Novakid

Novakid Review

Novakid <—- (Click here to Apply) (Homepage) is an American company based in San Francisco. They teach 1 to 1 classes to kids aged 4-12. They are looking for native speakers (from USA, UK, Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand or South Africa) with a university degree and one year of experience teaching children. They offer flexible scheduling and promise a minimum of 10 hours per week. They pay $10 to $16 USD per hour to native speakers and $4 per hour to non-natives to start.  The final base rate is decided individually based on interview performance and can be increased by the Teacher Level System

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  • I've just started working with Nova, and I am loving it. Literally the second day after being onboarded I had my schedule nearly filled up. They give a bonus for converting trial students, have a super flexible scheduling process, and the most supportive staff I've ever worked with.

    I can honestly say I haven't shared the experience of the negative reviews here. Pay is lower than the Asian companies I've worked with, $10/h as a Native, but the company culture, professional development (plenty of training sessions and webinars) and diversity of the kids make Nova the best place I've ever worked at🥰

    Cannot praise them enough

    • NOVAKID is trash. There's a reason they never state their pay in any of their ads. Think about that for a second who doesn't display their pay rates in a job ad? Only scammers. I got an offer to work for them about two months ago. I am a near native speaker who grow in the states since I was a kid. I have a degree in educaition, and spent almost my whole life tutoring. I am already tutoring for a legitimate company right now but accepted this opportunity. When I asked them twice about what pay rate I would receive they immediately withdrew their offer. Who does that? Only somebody with a lowball offer in mind. There's a reason they are always searching for new teachers. They want to hire the desperate ones who will work for close to nothing. Avoid this "company."

  • This company is great to AVOID. I have been teaching there for almost a year now, you never get your 16$ per hour since they will always find a way to deduct money from your paycheck, you have a lot of trials that are paid only $4 per class if a kid shows up and $1.6 if a kid doesn't show up (which is 50% of the cases).

    Teacher support has absolutely no understanding so if your student has bad internet or can't login for whatever reason, they will say that it's teacher's fault and you'll get deducted money for class. Worthless to say that with just a few bad comments (and Asian parents love to leave bad comments for the dumbest things like-THEIR internet was horrible and they lost some time of the lesson, and now they are mad that you can't extend for 15 minutes despite the fact that you have another lesson right after) you can lose your job or get serious pay deductions.

    The only positive thing is that about 2 months ago they updated their lessons so they are not extremely boring as they were, but now the material is a tiny bit better - still far from a fun interactive kids class.

    Scheduling is fixed with an option to add a few flexible classes here and there, but they will make sure to contact you right away and say PLEASE TURN THOSE INTO FIXED SLOTS OR WE WILL DELETE THEM.

    Also a thing to mention since I see that many people think it's a Russian scam. It's not a scam, it's a real company, but the owner is a Russian man who registered his company in the USA and employed all the Eastern Europeans (from Russia, Belarus, Ukraine etc).

    And whoever says the pay is great and that they treat you so nicely - it's a bot, don't believe it... :)

    • The applicants are clearly informed about the rates offered to native and non-native English speakers. Make sure to validate information before leaving a comment.

  • They have a hiring freeze right now for Native speakers. We are getting fewer classes right now

  • Novakid has a really bad management. Employers are so rude, the kids too. Where do they find them?? I have been teaching for 3 years now, i've never experienced something like this.

  • Some of the comments about them being rude or a scam because they don't pay you 16/hr due to deductions has not been my experience. The onboarding process was indeed long. I applied during a hiring freeze and so I didn't actually start working till about 6 months later. They have trials which pay half the rate but they actually have a good bonus for trial conversions. I also didn't need to do a lot of trials when I started because my schedule filled up quickly with regular classes. Usually all my slots are scheduled and any help I need from staff is always done promptly. The 'penalties' are fair because it will only happen for situations that can possibly be avoided and if not, a pay deduction does not happen until you've already been penalized several times already. The students are great. I can compare that to Chinese/Latino companies and teaching in a Japanese classroom. Nova's students really do stand out which makes it easier to teach. The material is great also. I enjoy working here.

  • I have been with Novakid for almost 2 years now and it's been a great journey. I would say that the pay is decent and it's good that we can still decide our own schedule, despite having full-time job or business to manage.

    In the recent event, our country was hit by a typhoon and majority of the teachers from our country were greatly affected. Novakid waved the penalties/deductions from those teachers. Wow! I mean what company would do that, right? They are truly awesome!

    Another awesome thing that we have here is the best support system! They are our superheroes. Whenever a teacher has a problem, they respond quickly and give professional and kind messages. I remember being tired one time and couln't attend the class, the first thing they told me was to take care of myself and to get some rest when it's possible. They even reminded me about my health and they were really concern to offer help with anything. I am proud about that and glad for being here with Novakid.

    If there are some of the things I would like to change/remove is the new incentive system. I think it's affecting the website and a lot of teachers are dissapointed about this. I saw a lot of comments/messages that they felt demotivated after seeing the new metrics.

    I think it would be better if the company will just give an appraisal to the deserving teacher after being in the company for a long time and having the profile evaluated. This would give the company higher retention and have more teachers happy.

    Overall, Novakid is the best. I think its long wait from the interview, exams, demos, and profile activation is all 1005% worth it! I would definitely recommend it to my friends/relatives.

  • I applied to this co. yesterday and received a prompt reply. Here's what I was sent; It's so weird that I'm obligated to post it. Here it is:

    We fully understand how this situation makes you feel. However, we have to rely on statistics and customer demand.

    Unfortunately, as the current situation stands, the interest in native teachers has dropped. Our marketing and sales teams offer Native teachers to every customer, but the price is too high for most of them now.

    We hope that this situation will improve soon. We are sorry for the inconvenience, and we hope for your understanding.

    Kindest regards,
    Novakid Teachers

  • I have been with Novakid for almost a year now and I can say that despite a very very long hiring and onboarding process, I am really happy I got in. A little tip for all the applicants: do the best you can in the interview/ demo. It is a crucial point and the better and more flexible you are, the sooner you'll get a job. Best of luck.

    • Awful company I worked for them for 1 year. They have some imaginary pay raise system that doesn't work. Their website is very glitchy and is very hard to conduct a lesson. Very often they don't even pay you they just put '' maintainance site payout will be available in few days''. Booking is not stable. I had a perfect score for a year and didn' t get 1 cent raise. I really belived that they will change and improve but they didn't. When you have some technical problem because of the glitchy site you need to send an e-mail and they answer after 2 hours. Honestly it is just not worth it, don't lose your precious time.