What Is Wyzant About?
Wyzant offers one-on-one tutorial lessons on any of its subjects. If your knowledge and skills are any of the subjects that Wyzant offers, you might qualify for Wyzant online tutoring jobs.
It had its beginning back in 2005 in Bucktown, Chicago as a digital marketplace where students can connect with the independent tutors they need and vice versa.
It claims itself as the first of its kind and as the country’s biggest community of professional tutors.
Tutor Requirements
For Wyzant to consider your application, you must be at least 18 years old, must live in the US and must have a valid Social Security Number. You do not have to be a certified teacher to become a Wyzant tutor.
How Does Wyzant Work For Tutors?
Throughout the website of Wyzant, there is one word that you will read multiple times, which will give you an idea about what makes a Wyzant tutor and what you need to be to become one. This word is “expert.”
It is easy to claim that you are an expert or someone who has an above average knowledge about a particular subject.
On this platform, however, they do not just take your word as true. You have to first pass an assessment process so they will add you to its database of vetted experts.
At Wyzant, individuals from diverse backgrounds and foundations, such as a certified teacher, a professional, a college undergraduate or a postgraduate can list their mentoring services.
Here, you can search for tutoring jobs either by subject or by location.
Wyzant will handle the marketing, provide the technology (the online platform for tutor and NOT the computer hardware or physical devices), and manage the customer service so you can just focus on the tutoring tasks.
Background Check
It is difficult to become a Wyzant tutor because there are several evaluations and assessment protocols to go through. Let us start with the background check.
Wyzant recommends students and parents to have a background check on a potential tutor for a fee of $15.99 (rates can change over time).
This is optional, but as you read further, you'll realize that you might lose tutoring gigs if you forego the background check.
When a student seeks tutoring services at Wyzant, he starts by answering some questions on his tutorial needs and then Wyzant will present him with a list of experts according to the student’s needs.
This student could then view each tutor’s credentials, reviews, schedules, teaching methods, experience, areas of expertise and background check. If you don’t have a background check, the student could even demand that you have an updated background check.
You can only have a background check with and through Wyzant. It has partnered with Checkr, Inc. for this service.
When a student or a parent requires you to have a background check, Checkr will contact you to allow it to conduct a search in the National Criminal Database according to the legal name, address, aliases and Social Security Number you provided to Wyzant.
The results of this background check includes your Social Security Number trace, your felony/misdemeanor (including sex crime misdemeanor) convictions in the last 7 years, sex offender registry and global watch list search.
If you have not given permission to Checkr to conduct your background check for 30 consecutive days, Wyzant will deactivate your account.
If you do not pass the background check as per Wyzant’s requirements, it will also deactivate your account.
The need for a background check is easy to understand since safety/security is a topmost concern of many people.
However, I did not find any reassuring note or information if the parent/student who requested for your background check will book a lesson with you once you complied with the request.
Proficiency Quiz, Written Qualifications
You need to list the subject/s you will teach on your profile so you can apply for jobs.
However, listing the subject/s on your profile requires completing a proficiency quiz and submitting written qualifications.
For the proficiency quiz, remember that you will have only one opportunity to take it. You need to ensure that your computer works properly and your internet connection is stable.
Review the subject before the quiz which has 8-20 multiple choice type of questions. The quiz takes about 30 minutes and you will get real-time results.
You do not need a perfect score, but each subject has a particular passing score that you must meet. If you fail the test for some reasons, you may contact Wyzant customer support to determine if you can retake the quiz.
Once you have passed the proficiency quiz, you may opt to submit the written subject qualifications. There are some subjects that require written qualifications, which Wyzant will test.
Write the details you want to include in your written qualifications in complete and grammatically correct sentences.
How Do You Get Students On Wyzant?
At Wyzant, you may either apply for the tutor jobs or the student/parent will contact you when he discovers your tutor profile. Once Wyzant approves your application, start applying to tutor jobs.
Remember, however, that you are at a phase where you are still building your reputation so your profile will not yet show any ratings or reviews.
Practice patience in searching for suitable tutoring positions and reaching out to students/parents with personalized messages.
Tutoring
Wyzant offers in-person and online tutoring.
Wyzant has an online learning tool which is an interactive digital classroom. It provides real-time video chatting, interactive whiteboard (for documents uploading, functions plotting, equations, etc).
There is also a Chrome or Firefox extension that you can download and use for screen sharing when you need to work with a student outside the online tool.
You may download the copies of your whiteboards at the end of lessons. You could also use the recording feature of the online tool to record your session so you may view it later.
Approval For Online Tutoring
It appears as if Wyzant imposes certification on every activity through its platform.
This time, it implements an approval process before you could use the online tool, but I believe that this step is necessary for determining if your current computer setup meets the technical requirements of Wyzant system.
To use the online tool, your desktop or laptop computer should have the appropriate settings. You also need a working microphone and camera, just as you would need when you are a website or app usability tester.
