Korean Job Discussion Forums

[TBirdMG]

OK, before all the vultures descend with comments like:
"They're all bastards."
"Decent in Korea? What's that mean?"...etc....

I taught in Korea for a year way back in the IMF days, then went to Japan for 2.5. Then went home to the USA, started my own small business and eventually got an MBA.

I'd love to return to Korea for a year to teach business English or do corporate in-house classes, but find the typical recruiter maniacally pushing the standard kindy/elementary job at 2.0-2.5 with zero regard for my qualifications.

The recruiters don't seem to know what to do with a candidate with advanced education and relevant experience. So where does such a person turn for assistance in this new world order of arbitrary criminal background checks and consulate interviews??

Thanks for the assistance,

TBird

[Juregen]

Due to competition and lack of parents involvement, price has become the major competitive variable.

So people are not looking for quality, they are looking for price.

[Netz]

This is true at all levels of ESL training (and even non-ESL Corporate training).

Koreans seem incapable of being able to tell quality from &$^%. They always go for the lowest price, regardless of quality. I've seen HR teams at companies flatly refuse to pay for "real" training, and always opting to go with the cheapest possible training solutions. They usually wind up with some tourist visa toting moron who's never even worked in a real world business situation, parroting some crap out of a Cambridge ESL book.

"Hi, my name is Kim Jin Sook, I've broken my presentation into three parts.....ad infinitum....... ad naseum".

In the end, your Educational credentials will mean very little to them, becuase the agent/recruiter will only be quoting prices. They may not even see your resume, unless you tell them you're willing to work for chump change, in which case you'll move to the front of the line.

In the end, the companies sometimes realize thier mistake (after they get a poor instructor with no expereince and inferior training mats) and try to get another instructor/contractor, usually though it's too late for anyone else to pick up the contract, since they always wait until the last minute, and need to schedule the training in an unreasonably short anount of time.

In they end, Koreans get what they pay for, but always seem to complain about the "quality" of thier education.

Go figure.

One last thing, you can't teach at corporations (LEGALLY), unless you are hired by the corporation (and they have to be willing to sponsor an E7, which they rarely do, and usually ony if you can speak Korean, and/or are hired out of the country). You may want to look at contacting companies directly or using a legitimate headhunter in the US and/or monster.com, becuase once you get put in the "English Teaching" category, it's very hard to establish credibility as an actual corporate business trainer, regardless of your credentials.

There are jobs that come up infrequently working directly for large companies (e.g. Posco), but those will usually be in the Southern area of the country, due to the lack of readily avaible Tourist/E2 visa scabs to prey off of.

[Ut videam]