Korean Job Discussion Forums

[pjmancktelow]

hi, im 3 months from finishing my 1st year and intend to stay. the money and life outweighs the bad things so i think ill stay. i had a plan to go for a SMOE job starting september. i finish at the end of may adn was going to kill the summer in thaland doing a CELTA and some more diving qualifications. the way the currency is in thailand, i think its become somewhat unrealistic to now follow this plan. i still want a public school job, in seoul though. i have several options which are as follows.

1 - go home, suck up the uk for 3 months and come back as normal (dont like this, too expensive, not much work, and my gf is here)
2 - go for another hogwan job, from inside korea
3 - stay in korea on a tourist and "get by" for 3 months
4 - attempt to get a public school gig where somebody left out of the normal time.

i prefer 3 or 4 the most. its easy enough for me to do this. but number 4, what is the likelihood of this happening? and also how much notice will i get to do this?

alll advice is welcome thanks

[Otherside]

3 has a bit of risk. You obviously like it here, so why take the risk.
2, is pretty easy but Hagwons are a crap shoot, and why take thhat risk if you are planning on moving into the public system.

The big question is, where in Seoul do you want to be located. As you know, when you apply to SMOE you get allocated randomly, and some parts of Seoul can be an hour from the central parts of Seoul, and even more to other outlying districts of Seoul. Depending where you want to be, GEPIK may be an option. There is much more leeway with regard to picking schools, and they have vacancies all year round. There are many locations in Gyeonggi, which are literally on the doorstep of Seoul and are very close to certain areas.

My advice would be to contact some recruiters and say you are interested in an SMOE position beginning in June and see what comes up. You may get lucky. Otherwise you'll have to wait till closer to the due date when some Teachers have "left" their positions early and maybe there are some spots open then (i.e. end of April), at this point ask the same recruiters if there are any GEPIK spots in the locations you want. (bare in mind, it's probably Ok even if your job starts mid june, early july as a couple of weeks between jobs isn't the end of the world) and hope something comes up.

Biggest problem is, you are out of sync with the main hiring drives (march/sept). Positions do come up, but most of the time, they are last minute and you need to wait it out and hope to get lucky!

[Illysook]

What about English summer camps or somesuch?

[pjmancktelow]

i dont really care where in seoul. i appreciate that i can end up anywhere. so there is an element of risk i that. what about going for an afterschools programme in seoul? any ideas what they are like?