Korean Job Discussion Forums

[chaz47]

I have about 5 years of experience and solid references from schools in Korea. Most recently I worked at a university for 2 years. I was thinking last night that although the vacation was nice, the dog and pony crap and grading sucked balls.

What are the chances of giving a list of my requirements to a recruiter and then letting them market me? While being on hand to interview in Korea on a tourist visa?

Here are my pie in the sky demands:
* No more than 10 students per class. Middle to high school only.
* No more than 25 hours per week.
* I develop the curriculum and receive support from the staff with translation for worksheets as needed. No interference unless requested.
* 2.3 million a month, 30k OT, plus housing.
* If offered part-time work at another school I am allowed to take it.

This actually seems fair doesn't it? Any suggested alterations?

[Whistleblower]

What's your education? Why so little salary if you have experience in Korea?

[different]

Sorry, but I don't think you'll find a hagwon with conditions like that. The job you described is one I'd really enjoy too, but I haven't seen anything close to that in past job searches.

I was disappointed to find out how little freedom there is at most hagwons. I think these days most hagwons don't want to risk letting the teachers make the curriculum, because most teachers wouldn't do a good job. And a lot of teachers don't want to do that anyway. Maybe 10 years ago there were a lot of hagwons that let/required teachers to do that, but I don't think that's the case these days. Maybe in China there are hagwons like that now (I'm not sure).

The closest thing to what you want might be a public school job. The main difference is that there will be 35 or 40 students of mixed ability level per class. That, of course, is a HUGE difference. Also, you have to have co-teachers, who definitely can interfere with your work (though if you have good ones, they won't). And a public school job is the only job where you'll have co-workers willing to translate handouts for you (your co-teachers would do it). Unfortunately you've missed the season for public school hiring.

[8 years down]

[Ukon]

In some PS gigs, the actually co-teacher is absent, drunk, incompetent, or just too busy/lazy to actually teach the class.

In these situations your pretty much free to teach whatever you want.

The few I knew who did it worked hella hard. Be prepared to put in some serious work.

[TheUrbanMyth]

[different]

[tophatcat]

I would suggest altering:

students per class. grade level
hours per week
curriculum development. interference
salary. OT
work at another school

By doing this, you chances of getting a job will be on par with the other 26 applicants applying to work at Mr. Lee's academy.

[Son Deureo!]

Chaz, I think you're ideas about how much a kiddie hogwon owner is going to recognize your abilities or value your experience are a bit unrealistic.

Most hogwons already have an established curriculum, and will absolutely want to have the final word in what you teach in THEIR classroom. A "no interference" expectation is pretty much impossible unless you own your own school.

As for your demands in terms of working hours and capped class sizes.... I don't think you understand what the market is like now. For probably the first time, there are more teachers applying than there are teaching jobs in Korea. This means that hogwon owners and recruiters are getting what they want. And guess what? It ain't experienced older teachers that have worked in universities. It's pretty young girls from North America.

I had the unpleasant experience of looking for a kiddie hogwon job with a resume a bit like yours. 5 years of experience in Korea, including a year of a Seoul uni, US public school experience, a Master's in education and a NY state teacher's license. I figured it'd be easy, heck I was swamped with offers when I first tried looking in 2001-2003 with just a BA and a pulse. This time around, recruiters wouldn't even answer my emails. My 20-something Canadian girlfriend, fresh out of college with a 100 hour TESOL cert who was looking at the same time? She was swamped with offers from the recruiters who were ignoring me, and she ultimately got the better job.

The good news for me was that fast forward a bit later, I'm back in Korea, and I just landed a uni job starting this fall.

Point is Chaz, if you're looking from back home, and are going for a job you're massively overqualified for because your attempts to get a uni job from back home didn't pan out, you probably won't get to be as picky as you'd like.

Realistic goals for your hogwon job search:

Guaranteed block shifts, no more than 7-8 hours a day on site.
No splits
No weekends
Round trip airfare upfront
2 weeks paid vacation
Health insurance and pension
Make sure the place has been in business for a while, and you can talk to teachers that are there now.

Anything above that is gravy. Doesn't sound great? Repeat after me, "It's only a year...."

Unless you can afford to come over now and look in person, or are willing to spend a long time looking from back home, don't expect anything too special.

Good luck, Chaz.

[chaz47]

Well... shoot. I am capable of coming over to look for work and have had an offer from Samchunyang University to teach in an Asan school but it seems dodgy as mentioned in a couple threads here already.

I also have several promising leads at universities in China.

However 3/4 of my savings are still in Korea so I thought I should make that a priority location.

Harumph. I knew the market was flooded, just not how flooded. Maybe this will be a good thing for Korea though, hopefully the influx of foreigners lessens the xenophobia.

Definitely missing my Jangsan, Haeundae, Busan lifestyle at the moment.

[seonsengnimble]

I disagree with almost everything that has been said on this thread.

Yes, it is more difficult to find a job without a set curriculum, but it's not impossible. While most hagwons have the curriculum set, many do not. Usually, this is possible in the smaller, mom and pop style hagwons. The danger, though, is that usually the smaller hagwons are the ones with more erratic enrollment and a bit riskier as far as getting paid in full.

I think a 25 hours per week contract will be fairly difficult to find, though.

My one suggestion is a legitimate after school program for a public school. They tend to have light schedules and freedom in the curriculum. They also have much smaller classes than a regular public school.

Here's what I'm talking about, although I have no idea about how decent this particular school is. It's the kind of job I was talking about:

http://www.eslcafe.com/jobs/korea/index.cgi?read=43044

[Chaparrastique]

[pmwhittier]

It took me several years to find a decent gig. I have control over my curriculum, classes are 10 students or less, 3.5 teaching hours per day, and 2.6 w/housing. But it is Kindy/Elem. But here's what I think makes finding the "good" hagwon jobs nearly impossible: you have to know someone that is leaving a great job. I lucked on to this one, as it was a new school when I started a year ago, but most of my happy hagwon friends only got their preferred jobs because they knew the right people, and where available at the right time when someone was leaving a great job, which doesn't happen often.

[Died By Bear]

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