Thanks for the responses. Nice to know I'm not alone. Anyway, I know about the confidential references because they contacted me about the issue. They are not confidential in the sense that I don't know who they are, after all, I had to put their contact informtion into my profile in the first place. As for having a frank discussion with my associate, I would absolutely be thrilled to. I know that we are not the most ideal candidates in the world (I have a Master's in Elementary Education, my wife is an ESL teacher with an elementary certificate, though we only 1 year experience each) but I would love for her to tell us that. Any communication would be great. It's at the point where I'm hesitant to even write her because I'm afraid that she views me as bothersome (despite the most minimal of communication) and will become even more apathetic to our situation. I suppose I'm just venting, but it seems like they pride themselves on a personal approach, charge a bunch for it, and then deliver absolutely nothing in regards to it.

Hey everybody,
I was just wondering if someone could explain to me what exactly a Search Associate associate does? My experience so far with mine has been such that I believe she has actually been much more detrimental to our (I'm married) search than beneficial. For starters, communication is almost non-existent, and when there is it is so brief and curt that it actually makes me hesitate to have any future correspondance. I'm not writing her about trivial things either. For example, I wrote wondering why after 5 days of having everything submitted my wife and I still had pending status on our accounts. We have also had a problem with our confidential refernces, in that due to what I think must be a computer glitch 4 of our references were not able to fill out the evaluations (they clicked on the link and were immediately brought to a page that said "Thanks for completing this evaluation."). When I asked her about this she said that her computer said they had been completed and that is all that matters. Obviously this is going to be an issue when a school attempts to view them and they don't exist, but in her mind apparently the case is closed. Has anybody else been disappointed with the service provided by their associate? I'm wondering if it's possible to change?

Hello. I am new to this site and have thus far been very impressed with the amount of information on it. My question involves experience. My wife and I are a teaching couple. Our issue is that we both went back to school in our late 20's to pursue education degrees (we both have a Master's in Elementary Education). Unfortunately due to tough economic times back in the US education budgets across the country were slashed, and sensing that it might not be the best time to land a job there we decided to try our fortunes elsewhere. We ended up in South Korea were we both teach English at local elementary schools. Now I'm assuming that our experience here counts for very little, if at all. I'm wondering then, given our limited experience, do we stand a chance of finding a job with an international school? We have recently joined TIE and Search but I'm starting to think that I should greatly lower my expectations about finding work. Any advice/opinions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!