Job Discussion Forums

[jml6487]

Quick question. It's still fairly early to tell. I'm just extremely anxious, nervous, and stressed at the moment. I sent all my paperwork to the recruiter for a teaching position in Korea. One of the documents I sent was not official, (this is verified and i know for certain that what i sent as academic verification was not official). Due to time constraints I sent my Diploma.

I'm not scared that she'll run off with my diploma, I can get another one easily enough if she does. I'm afraid that if she is planning on doing that, I've sent all my official paperwork to her and spent all that money putting the paperwork together and (shame on me for not getting copies) she's going to leave me high and dry to start over with another recruiter and start gathering all the paperwork again. It's been about a day and a half since FedEx confirmed delivery. She hasn't emailed me since before the diploma was delivered.

I'm skeptical that a recruiter for this firm could get away with taking someone's information. But this is my first time through the process and like I said, I'm very anxious right now. I've basically done nothing but bite my nails since the package was delivered... metaphorically speaking.

[Chris_Crossley]

Never in my entire career have I ever dealt with recruiters, partly because I will never send any of my precious diplomas throughout the mail. Scanned copies of documents should be enough for anybody I approach for employment, and, if they aren�t, I can simply look elsewhere. If actually seeing the diplomas is a condition of employment, then, fine, you can suggest asking them if they wouldn�t mind accepting scanned copies as bone fide support documents before employment and then bringing them over to your new place of work once the offer of work has been confirmed.

The rule of thumb is: treat your documents like you would your passport � in other words, don�t send it through the mail to anyone. In the case of a passport requiring renewal, of course, you simply send it to the proper authorities, of course, but your home country�s government is usually good at dealing with such matters!

The best thing to do is to approach each individual employer and determine whether or not it wants to employ you because recruiters can be dodgy outfits that serve only as middle people and want your money. You ought not to have to pay for anybody�s services when applying for a job; if anything, if employers avail themselves of recruiters, they ought to pay them once they have confirmed an offer of employment with someone.

Sadly, this is one of those episodes where one learns by bitter experience how not to do things, since identity fraud is quite common, as is the phenomenon of shady people producing fake degree certificates using as a basis genuine ones naively submitted by jobseekers.

[runthegauntlet]

I've done it twice as have thousands of others with no problems. It's how it's done in Korea. All documents are mailed to Korea to be submitted to immigration. Now they're accepting apostilled copies of diplomas and everything, but that wasn't always the case and I've always just sent my diploma.

It's Lunar New Year now and everything is shut down. Give it a few more days.

Oh, and what recruiter did you use? Have you tried calling them? Do that.

[Chris_Crossley]

[runthegauntlet]

[The Great Wall of Whiner]

China and Japan ARE the best places IMHO at the moment, compared to Korea.

Korea used to be a real good place until after the FIFA World Cup, then things started to go to heck.

It started with a few clowns using fake degrees and getting caught after a disgruntled ex-teacher dropped the bomb on the recruiter providing such fake degrees. Not the place to go into details about that on this particular forum.

Then some naughty foreigner ran to Korea after being exceptionally naughty in Thailand. Not the place to go into details about that, either.

Consequences?

Now if you want to teach in Korea, you need your sealed transcripts and those as some of us know are not exactly given away freely.

There is no such thing as "checking into schools" anymore, either. You are signed into virtual slavery for a whole year at one school. If you don't like the place and quit, you cannot go back to Korea for a whole year.

You also need a thorough criminal record check. Which isn't so bad, but...not only thorough, but completely over the top in some cases. There are even teachers with unpaid parking fines getting turned down because of a $25 ticket!

So yea, China is far more relaxed in most regards. I'd say Beijing and Shanghai as well as a few other major centers are a bit stricter, but Korea IS by far the most unrepenting.

[runthegauntlet]

[The Great Wall of Whiner]

There is nothing wrong with a CBC (criminal background check) for anyone teaching kids.

Refusing a working visa for someone who has an unpaid parking or speeding ticket who applied to teach adults in an adult training centre though is ridiculous and no one can logically defend that.

As for the sealed transcripts thing, I'm pretty sure you are joking.

[runthegauntlet]

[Aristede]

[runthegauntlet]

[naturegirl321]

I've sent my degree through the mail twice. My thoughts, maybe not the best, but if lost, I could easily get another from my uni for 20 bucks.

[Aristede]

[quote="runthegauntlet"][quote="Aristede"]