Korean Job Discussion Forums

[whatever]

[Xerxes]

Well, I can see how he's wanting to make sure that he gets us users to remember him because there are many copycat forums and job advertising sites now days.

(Have you ever posted a resume and gotten a crap load of junkmail from not only a lot of recruiters, but also many web-based job sites begging you to use their service?)

The guy had a very good idea coming up with this site way back before the goldrush of English prospectors flocking to Korea (when I was here in '93, the Korean college entrance examination had no English proficiency portion, and then they had that portion starting '95 or so, and then boom: all these English conversation cram schools all over K-land).

Wish, I had that idea. Back then, I was trying to convince Kaplan to make me their country president with a nice 7 figure salary, and then up they went to use Joongang Ilbo to host their virus. Just as good because Kaplan in Korea is losing money like a sieve.

He's just being a good businessman, and he has over the years made many important changes to the site, although not as fast as we would like. He has improved the site with a major revamp in 2003, I am told, since I was only a lurker at about that time and didn't even lurk that frequently. And he has gotten rid of the error screen saying something like the connection has been lost.

He is, despite our jealousy at his success, a legitimate dot com that succeeded. I have no idea how much money he makes, but I suppose it is easy enough to guess if you multiply his revenue per job post to how many posts per month and then per year. Since he would be getting his money from Korea, maybe into a Korean account, or some other offshore banking place, maybe he doesn't even pay any taxes (that would be a huge boost) on his earnings. I think that the profitability of any of the other job sites does not even come close to this one from what I see in the advertising on the job postings, and then he gets revenue from the banner ads.

Pretty smart fella.

And, all he as to do is put up with our whining. Maybe he even posts here as a sock, or several socks. Curious to know what kind of a fella he really is. I heard he used to host parties and get togethers in the early days of Dave's. Nothing breeds more jealousy than success, but then he is probably laughing all the way to the bank at our hijinks, ka-ching!

[PGF]

[The Bobster]

He's only visited Korea a few times. His teaching career was in Thailand, mostly Chiang Mai, I think. He came to a Cafe Gathering once, because the date of it coincided with a KOTESOL conference he was speaking at. I was a mod at the time, and a few of were able to get together for lunch with him Sunday before catching his flight back to California.

He seems like a nice guy, and I suspect he is. Down-to-earth, as mom would say, unpretentious, affable, all that. No a whiff of attitude - you know, like, "You guys are all hanging out here because of a site that has my name on it." Nothing like that.

The math I've done regarding his possible income from this site puts it in the neighborhood of a tenured university professor back in the US. Not Bill Gates, but not shabby, either, and it's work that does not include a boss, and most of the people who work for him (i.e., the mods) are unpaid volunteers. He can do most of what is necessary from home, and spend time with his kids, or from his laptop in a hotel room.

And this site DOES help people, helped me a lot when I was new here - it's cool to make a decent living at something that makes things better for people - and it's nice to see nice things happen to nice people.

Me, I got no problem with Dave. Just a bit of envy, that's all. Wish I'd thought of it when the moment was there to make something like this happen ...

That picture, though, I dunno. Come on, dude.

[VanIslander]

What kind of smile is that Dave?

the smirk with the corners turned up ...

[Rteacher]

On the home page, he's got links to some nice pics from his Thai wedding:

[xtchr]