Tutor.com Employee Reviews about "low pay"

Pros

1. You get to work from anywhere you would like. 2. Since you are not always "tutoring", you can be taking care of other stuffs while you wait for a student.

Cons

There are so many: 1. Pay rate: Pay rate is very very low as compared to other online tutoring system (there are some who offer $20 per hour) 2. Broken system: The system to evaluate tutors based on student reviews is flawed. The necessity to receive an average review of 4.3 to get promoted is also flawed because many students might give you 4 stars because you are better than average, but that will not be good enough. Also, while calculating average ratings, only the sessions where the student actually gave ratings should be considered. 3. Mentoring: A lot has been said about mentors and mentoring issues in previous comments. They are there to criticize, not properly help you. 4. Acceptance rate disparity: It is mentioned nowhere how the Acceptance Rate is calculated. Miss a session - your rate goes down drastically. 5. Communication: The only way to communicate is via mentors and support page. Mentors are in no position to answer administrative question, and who know who answers the support questions. 6. Value to students: Most students do not pay for the service, so the utility of tutoring for them is not as much as to the ones who pay to use the service. I believe the students who use the service for free do not really care about tutor ratings and surveys. Most paying customers I have encountered genuinely want to learn and provide good feedback. 7. Regular interaction: There is no way we get to schedule a session with the same student on a regular basis. Also, there is no way to share information with other tutors. Other tutoring site has facebook & twitter pages where tutors can interact & share ideas, but not here. 8. Software issues: The tutoring software is out-of-date, and it crashes too often. I use text-box most of the time, but it is not possible to go-back and edit what I typed previously. Also, while using text-box, it is not possible to go to chat and respond to student's query and come back to work on the same text-box. 9. Career advancements issue: Take this as a part-time job. There are absolutely no advancement opportunities. I have been a probationary tutor for little over two months (more than their 60 days limitation), but am being held back because of my acceptance rate. 10. Limited hours: Being a probationary tutor, I am last on line for scheduling priorities. Most of the better hours (evenings) are always already taken and the available hours are usually (12am-7am). This is ridiculous.

Pros

Flexible Scheduling Decent System for Interaction

Cons

1. Management is exceptionally arrogant and careless. They know all too well that they can just find more tutors and so they have little care for the work environment or happiness of their tutors. Their pay is quite low considering the quantity of material they expect tutors to cover. 2. Criticism is abundant and praise limited. Senior tutors and 'mentors' will rip you up one side and down the other for things as simple as 'giving too much of the answer away' or 'greeting the student in a friendly, but not sanctioned manner.' They have pre-scripts for many things including greetings. I liked to say 'Hi, How are you today?' They preferred I used the prescripts, which made students feel like numbers. 3. I was there well past the advancement point and even brought it up with the 'mentor.' She simply ignored me and offered no reason as to why I was not promoted. 4. Resources - There are next to none! You are on your own to find material, examples, extra help for students, etc. Tutor.com does NOTHING to facilitate your tutoring. 5. Students - They will tear you apart expecting you to know anything and everything. They have no manners and no patience. They will demand your time and demand that you 'do the problem for them.' When you explain that you cannot do that per policy, they will cuss at you. 6. Work - I was a biology tutor, which covered everything from plant cycles to molecular biology to anatomy to mendelian genetics to immunology and more. You have no idea what the questions will be ahead of time, so you sign in, get the question, and start the 20 minutes session IMMEDIATELY. You can refuse sessions due to content, but refuse too many and your 'acceptance rate' drops and you get reamed out by management and no promotion. If you go over the 20 minutes, you get..that's right...reamed out by management. Imagine you know everything there is to know about molecular biology, anatomy, physiology, etc. because you hold an M.D. Great right? You can really teach the kids something. Too bad you get 5 plant questions in a row and your acceptance rate tanks. Management treats you like an idiot and tells you to read up. You suggest they make a few more categories in biology so students can pick say PLANTS, GENETICS, ANATOMY, ETC. Management ignores you and tells you to read more. That's how it goes.

Pros

You decide when you want to work

Cons

Pay rates depend on which subjects you teach. The pay isn't too bad but you'll make more tutoring on your own than through this company.

