General Workflow

Introduction

This page lays out the general workflow for Tutors working with clients through BMT.

The process is (generally) as follows, and specific steps are detailed in this page:

1. Potential Clients contact BMT
2. BMT Reaches out to appropriate tutors
3. Tutors Apply to Jobs an application
4. Client selects tutor and signs up (or flake out)
5. Tutor and Client are connected via email
6. Tutors Schedule and Complete Sessions via TutorCruncher
7. BMT periodically checks in on status of clients.

Please familiarize yourself with the specifics of our workflow, and be sure to contact the BMT Office at Team@BrooklynMathTutors.com if you have any questions.

Our Tutor-Client Matching Process

As a tutor, we’d like you to be aware of how our tutor matching process works to help you maximize the chances of being matched with clients you want to work with.

When clients contact BMT, they are either:

1. Requesting a specific tutor
2. Looking for a tutor in general

If client requests a specific tutor, we’ll reach out to the tutor first to see their availability, so most of the client-matching process doesn’t apply.

Most clients however, reach out to us to be matched with a tutor appropriate for their needs. When they do so, we:

1. Talk to them to get as many details as we can to get the sense of clients and what they want, including any preferences they have in their tutors. Some clients will be very specific (i.e. I want a female tutor who has a degree in botany), some clients are very general (i.e. just find me someone who is good). Most clients however, have ‘some’ requirements which we try to incorporate into the job description.
2. We send out job application initiations to up to five tutors that most closely fit the client’s requirements and description of what they’re looking for. This could be a combination of skills the client is looking for (i.e. if the client needs a tutor for Calculus, and haven't listed calculus as a skill, we will not contact you) as well as personality traits that client might ask for. (i.e. if the client is looking for someone more stern or friendly, more easy going, more chatty, etc.)

If you receive a job initiation from us (an email inviting you to apply to a job), that means that we think that you matched the description of what the client is looking for, at least partially. We also limit the number of tutors we send job applications to, so if you apply, there is a reasonable chance that you’ll be selected.

If you’re not interested in the job, there is no need to respond, so please ignore the job post.

Applying to Jobs

If you’re interested in the job, please do the following to maximize the chance you’ll be selected for the job:

Respond Quickly!

Respond to the Tutor Hunt as quickly as possible - ideally within 1 business day but no more than in 2 business days. The BMT office usually sends out whatever tutor options we have available to the clients within 2 business of posting the job.

We also don’t tend to send out more than 3 tutor options to clients. When there are too many options to choose from, clients tend to get overwhelmed and pick no one, so once 3 tutors apply, the job will generally be closed.

Write Persuasively

Make sure you write a good, personalized tutoring application for the client.

For more details on how to write a good tutor application, please see the following page: How to Write an Effective Tutor Application

Between Application and Connecting with Clients

Once we have several applications submitted, we generally close the job and send the options the potential client. At this point no more tutors can apply to the job.

Unfortunately, this is also the time that most clients do back out, and the job goes nowhere (goes dormant).

This is a normal part of tutoring, so please assume that after applying to a job, you won’t hear from us unless the client follows through and picks you as the tutor. We do understand that this is frustrating, and do our best to maximize the chance that you will be selected, but ultimately the parents make the decisions.

To minimize your stress, do not hold the timeslots you suggested to the client open for more than 24-48 hours. As the semester goes on and we get more booked, we tell clients that tutors can’t hold their time slots open for any amount of time, so don't feel bad if a job resurfaces a week later and you no longer have availability which you once proposed.

In general, it’s best to submit your application and forget about it.

Connecting with Clients

If a client does follow through and sign-up, we’ll be then connect them with their top tutor choice.

You are the tutor, we’ll send out a tutor introduction email connect you and the client. We suggest that you respond to this email as quickly as possible. Make sure you CC the BMT office in the initial conversation, so we know that you received the email, since sometimes emails do get lost. After this, there is no requirement to CC us on conversations unless you specifically need to do so on some occasion.

Once connected with the client, most tutors set up a time for a phone call with their new client to get a better idea of the clients' needs and to schedule their first session.

Scheduling and Session Reports

First Session

Once you’ve scheduled the first session, enter it on the TutorCruncher calendar. For the best results, enter your session at least 2 days in advance of the occurrence of the session, so that the client receive a session confirmation/notification email 24hrs in advance to the session. When clients receive session notifications, they’re far less likely to miss their appointment.

After Each Session

After each session,  go to TutorCruncher and mark your session as complete. As we’ll start billing clients after each session, please mark the session complete either the day of or the next day.

Session Report

The system will require you to submit “Session Report”. This report is not for BMT - it is sent to the parent.

The system requires you to put in something, to make sure there are no misunderstandings about what the session was about and whether it actually took place.

For some clients it makes sense to keep the report short and for some other clients it may make sense to make the report more detailed. Detailed reports generally don't make sense for clients who you speak to extensively, so something as simple as the following might be fine:

‘I worked with Johnny on this and this today, we got these done, I assigned him homework, looking forward to seeing him next week.’

It is up to you to use your best judgement about what you want to do. In general, the more care you put into client relationships the happier they will be, the longer they will keep you as a tutor, and more likely they are to refer you (and us!) to their social network. See the bonuses page for more.

End of Month Confirmation

At the moment, most of our clients are billed on a monthly cycle, and we pay tutors on a monthly cycle.

On the last day of the month, you’ll receive an automated email and will be asked to verify that all of your sessions have been entered by 3pm on the 1st day of the next month (If it was for July sessions, it'd be August 1st).

Please respond to the email with as short as ‘Confirmed!’, since billing your clients without knowing that all your sessions are entered on TutorCruncher would lead to issues and complications in the future.

Once you’ve confirmed, we’ll send out invoices to clients, collect payment, and usually pay tutors via direct deposit for their sessions around the 10th of the month.

Client / Tutor Check-Ins

Since we don't share a physical space and the opportunities for organic social interactions are essentially zero, we have found that communication needs to be more planned and formalized to stay connected and effectively help our clients and make our work run smoothly.

Post-First Session Email Follow-up

After you’ve marked your first session with new clients as ‘complete’, we generally send out a follow-up email to tutors as well as to parents.

Please respond to this email and let us know if there are any obvious issues that we need to discuss. If you don't like working with client, feel that it's a bad match, or already find yourself sensing trouble... now is the time to tell us and head things off before they get bad.

If all is good - and it generally is - your don't need to go into detail. A response as short as ‘everything went fine’ is good enough.

New Clients Check-in (Phone Call)

When working with clients who're new to our service, we’ll generally set up a (very!) brief chat with their tutors after the 4th session.

At this point you’ll know the clients better than the BMT office does, so we'll usually use this brief call just to get an idea of who the clients are, from your perspective.

If there are any issues, or you could use our support, this is a good opportunity to bring it up.

Tutor Check-ins (Call / Zoom)

Every month or so, we’ll get in touch with you to schedule a brief chat about the status of your clients, get a sense of your availability, to check if there is anything we should be aware of, or if it’s a good time to ask clients to leave us a review.  

Since we mostly communicate via email, we also find that a bit of face to face (or at least voice-to-voice) interaction helps foster a sense of community and help us remember who we are behind the screens.