Pros
-Work from home -Clients are brought to you, you don't have to find or negotiate with them -Relatively consistent pay, small occasional raises and bonuses -Proprietary software to help with tutoring -Since it is online, it is easier to look up things / research in the middle of a session in case you aren't sure about a topic -Opportunity to gain experience and mastery with a variety of subjects.
Cons
-Clients are charged much more than Tutors are paid; the majority of the money is never seen by the tutors. Relatively low pay, although not horrible -The proprietary software is based on internet explorer and frequently has bugs or design flaws for both students and tutors -Absurdly strict rules about not sharing personal information or connecting with clients outside of the system. If you do it once, you're fired. This may not seem like a big deal, but you do get some regular students who are adults and might benefit from help outside of the Tutor.com system. Management probably is just paranoid that tutors would cut out the middle man once they had built a relationship with a student. -Mediocre mentoring system. Mentors are required to do regular reviews. If you get a nice mentor, it's a simple and relatively painless process, but if you happen to have a bad mentor, it would be miserable. From my experience and what I've heard, the mentors don't help a great deal in either case. Mentors are also unable to provide letters of recommendation in case you are applying for a different or additional job. -Scarcity of hours. In the best of times, you're only allowed to schedule about 7 hours a week. Depending on subjects, the available hours to schedule might be snapped up in minutes of when scheduling opens. You can 'float' (be signed in and ready to take overflow chats) for additional time, but only if there is enough demand in your subject areas. -Lack of substantive tutor support resources. -No way to contact students after a chat ends -No way to end a chat after first 10 minutes if you aren't able to help a student for some reason. -Ratings, which are the basis of raises, bonuses, and punitive actions, are more about how well you deal with people rather than ability as a tutor.