Pros

You can set your own schedule.

Cons

Low pay and they may change the rules as to what you should and should not do quite suddenly.

Pros

Really on your time kind of style. Extra pocket cash for when you want to go out for a beer. The upside is that you don't have to do any leg work for getting clients

Cons

Really isn't much better pay wise than working part time at a grocery store or somewhere. Plus working at a grocery or the like at least has lots of human interaction.

Pros

-Flexible schedule -Some students are super enthusiastic -Being able to help low-income students

Cons

-Terrible pay (you make more working at McDonald's than you do tutoring elementary math!) -- if I wasn't forced to sign a confidentiality agreement as part of my contract, I would give the exact number! Furthermore, you are an independent contractor, so you must pay an additional self-employment tax. - Rude, verbally abusive students - Sessions are usually restricted to 20 minutes at most, which usually is not enough time to cover all the student's questions. -Parents can request to schedule sessions with you in advance, but don't show up and are not charged for it [because that would make parents upset at the company!] so you as the tutor get paid only about $6 and can't take on instant requests during that time slot anymore. -No contact whatsoever with the other tutors. Your supervisor may send you a written critique every few months or so, but that is the only interaction you will have with Tutor.com staff unless you submit a request to the Help Desk.

Pros

You can login and pick up sessions anytime during peak hours from 12pm to 10pm.

Cons

I've worked for tutor.com for over 2 years , and here are the cons : 1) Pay is low at $12/hr and they want you to be an expert. 2) Getting in is very difficult. The tests, background checks, mock sessions. 3) The 'mentors' are very picky 4) The technology they are using is very outdated ( you have to download and install, and they are buggy and slow ). 5) They are over priced at $40/hr. 99.9% of the sessions that come in are from public school contracts that we all pay for in taxes. I think the program is good if you are retired and have nothing else going for you. But as a full-time/part-time job at $12/hr with no respect from mentors and management, you can do better!

Pros

None, absolutely none other than a sense of accomplishment when you help a student who is actually asking for help

Cons

Literally everything. Horrible pay. Completely unrealistic expectations. Penalized for everything. They do not care about students at all. They make you fill out this stupid feedback form that takes so much time but they only give you 30 max to read essays and fill out the form. Comments on the essays are limited to 'check out ___ section of the feedback form for more details.' You get penalized for going even 1 min over their 'average session time.' It is nearly impossible to get anyone on the phone and my 'mentor' never responded to my emails. Often times I had to end sessions before I felt like I actually helped a student just to meet the time limit. They have ridiculous rules in their contract. I got fired because I was struggling with a 5th grader on sharing a google doc because their classroom software is absolute garbage and breaks all the time. I offered my email so they could share access to the google doc after trying several other methods, all of which were in the transcript. Didn't even end up using my email because I talked them through downloading it as a Word document. Then randomly a week later they email me saying they reviewed my account and when I finally got them on the phone they just told me I'm fired for providing my email that wasn't even used. I didn't even get to defend myself. Then on the email that told me I was fired they didn't even have the courtesy to put my name. It literally said 'Hi _______.' All the reviews I got from students were excellent and several even made me their favorite tutor. I enjoyed helping students but this company is not the way to do it. Honestly I don't know how they stay in business. You can't even find the names or emails of other tutors. The pay is $10/hour for almost every subject even though they tell you some bull about how it varies from subject to subject. The qualification tests are a joke because you easily have the time to just look up the answers so there are probably hundreds of unqualified tutors on there. Just look up some student reviews and you'll see. The scheduling makes no sense because you can set any hours you want but they tell you there are rules to scheduling but none of them are enforced until it favors them. This is a scam of a company and you should avoid it like the plague.

Pros

Friendly environment and flexible working hours.

Cons

Low pay and benifit are expensive.

Pros

Rewarding experience. Love helping students reach their full potential. The hours are super flexible and once you're past the introductory phrase you are mostly left to your own devices.

Cons

Limited hours, strict time limits, and so many things you're not allowed to do or say. They will chew you out for being TOO helpful. They want as few comments on peoples essays as possible because time is money. The pay isn't nearly good enough for them to be breathing down your neck about time.