tutor

administration executive

Pre-Uni New College

The tutor position at Pre-Uni (head office) is an entry level job that I would not recommend unless you are really strapped for cash or looking to fill up some spare time.

Interview:
Interview ‘process’ consisted of a written interview at the office - you go in and answer standard interview questions on a piece of paper, and do a few questions from one of their practice selective test papers. No face-to-face interaction with any manager or supervisor. Company seems to accept nearly anyone as long as they have good availabilities and did somewhat well in the HSC. Turnover rate is quite high and they are hiring all the time. Most people only stayed around half a year on average.

The job:
Job description is misleading. The tutor position involves very little actual tutoring or even working with students at all. The position is actually part of the research and development team. Most shifts involved proofreading the test papers and homework books that will be given to students, making new test questions on a computer, and recording and editing videos for their online website.

The work itself is not difficult but it is very repetitive and tedious. You will be extremely bored an hour in. Shifts are at least 4 hours long. You are not allowed to use your phone at work and they demand you store it on a separate table while on shift. Hours are quite flexible, but the office opens quite late, so there is no morning shift available. Pay is minimum wage. Each shift may involve different duties, and there is no prior indication of what you will be doing each time. When starting a new task, instructions were generally unclear, so there was a constant need to either ask for clarification or just wing it. There is no training provided, as a newcomer you get virtually no help from management in getting started.

The few actual times I worked with students were terrible. Zero training except for some instruction booklets that are useless because they are outdated or had incorrect steps. Unlike many tutoring centres, Pre-Uni doesn’t seem to have a high bar for entry so there is a very large range in student ability within a class. Many classes are far too big to be controllable, especially the younger year levels.

Workplace culture:
Workplace is unwelcoming, disorganised and borderline toxic. Office is way too quiet, so there is no opportunity to get to know your coworkers and form any meaningful relationships with them. Socialising with coworkers or supervisors while on the job is frowned upon. Nearly all conversation with others in the office was just asking what to do regarding the current task on hand.

There is a distinct staff hierarchy - full time workers wear a polo shirt uniform while tutors wear vests, and the two groups are very socially segregated despite sharing a work space, i.e. there is no mixing between the two groups. Work environment feels very cliquey and difficult to fit in, because the full time staff only speak in Korean to each other. Because most of them are not fluent in English, there is a very limited opportunity to get to know them.  Tutors are not regarded as staff, only the full time workers are, and so I did not feel valued as an employee. As a tutor you have no employee benefits - you are not allowed to use the staff car park or even use the lift (in a four-storey building!). Full time staff seemingly follow a ‘do as I say, not as I do’ mentality - they can browse their phones, eat, take breaks whenever they want, and talk amongst themselves during work without consequence. Staff are for the most part polite but aloof - I worked there for more than a year and by the time I left, they were basically still strangers to me. They have a habit of not saying hello or introducing themselves, so it took a while to learn who everyone was. Workplace felt very individual and lonely despite working alongside so many people - there was no sense of community. There were no social events outside of the office, group message chats, etc.

Management:
On the job you are overseen by a few supervisors. Most were chill and friendly, but some were impatient and hard to please. Organisation and communication were quite terrible - there was quite a bit of doubling up of duties and frequent changing of tasks midway through shifts. Supervisors don’t communicate with each other enough. Their instructions were often unclear and contradictory so you will be left asking many questions. No opportunities to provide feedback to management. Despite doing the same tasks as coworkers most of the time, we would rarely work in teams. Positive feedback is non-existent, only criticism when you make mistakes.

Roster, timesheet and clock in/out systems are all manual/on paper so the process is very slow and outdated. Rostering is done by submitting your availabilities each week via text message. Clocking in and out at the office is very slow because you have to manually write your hours on a paper timesheet, there is only one staff member signing and processing hours.

Overall, the job is not worth your time, unless you are really struggling to find a job somewhere else. After more than a year in the job I still didn't feel like I belonged there. The office suffers from poor communication and organisation that mostly stems from the bad workplace culture. There is no social aspect to this job, you just go in, do your work, and leave. There is no opportunity for upwards movement in the company, and because the office functions so differently to other workplaces you will not learn many skills applicable to other jobs.

Here is a detailed review for Preuni new college

Preuni is an entry-level work environment that is generally slow-paced and especially tedious with long hours and poor pay. As someone who applied for the job as a tutor at the Homebush site, the process was simple and you do a written interview on the site (why they didn't just do an online form is beyond me) I am not sure of how the other branches operate, but this is my review on the head office at Homebush;

The job mainly consists of proofreading test papers for errors and making questions on a computer. I have not once worked with any students or conducted a lesson, so the job as a "Tutor" is not really a tutor at all, so beware if you are applying with the idea that you are going to teach students on the job.

