Why you should charge for your trial lessons on platforms like Hello Sensei, a real experience worth sharing...

I want to share a recruitment experience that I think is worth making public, because the lack of transparency at every step really stuck with me. This is not about discouraging anyone from joining these platforms. It is about showing what you may run into, and why charging for trial lessons matters A LOT.

Step 1: The secret audition disguised as a private lesson

Someone contacted me through Hello Sensei, presenting herself as a regular student looking for private English lessons. I prepared and delivered the lesson as I normally would for any student.

At the end of the lesson, her demeanor suddenly changed. Voice trembling slightly, she said 実は... -- "actually" -- and revealed she was the owner of a local English conversation school. She had been evaluating me as a potential hire the entire time, without saying a word.

To be clear: using a lesson to evaluate a teacher is not inherently wrong. The problem is the complete lack of transparency. She posed as a regular student on a platform designed for genuine private lessons. Teachers prepare and invest based on the assumption that they are teaching a real student, not auditioning for a job. That assumption was deliberately exploited.

She did pay for the lesson. My trial rate is 1,500 yen, intentionally set to filter out time wasters. But I strongly suspect she contacted multiple teachers on Hello Sensei, many of whom likely offer free trial lessons. If so, she ran several secret auditions at zero cost. Teachers who were not selected never even knew they had been evaluated, they just gave a free lesson with no follow-up.

There is also another angle: running undisclosed auditions is a convenient way to collect teaching ideas and methods for free. The teacher prepares, delivers, shares their approach, and the school owner walks away with material and inspiration regardless of whether she hires anyone.

Step 2: The last minute bait and switch

We agreed that I would come to observe one of her school's lessons to understand how things worked before making any decision about the position.

Less than 24 hours before the visit, she sent an email asking me to prepare and deliver a full lesson myself, with her playing the student role. No prior notice, no preparation time, complete change of plan.

When I asked for clarification, she revealed there were multiple candidates and she wanted to evaluate us competitively. So the "observation visit" had quietly become a competitive audition, again, without any transparency until I pushed back.

The math...

1,500 yen/hour, one or two hours per week maximum, no social security, no commitment from their side. For context, independent eikaiwa in Japan typically pay freelance instructors between 3,000 and 5,000 yen/hour.

What I did

I declined the regular position, offered my rate for occasional substitute work (3,000/h since they prepare materials), and wished them well. They immediately cancelled the observation visit, confirming it was never really about letting me observe anything.

Here is what bothers me most, and why I am posting this.

She is almost certainly not doing this with just one teacher, and she will target free trial teachers first. Those are the people who lose the most: they give a free lesson with no idea they are being auditioned, then get pulled into the second free audition at the school, all for a position paying 1,500 yen/hour.

Two rounds of unpaid evaluation, hidden behind false pretenses, for a job significantly below market rate.

So there are two real problems here:

The double lack of transparency. Step one, she posed as a regular student to evaluate me secretly. Step two, she silently turned an "observation visit" into a competitive audition at the last minute. At no point did she state her actual intentions until I forced the issue.

The intellectual dishonesty. This is not just disorganization. Presenting yourself as a student to get free labor and free teaching ideas, then leveraging "I have other candidates" to pressure people, while offering a salary well below what the work is worth, that is a deliberate strategy, and the people most exposed to it are exactly the ones least able to push back.

If you are on Hello Sensei or any similar platform: charge for your trial lessons. It will not stop everyone, but it raises the cost of this approach and signals that your time has value. And if a "student" suddenly reveals they run a school, or a visit suddenly becomes an audition, treat it as the red flag it is.

(I used a bit of language model to clarify and make this post more readable)