Korean Job Discussion Forums

[iggyb]

Next week will likely be a new experience for me in the Korea TESOL field...

I'm going to go to Korea using the no-visa tourist program set up between the US and SK that went into effect Nov. 2008. This will be the first time I've gone to Korea without having an E-2 Visa in hand. It will certainly be the first time going without any visa - period.

Since my recruiter and/or SMOE dropped me a couple days after I was told my visa number was in route via FedEx, I'm almost back to square one, but with some slightly pressing issues.

As I've said here a few times, one of my primary reasons for returning to Korea for a couple of years is to be of help to my wife's mother. They didn't tell us her father had cancer until it was late and that was a couple of months ago. Since the teaching market in my state is tight in this economy, with no jobs in areas I'd want to live, we decided I'd return to Korea for a couple of years to work and help her family. During the period, her father passed on, and the need to get to Korea sooner rather than later has increased. My wife will spend most of the year working in her job in the US - visiting twice - and then we'll decide how to proceed come next year.

More than likely, she'll come over rather than my going back, and we'll add to the family by finally having a child, which we'll raise in Korea until about time for him/her to start school...but that is getting way ahead of myself...

Right now, I'm about to take the plunge into unexplored waters - for me - and buy a ticket to Korea without a job lined up or even a visa of any sort...

I am hoping the job market will look more kindly on my years of teaching experience and my MA in Teaching (secondary school), and my experience living in Korea and studying Korean history (another MA) once I'm in Korea than it has from abroad...

I always bracket my expectations between worst case and best case scenarios, and if I can stomach a realistic worst case, I don't sweat it.

Having family - even in-laws - in Korea will make a fundamental difference between myself and the average TESOLer arriving in country...

I'd still feel more comfortable doing the job search from here in the US and having them pay my airfare over, but there are other issues at play ---- and my wife's mother was expecting me to arrive next week for SMOE, and it has been a couple of weeks since the funeral and things have started to settle down at her house, and she is starting to feel the affects......and my wife is pressing me to go now...

...which will likely happen by the end of next week...

[Demophobe]

Dave's blog?

Anyhow...

Sorry for your tough situation. Your credentials should put you in good stead. Best of luck.

[iggyb]

Thanks...

Where did I say Dave's blog?

I quit coming here to Dave's Cafe around 2001 or 2002, because I had been out of the market for about 3 years and wasn't sure how dated my information and advice was. I doubt it was far off --- then or now --- judging by what I've read -- but I was far enough out of the ESL game in Korea to move on.

However, I've been around the K-blogs since then. I was planning on teaching history at the university level and focusing on Korea and East Asia before I got fed up with graduate school a couple of years ago.

I still read the Korean English newspapers daily and keep up with the K-blogs...and I just started back at Dave's some weeks ago as we made our decisions on how to handle the family news from Korea and the current job market in my home state.