Korean Job Discussion Forums

[gypsyfish]

http://www.eslcafe.com/jobs/korea/index.cgi?read=10728

This is an ad for the Cool School in Kangnam. They indicate they want a female to teach kids 8 to 13 years old. The also say they don't want Kyopos.

I don't really want to get into a discussion about Korean hiring practices - that's been done before ad nauseum. What I want to discuss is if you think that Dave's ESL Cafe should allow job ads that are discriminatory.

I helped open a school when I first came to Korea and the manager sent our school in the USA(we were recruiting for the new school) that he didn't want and 'coloreds, because Korean students would be uncomfortable'. We sent back a fax saying that discrimination was against US law and, also, against the school's, which he was franchising, policy.(Terrible sentence, I know, but I'm in a hurry.) I was proud that, in our first group of teachers, we send an African-American and an (East)Indian-American. Not only were Korean students not put off by the teachers, they embraced them. If my school in the USA had caved to the request of a prejudiced jerk, our students would have lost out.

I'm not naive enough to think that we struck any great blow for civil rights or equality, but I think my school in the USA did the right thing. I'm not critiscizing Dave personally, I think he does a great job with the board and he might not even monitor the job ads, but refusing to allow ads that discriminate on the board seems to me to be a good small, step to make to deal with prejudice.

I know that it won't change attitudes of the prejudiced people who don't hire Kyopos/South Africans/blacks/Asians/whoever, but running the ads seems to abet the behavior. Behavior that, I suspect, Dave Sperling doesn't condone.

[ratslash]

if eslcafe didn't allow job adverts that were disciminatory there would be no job ads!

[kimcheeking]

employers would just stop placing the discrimanatory language in the ads and hire who they wanted to anyhow.

at least you know what schools to avoid - if you really want to make a point why not email every school that places a discriminatory ad?

[Austin]

I am not sure if you are being serious or sarcastic!

I would venture to suggest that this site generates well over $400,000 in revenue from the placement of job advertisements alone (over 6,000 jobs posted each year at $75 a crack). To suggest that employers be prohibited from asking exactly what they are looking for, begs questions as to why?

Is that going to be providing a better service for either end?

As an employer, I do not want to wade through useless emails from people that do not have a chance of getting hired. Moreover, as a recruit, I would not spend my time applying for positions that I did not have a chance at from the start.

I would suggest to you that the laws in the U.S. are for show, as discrimination in hiring is common (they just do not openly admit it).

Do not most prefer honesty to a P.C. policy?

[crazylemongirl]

I find the discriminatory hiring policies amusing in a way because I hold two passports Canada and New Zealand.

I can apply as a kiwi and get turned down, but the fact that I lived in canada 20 years ago will get my foot in the door. It's amazing how a piece of paper can make me disirable to so many hagwons.

Which is kind of my point. Why when there a million different reasons that the employer could or couldn't hire me should my passport make any difference? Ideally I should be hire me on my skill set. Until hagwons clean up their hiring practices, then they are getting their just desserts as far as bad teachers, who do runners and other bad stuff when they hire applicants based on passports, rather than skill set.

CLG

[kangnamdragon]

I think some people need to realize that the discrimination is on the part of the parents. Many parents will not send their children to schools which have non-North American, non-white teachers. That is just the way it is. I know Korean-Americans who speak better than many white Americans, but it is more difficult for them to get jobs.

[inkorea]

I hope that their speaking skills are better then your writing skills.

[katydid]

I've always thought, and maybe I am very wrong in this, that at least in the case of "females preferred," (and I have also seen ads for "Males preferred,") the reason was because the hagwan can only offer shared housing, and maybe the owner is a little conservative in his thinking, and thinks that a mixed house would not be good for either the teachers or would look bad to the parents.
There are also those hagwan owners who think girls are nicer and sweeter than guys (ha ha), but I always thought it was more of a housing issue than anything else.
As for me, it's single housing or no job.

[Arthur Fonzerelli]

[2CuteNCanadian]

I was reading this post and just wanted to share the discrimination in the most recent contract I was offered.
Basically they stipulated 2 grounds for immediate dismissal.
1 - Criminal Acts
2 - Homosexual / Lesbian Activities

[nshadow]

have applied to serveral different hogwans in korea and they all state on their contracts, No Homosexuals/lesbians apply and will be fired with out notice. I am not gay or lesbain, but having been raised near San Francisco and know quite a few of both. I find this to be very and downright biggoted. Internetional law, which Korea signed under the United Nations says that they will not discrimate based upon sexual or other types of areas.

What will be next, no black, no asians, no jews, no, ****, sounds like Korea needs a little history review on some past history, like Nazi Germany, china, and etc.

Chuck

[guangho]

[joe_doufu]

[peppermint]

Hell, just yesterday, I got warned that I could be fired for:
being too naked (?!)
smoking
having a tattoo

Considering I've worked there for a year and a half now, it seemed a little absurd. Sort of made me want to come into work today wearing a tank top and jeans, with a fresh tatoo visible and a joint in my mouth.

[JongnoGuru]