Korean Job Discussion Forums

[minos]

If you apply during the hiring season it's much easier....back in the day, it didn't matter year around.

[TheUrbanMyth]

[minos]

I've driven and motorcycled the country three times from cost to coast. Once did an entire coastline tour of Korea by bike. Visited more towns and cities than most Koreans will ever do in their lifetime.

I live in two rural locations. once working for the college so I had plenty of time to tour even more of the countryside.

Prices for food may be cheaper, not significantly so. Restaurant prices are usually the same everywhere give or take $1-2. Biggest price difference was in bars and hookers. This was balanced out by higher transportation fees(no subway, longer taxi distances, etc.).

Apartments were bigger though.

Most young people will be heading to Seoul or a nearby city for nightlife. If you can't take a girl home, you have to rent a love motel for $40-$60 a night. That will eat up your "food" saving alone.

People were much more hick and surly in the countryside. Some were nicer...others were crazier. In Korean, the language was usually much more ruder, peppered with curse words and generally less classy than Seoul. Maybe I'm just used to Seoul hospitality and class.

However that was gangwon-do. The southern coast line(including Busan) is much more laid back and nicer. I hear Jeju-do is nicer as well.

However at the end of the day, most small towns and cities in Korea are imitations of Seoul with similar attitudes, buildings, food, and culture.

[proverbs]

i remember a few years back my friend and i started looking for jobs at similar times. i really like Bundang, so i looked around the lower Gyeonggi area, and my friend ONLY WANTED SEOUL. about 3 days in my search i had a few interview offers around Bundang and Suji. a week later, i had about 5 interview offers. a few days later, i had a job. on the other hand, a month passed by for my friend and he had no interviews. he finally gave in and started looking outside of Seoul. he got a job in Suwon in about a week. he loved it so much there that he got his next job in Suwon.

i don't know why people get so caught up with 'Seoul'. if i want to go to Seoul on the weekends, i can get there in 20 minutes.

[3DR]

Yeah Suwon is a nice place. I worked there my first, was in Incheon for my second, and miraculously got one of the 24 spots for Incheon EPIK this year (docs were pretty late).

People do get caught up on Seoul, but it will depend on where you live. Hongdae is of course the main hangout, and if you're on the eastern or northern side, it could still take you 40 minutes to get there. In my area in Incheon last year, I could get there in 25 minutes by bus if there was no traffic (bus was right in front of my apartment).

I will say that a plus to living in Seoul would be the ability to take a cab for 10,000 won back home after being out all night.

[The Floating World]

[northway]

[The Floating World]

[Suwon23]

It looks like I've missed most of this discussion, but just in case anyone's interested, I lived in Suwon and now live in Seoul.

First off, the difficulty of getting a job. I do think recruiters try to steer you away from major cities if you're new, but it is by no means difficult to get a job there. If you go to most hagwons in Seoul, probably at least a third of their teaching staff will be on their first year. Getting a job in Korea is about as difficult as falling off a three-legged chair. Getting a job in Seoul might be slightly harder, but it's still very easy. Your recruiter might be a dick, though, so keep that in mind.

Secondly, quality of life. Some people have mentioned the downsides of living in Seoul. In my limited experience, I have noticed not a single one of them. Prices so far are only imperceptibly higher than in Suwon. And as for crowds and noise, obviously if you don't like those things you wouldn't be trying to live in Seoul in the first place. I'm a city boy so it doesn't bother me. Some people are more country folk. You know who you are. There is more to do, but there's usually some things to do in the country as well. The main advantage of Seoul is transportation. No more taking the KTX into town for the weekend. You can literally walk or take a taxi to the bar that all your friends are meeting at. It's that convenience that you're really paying for in Seoul. As for housing, I'm paying 500,000 for a large officetel right next to a subway station and a park in a nice neighborhood, so people who tell you Seoul is expensive shouldn't be taken seriously.

Hope this was helpful to someone out there.

[proverbs]

i lived in Bundang/Suji, Ilsan and Seoul. Bundang and Ilsan shouldn't be considered "country side". not that i don't believe you, but 500k/mo for a large officetel in central Seoul is hard to believe. i had a awesome 18 pyung+loft in Ilsan for 500k with a 3M deposit. when i moved to Seoullung, the place was nice, but it was half the size and it cost me 1M a month with a 10M deposit. yes, i could go out and get smashed during weekdays in Gangnam, but that got old pretty quick.

and regardless if your recruiter is a a-hole, i'm sure they have plenty of candidates for the schools in Seoul~ so your chances of getting a position in central Seoul are a lot harder than the schools right outside of Seoul.

[TheUrbanMyth]

[broken76]

The chances of landing a job in Seoul or Busan vary from candidate to candidate as well as when you apply as there are more jobs certain times of the year. You do need to realize when applying for Seoul or Busan you are increasing the amount of competition that you put yourself against as the vast majority of people limit themselves to only these areas.
As for the experience living in other areas it depends more on yourself than the area. In general you can find more Western things in Seoul than other areas just as New York has more ethnic restaurants than most other cities, but that doesn't mean that other cities have zero options for foreigners. Lately the suburbs of Seoul seem to be a better place to live than Seoul itself as you get overall better living conditions, a large number of other teachers in the area (in some cases a denser population of teachers than Seoul) and access to Seoul when you want it.
Other metropolitan cities (Daegu, Incheon, Gwangju, etc) are also good options as they are as stated metropolitan cities with populations in the millions. Even smaller cities with a population of under a million will be fairly comfortable for the average teacher and in most cases the teacher community will be closer as there is a smaller group.

[The Floating World]

Myth, I was reffering to shiktangs.

[Times30]

[minos]