the same number of students at the British Council.

It goes without saying that having income from abroad and getting paid in a foreign currency is a goal that many teachers who live in Colombia wish to achieve. Students based in other countries may be able to pay higher fees, which makes everything easier. The government’s decision to approve the digital nomad visa allows professionals to work remotely for foreign companies while living in Colombia, and that’s something that may appeal to some teachers working fully online.

Another good idea is to explore other areas of ELT. Teaching English is a rewarding job, but you can also get involved in teacher training, materials writing, assessment, editing, etc. It requires a lot of effort since you need to obtain relevant qualifications and become really good at something else than teaching. I believe it’s worth it, both professionally and financially; in fact, the highest hourly rate I have received from a Colombian institution has been 100,000 pesos for a one-hour webinar.

If you wish to get involved in non-teaching work, you can try to work your way up in an institution or actively look for work elsewhere. There are plenty of in-person and remote jobs advertised online. I highly recommend following Atena Juszko on LinkedIn; her job lists focusing on publishing and edtech roles are very useful.

To be completely honest, due to the combination of low salaries in entry-level teaching jobs and the rising cost of living, Colombia isn’t a good destination for new teachers without experience. That said, if you’re willing to work on your professional development, you can find opportunities to make progress in your ELT career and earn decent money while living here. There are several ways you can achieve that; I chose to go freelance and diversify my income. I work (1) with institutions and individuals, (2) in person and online, (3) on teaching and non-teaching projects, and (4) with local and foreign-based clients.

When it comes to monthly expenses, everything depends on your lifestyle and what you like to spend money on. In my case, the bare minimum I need to earn each month is 4 million pesos. This amount allows me to pay the rent, utility bills, social security, groceries, and other common expenses. It also leaves me with some extra money, which is extremely helpful since you never know what might happen. For example, a few months ago I lost almost a million pesos due to the bankruptcy of Viva Air, a local airline that I had booked a couple of flights with.

Having multiple sources of income requires good organisational skills, but I believe that being a freelancer is something that can work pretty well in the Colombian context. Fortunately, I recently managed to get a really good non-teaching contract that helps me earn significantly more than the aforementioned bare minimum. I know that these good times won’t last forever and there are going to be a few bumps in the road, but it feels nice to be genuinely happy with my monthly income for the first time in my ELT career.

► If you enjoyed this blog post, I recommend that you read More Than a Gap Year Adventure, a collaborative book aimed at those who wish to have a long-term career in our profession.