What makes a great interview?
Before we let tutors go live on Spires, we need to see that you can deliver an online class professionally, effectively, and efficiently first.
As such, your interview will be a short 10-15 minute class, on a subject or topic of your choosing, delivered to a member of our Spires team.
Interview Checklist:
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, which is personal, and should be tailored to the learner's needs.
Qualities of a good tutoring session:
Building rapport and gaining the respect and attention of your students 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, likable, approachable, and competent.
What we don't look for:
Lack of professionalism when bidding, delivering, and communicating with students. Leads to complaints, refunds, and unnecessary administrative burdens for all involved.
Entering into private arrangements to keep the platform fee for yourself will be met with consequences and a breach of the Spires License.
See our house rules for more info.
Preparing for your interview
A general guide and video can be found here on How to Tutor Online. We expect to see an online whiteboard such as 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 conducted 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 and then 'Test Classroom':
Cancel or reschedule your interview
Cancellations must be made with a minimum of 48 hours' notice and only in the case of an emergency. Only one cancellation/rescheduling request is allowed inside the notice period. Further cancellations will result in your application being terminated.
Why?
We use the interviews to assess a tutor's 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 classes 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.