Preuni provides a decent number of hours, and allow you to nominate the hours you are free the week prior, before sending you a list of hours based on the times you are free for the next week. You will work around 6 hours per week for the first 2-3 weeks before it starts to increase to around 8 and so on. The most I've personally been given was 14, and I'm currently receiving around 10-12 per week at the moment. This is, of course, dependent on the number of hours you say that you are free. (I normally put all days and times of the week as being available)

While there are decent hours, This is unfortunately smeared by the poor pay and the extremely tedious work. If you are curious to know, the current pay for an 18-year-old tutor is $16.64 an hour (minimum wage) For more details about other ages, I recommend looking at the miscellaneous award pay guide. They pay the absolute minimum for your age group, though you can earn more if you work there for a longer time. (you move up a level on the pay guide)

The work itself is boring, especially with the proofreading tasks and developing questions. While it is easy, it is very brain-numbing, and you will find yourself very drained about 2 hours in. 

Overall, the job is not good, and I'd highly suggest anyone willing to apply with friends, as they make it a lot easier when you share shifts. If you are able to work elsewhere, I'd recommend you to do so, unless there are a lack of hours with other jobs.

There was practically no interview process and was basically called in to fill papers after the application. I worked there from when I was 14 as a marking tutor and a typical day involved marking students' work throughout the day, supervising students during their break and assisting parents and students with queries. The job is pretty relaxed when you get used to it but there is a lot of time pressure when you first start as the amount of work is overwhelming at first. 

What I disliked about working there was that the employees were treated as casuals and they would stop contacting you eventually as you get older. The hourly wage is average and seems to be a bit lacking for the older employees. Another problem I faced working there for 2 years was that it did not benefit skills such as customer service, communication and teamwork. The manager also changes every school term or so at the branch I worked for so some of them were nice and understanding while others were just rude sometimes. 

The work culture was very stressful and are expected a lot for minnimum wage. The system at the Homebush head office is a mess. Everything is on paper and takes a long time to finish up as only one person is processing hours worked. The marking systems are old, slow and confusing. They could not be navigated without assistance. The person who confirms hours and messages shifts is not helpful at all. They are very strict about missing shifts and need to be informed about a leave almost a month before. Missing one shift sends them over the line and fire you for missing either a meeting or a shift even if you have already informed them. Not a good place to work

DO NOT WORK AT EPPING PREUNI! save your dignity, save your respect. To begin with, the work environment is horrible and caused me physical pain. 4 markers are crammed onto a smaller than average dinner table alongside 4-6 large piles of A4 workbooks. With over 2 hours of marking, which caused severe back pain. Secondly, the pay is extremely stingy. At 10 dollars an hour, less than the casual rate for the minimum age of working, we were paid by the MINUTE in CASH monthly. The principal had a horrible stinking attitude whilst handing over the money, almost throwing it at me. Lastly, I was dismissed with no notice. I do not recommend it even as an entry-level job for teenagers. 











Productive, fast-paced work environment especially as a marker, depending on how quick you are at marking you may have to help out those that aren't as quick which may eat into break times for those you are helping out and yourself as all the books must be marked. However, once marking is finished it becomes relatively relaxed as you supervise the kids on break, then guide kids to classrooms and do input of homework data all of which were fairly relaxed tasks.

My first day on the job was Halloween. I was meant to mark, but was instead asked to sub and teach a Yr 6 class, even though I was barely older than them and two fully grown adults were just doing admin and said they were gonna do the marking instead. It went well, but I had no training and no background info. And the compensation for the difference in the amount of work is laughable. If you want to be making the most with tutoring/teaching, do it yourself, get your own clients.

Books are collected and sorted into respective grades. Markers begin to mark, and divide up the work in order to finish as quickly and as possible. Skills such as time management, efficiency and accuracy were all learnt. Enjoyable aspects of the job involved the social interactions between markers and students. Harder aspects included finishing on time, and maintaining focus throughout the entire task.

Working here was not amazing, but as an inexperienced teen this was a good entry into the working world. Depending on the management, work would either be depressing and boring or semi-enjoyable.

The work itself is really boring but not very hard and easy to become really efficient at. 

Pay is award rates (miscellaneous) so it depends on age. 

This is a nice starting job for highschool students, it really didn't require much effort and everyone here was really nice and chill. However the shifts are a little strange because I was ghosted for like 2 months then got 2 back to back shifts DURING exam week, which I had to decline. I then got kicked out of the group without much notice but it was fun while it lasted.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Tutor 3 salaries reported	$31.67 per hour
Administration executive 1 salary reported	$53,000 per year

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