Before we let tutors go live on Spires, i.e. bidding on jobs, communicating with our clients and having online tutorials, we need to see that you can deliver an online tutorial professionally, effectively and efficiently first.

As such, your interview will be a short but concise 10-15 minute tutorial, on a subject or topic of your choosing, delivered to a member of our team.

The emphasis here is on the tutorial element; there has to be student interaction and you should treat the interviewer as you would a student. We do not want to see tutors simply talking through a PowerPoint presentation and it should not be a generic introduction or a general talk about your field, nor should it be a lecture.

Tutoring is not the same as lecturing or classroom teaching. It revolves around 1:1 interaction, is personal and should be personalised. Building rapport and gaining the respect and attention of your student requires a more proactive and interactive approach to teaching. Emotional intelligence is as important as raw intelligence in tutoring!

Tutoring is all about being knowledgeable, positive, proactive, likeable, approachable and competent. In short, professional. These are the qualities we look for in our tutors.

Quality and integrity are also important to us as you will be working on our platform with our clients and representing the Spires brand of high-quality online tutoring.

Poor tutorials and/or a lack of professionalism reflect badly on our team and the other professional tutors using the platform. They also lead to complaints, refunds and unnecessary administrative burden for all involved.

Entering into private arrangements to keep the platform fee for yourself is equivalent in spirit to shoplifting or tax evasion and will be met with consequences from our team. See our house rules for more info.

A general guide and video can be found here on How to Tutor Online. We expect to see an online whiteboard such a Bitpaper and digital pen being used for any quantitative subject or one where equations and diagrams are heavily involved, (Maths, Science, Economics, Computer Science). For qualitative subjects, we expect to see Google docs, screen sharing and other collaborative subjects being used.

The interview tutorial is conduced online through the Spires classroom using Lessonspace (guide).

You can find more information here on starting your interview at the scheduled time.

Beyond reading the rest of the tutor guide, we also recommend familiarising yourself with the platform and testing the classroom before your interview. This can be done by clicking on the 'Open Classroom' button in the 'Classes' tab then 'Test Classroom':

Cancellations must be made with a minimum of 24 hours notice and only in the case of an emergency. Repeated cancellations/reschedule requests will result in your application with us being terminated.

We use the interviews to assess a tutors ability but also as a test of professionalism and dedication to the profession - we want to know how you would behave with a student. The quickest way to generate complaints is to miss your scheduled tutorials with a student, which is why we take cancellations so seriously. Please only book your interview if you are fully equipped and ready to proceed with the interview, otherwise you are preventing us from interviewing someone else. This is your chance to get to know the team, and to learn more about how Spires works, and how you can be introduced to students all over the world.