Regardless if you are using a desktop, laptop or Android tablet, you must have the latest version of Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome. For an iPad, you must have the latest Safari browser.
Sometimes you experience an error while trying to get approval for online tutoring.
One probable cause is the touchscreen and you will receive a message asking you to use a desktop or a laptop computer instead of a mobile device.
If your computer also has a touchscreen feature, turn it off first before restarting the certification process.
Preparing For First Online Lesson
There are video tutorials you can watch to grasp the concept of using the Wyzant online tool.
After viewing them, put what you learned into action by making use of the demo room so you can become more familiar with the features prior to the actual lesson.
You would not want your student to think negatively about you if he sees you are having trouble using the online tool. When you know how the online tool works, you could even assist your student during lessons.
Before the online lesson, be sure to set up your computer in a quiet, distraction-free place. Test your audio and video. If possible, use noise-canceling headphones or headsets.
How Much Does It Cost To Join?
You need not pay anything just to list your services here.
Wyzant marketplace is unbiased and fair, so it also does not offer payment plans for premium listings that will put your profile on the top search results when students/parents search for tutors.
I think the catch is when you feel the need to pay for the background check so you can provide a sense of safety and security to potential students.
How Do I Teach On Wyzant?
You can sign up here to write your name, email, password, zip code.
Then, the system will ask you to tell more about yourself and tutoring preferences.
You will indicate:
- if you have ever been a teacher
- how long you have been tutoring
- which students you like to teach
- where you like to conduct the lessons
- what results you find rewarding as a tutor
- if you have access to a vehicle
- if you take an interest in online tutoring and;
- how many hours you tutor outside the Wyzant platform.
Then select 1-5 subjects that you like to tutor.
The choices of subjects include Math, Science, Language, English, Test Prep, Elementary Education, Computer, History, Business, Music, Art, Special Needs and Sports/Recreation.
The part about Free Response is worth mentioning.
This is the part where you can provide your detailed personal information to showcase your relevant teaching experience, your credentials, contact details, hourly rate, etc.
Through this, you can show a potential student about your proficiency. Add in your Free Response about what sets you apart from other tutors in the database. A tutor’s Free Response requires the Content team’s approval.
Looking For A Legit Work-From-Home Job?
Editing Free Response
A staff member at Wyzant will review your application and will reach out to you in 24-48 hours. Understand that not everyone who applies as a tutor will be part of Wyzant's database of tutors and can list his services.
If you receive an email message saying that you need to edit your application, it is likely (but not exactly) because of an inappropriate content of your Free Response.
The review team has many factors to consider when testing Free Response and tutor applications. Perhaps your Free Response has insufficient information or is grammatically incorrect.
Wyzant also does not accept a resume or cover letter in place of Free Response, so make sure you do not include any link of your resume, portfolio or other outside contents.
How Much Do Wyzant Tutors Make?
Let us look at how the payment at Wyzant goes.
Top tutors at Wyzant could earn at least $50,000 a year (figures can change over time). Here, you may set how much you want to charge for an hour of lesson with a student.
Wyzant handles the billing and payment so it definitely means that it will deduct a certain percentage from the student’s payment and then it will send via direct deposit the remaining amount to you as your salary.
According to a support article, a tutor gets 75% from his hourly payment while Wyzant gets 25% cut of the hourly payment. This is another issue about Wyzant that will probably make you think twice before joining.
It gives students flexible payment options, but the way it pays tutors is far from commendable.
Report the time you spent on a lesson with a student after it concludes. Only then will Wyzant collect the payment from the student, deduct its processing fee, and then issue your payment.
Wyzant has no automated processing of payment.
You must keep track of your time and spend more energy on diligence to submit a report of your time as soon as possible, because Wyzant will not process the payment if you submit the lesson details 7 days after the lesson.
Work Schedule
Your work schedule as a tutor is flexible, and you will only work when a student has booked or scheduled a lesson with you.
Benefits
On a positive note, Wyzant offers tutors with another feasible way to earn. Once you become a tutor, you can refer a student. Just like affiliate marketing, you can earn a commission once a student books a lesson.
Is Wyzant Tutoring Legitimate?
PROS:
CONS:
Yes, it is legitimate and it is tempting to apply as a tutor at Wyzant. However, do note of the major inconveniences I mentioned.
An opportunity to teach about something you are an expert in can be diverted into creating online courses. Do you know that when you have a blog in place, you can sell online courses instead?
The good thing about having it in place is that you only have to work hard in the beginning. Once you have set-up everything, all you have to do is to maintain the site.
Make sure to add more courses over time so you can sell more.
You can even offer free lessons, grow your audience, and monetize the contents thru affiliate marketing and ads.
I teach blogging for a living. You can teach in your blog for a living, too. You own the platform, you take home all the income. What do you think? 🙂
Check out my free blogging for beginners course to get started learning!