Korean Job Discussion Forums

[calaislilies]

I have been interviewing lately and, when offered jobs, I have been asked to begin working immediately. The schools say, "It's fine, we'll tell immigration that we are waiting for your visa."

Am I the only one? Or is this a common occurance?

Some of the schools seem fine, but I feel like I should be cautious because they are asking me to do something illegal.

On the other hand, I know the E2 requirements are difficult to complete in time in the event that a teacher has to leave quickly (ie for illness, as was the reason I was given recently).

So, is an offer with a request to begin working ASAP without a visa something I should run from, or is it a common enough occurance to consider a decent position?

Also, does anyone know what's up with the search function? I have been trying to use it for weeks and it does not work.

[schwa]

[cruisemonkey]

[ontheway]

It is a common occurance to be asked to work without an E2 visa. Sometimes this works out. You get it a little later and nobody notices. Sometimes you get screwed by the school. Occasionally, a teacher gets caught, fined and maybe deported.

There are a number of illegal teachers working in Korea, some do privates, some come without an E2. Life is an adventure. Why not risk arrest, a little jail detention time, a fine, deportation?

Of course, there are other adventures to be had. Maybe you want to avoid this one. Chances are pretty good that a school that will break the E2 visa law will have little reluctance when it comes to cheating a teacher.

To each his own.


But, since you asked for advice, my advice is that you should

... never work without an E2 visa


just say ... " No! "

... in a firm, but polite way, of course.

[moosehead]

your negotiating skills need to be honed a bit, I think.

it should be going down more like this:

they like you, you like them. they offer you a contract. you look over the contract and ask questions, changes are made or negotiated, everything is in order. You both sign.

starting date is discussed. they say can you start Monday (it is Wednesday). You say, oh, I'm sorry I don't have my visa yet, I would love to start then but I have to wait for my E2 first, ok? I have all my documents, I'm sure it won't take that long if we submit them right away.

They say, ok, that's good, let's get you processed immediately then.



That's all there is to it. Seriously. If a starting date is discussed before the contract is settled, beware. You may mention you have all your docs in order and it won't take long to process a visa. The proper response to that should be an affirmative one. If not, they are not interested in anything more than a warm body and sometimes - not always - they may have another teacher actually getting processed for a visa at that moment - and as soon as they arrive all nice and legal - you will get the boot.

or for whatever reason - it has happened, it does happen, it will happen again; there's been many threads on here and I've heard sob stories from too many teachers who never got paid because they were on tourist visas and never were legal to begin with.

[buddie3232]

Do not consider working without an E2 visa. I would never talk to that school or recruiter again. Get all your documents in order. Have them provide you with a Visa issuance number or with a public school a letter to provide to the Embassy. Get your visa and then come over.

Also, tell the school you want to talk with a current teacher at the school. Pictures of the apartment etc. Get a sample contract.

[calaislilies]

Thanks for the feedback. I told one of them I couldn't work without a visa and they backtracked and said they didn't mean it like that and "of course" I would start work after I got my visa.

[Skippy]

This is one of the great dark dark grey areas about working in Korea. Is should you work before your get your visa? A few years ago before the whole E-2 visa change in 2007 quite a few teachers would work illegally with out a visa for a week to a month before they went on their Japan Visa trip. Why this happened is most school were not prepared (most are still not) and they needed a week or two to process paper work or have then time to give the teacher the chance to go to Japan. Most teachers would get away with it and all would work out in the end. Very few teachers ever really got caught in the visa between time.

A good chunk of the time if anybody was caught they were either fined or check tsked at to not do that and the school would be fined. No one was really taken out back and shot or deported

Before the E-2 changes I would say it is the price of business and the ways things were done. The danger was mild to practically non-existent. Now with the changes everything has changed. Getting caught is whole lot more damaging (still very slim chance of getting caught). Now if you get caught you get a pesky black mark on your record that can affect your life drastically from deportation to going back to home country for a 5 minute interview. SO that is one aspect against doing the illegal work before.

Another area to be careful is before the changes the school could easily get a teacher over to fill a position ASAP and then when things have settled down send them on a visa trip. It worked for many people and hagwons. Now anybody who is new has to do the Interview and pick their visa up in the home country. I suspect that a fews school still try to do this. Fly over a teacher then try to get them to do a Japan visa trip and find out they can not do that. So some poor newbie ends up not getting a job and facing deportation, black mark on record, and having to possibly pay back airplane ticket.

So if you are a new teacher DO NOT WORK BEFORE YOU GET YOUR E2 VISA. . If you are going between Visas - I would say all up to you. The risk is minimal but the loss is great. Gamble if you want to.

[princess]

But, if you have taught in Korea before, you can get your docs in order, fly over without a job, and then find one. I'm not so sure I'd trust mailing over a CBC that takes a month to receive...not to mention my other docs.