Korean Job Discussion Forums

[iwillteachyouenglish]

I have one Korean recruiter and he has actually found a couple things. I used a few US based recruiters, too. So far the US based ones have either been a waste of time or (one) even tried to sell me stuff lol

I don't think they get it that I am doing this to make money, and I am certainly not going to give them any money. If I had $ to give, I don't think Korea would be my first choice

I am learning to be careful trusting recruiter recommendations as well. I have a feeling there are a few shill accounts out there for the US based recruiters. I'm using all I can find now, and letting natural selection take its course rather than (possibly phoney) recommendations.

[ttompatz]

[Troglodyte]

The recruiting agencies abroad that are run by non-Korean locals are often much smaller but generally more reliable. I've worked with a few. Often you have an in person interview because they want to honestly assess you. Ask them though if they have a partner in Korea who visits the schools. If they do, then ask to see the reports on the schools. You can usually tell if the Korean agent actually did visit the schools and assess them, or if they just got the data and a few photos emailed to them. If it looks like they really are screening the schools as well, then it's probably good to get a job through them. BUT they are usually smaller and have fewer jobs to place people at.

[furtakk]

After spending about a month finding a new job recently, I would say that the Korean recruiters are much better than the non-Korean ones.

All Korean recruiters live in Korea (or at least the great majority). Most of the time, they will have much better connections than any foreigner recruiter and can get you better placements. That's not to say foreign recruiters don't have good positions, I just found that the Korean ones had more of an abundance of jobs I was interested in.

Some of the foreigner recruiters make you jump through so many hoops before they even start passing on any offers. At first I thought this was a reflection of a higher degree of professionalism, but it gets really annoying really fast when you have to go through a 30 question application, preliminary interview, blah blah, before they even show you some crappy offer in the middle of nowhere. The Korean recruiters would pass along offers right away. If I was interested in what they had they would setup a interview quickly. They would phone about new offers or new details whenever they came up.

I think if you're doing SMOE/EPIK/GEPIK, going through any recruiter that can help you is fine. These days, public jobs seem to be the only good jobs available through the foreigner recruiters. If you want to work in a Hagwon though, I found that the foreigner recruiters did not have any worthwhile offers. I was looking in Seoul, and NONE of the foreigner recruiters (out of about 6-7) had anything in Seoul. While nearly every Korean recruiter had at least 1 or 2 (not saying they were good offers though).

As the other poster said though, work with as many as you can or need. I applied to every ad I found interesting and any decent recruiter I heard about or found.

[iwillteachyouenglish]

The above poster's experience matches mine perfectly. Korean recruiter = can find you stuff right away. Foreign recruiter = wastes a bunch of time then finds crap lol

When people say they cannot find a job, I wonder if that is because they rely on these foreign recruiters? Then the line about needing certifications (which they could sell me) to get a job.... O ya, let me just get out my CC and give you some money right now!