Korean Job Discussion Forums

[rel]

I keep reading a lot of horror stories about working at Hagwons.

Are there people who have actually completed a whole year at a Hagwon and have not been screwed over?

Examples such as:
-being paid on time
-given adequate housing
-airfare was reimbursed
-paid severance
-not being fired during the 11th month

[kardisa]

I completed one hagwon contract and left another one on good terms in order to follow my then bf to a different city. In both cases, my housing deposit was returned, I received the correct final pay, and my pension was fully paid into. In the case of the contract I completed, I also received my severence pay. My airfare was paid upfront, and both apartments were small, but nice.

The first position was a fluke...I didn't talk to a current or former teacher and really had no idea what I was getting myself into. For the second position, I spoke to several former teachers and all had nothing but good things to say about the job/boss.

If you do your due diligence, you can find a good hagwon.

[Chimie]

If you're expecting 5 star treatment, don't bother.

However, plenty of people have had good experiences in Korea at Hagwons.

My school I work at is good, pays on time, I have a kinda small, but adequate apartment, they paid airfare on time, I have severance and well, I can't comment on the 11th month firing, but things don't seem to be going down that path. Do research, speak to previous teachers, and don't sign anything without actually knowing what you're getting into. Find someone on the boards who knows quite a bit about labor law here in Korea and see if they can answer some of your questions. The contract review thread is nice, but at the same time, you do get a lot of people who just say "Bad" and don't tell you why. Or they seem to think everyone should turn down a contract that doesn't pay 3m+.

[transmogrifier]

Heh, my very first job I worked at a Wonderland.....and got paid in full on time each month, got airfare and severance.....

Luck of the draw...

[The Sultan of Seoul]

I worked at a nationwide chain hakwan cpl years back.

Was good. Nice director and wife. Nice apt in okay area. 2.3mil. average of 22 hrs a week teaching. Lots of breaks during the day of an hour or more. 2pm - 9.pm. Never got stiffed on a single penny, got all benefits and sverence etc.

Have also been screwed royally by another independant hakwan few yrs back.

All depends on the owner / director more than the name of the hakwan ime.

[Troglodyte]

There are plenty of good hogwons. It's just a matter of doing some research before accepting a contract. A lot of people end up at a bad hogwon simply because they didn't do their homework. To be fair, a lot of those people are first timers who don't realize what to look for. Recruiters also know this and tend to off load the bad jobs on noobies because it's the only way to find teachers for those positions.

You mainly hear about the problem cases here on Dave's because no one is going to write about how things went exactly as planned. So the picture as seen through forum posts is probably more grim than the situation really is.

With over 10,000 foreign language teachers here, you're bound to hear more than a few horror stories. With the large number of hogwon's out there and the poor business plan of many owners, i'm honestly surprised that there aren't more horror stories popping up.


Just so that you know, PS jobs aren't without their drama either. They just have a different set of problems that come up.

[matty022]

I'm starting my first contract in June so I can't comment to that, but I'll second trog here and say the nature of internet forums is that people come to complain about/ask advice on when things go wrong. If things are going well those same people don't bother coming on and saying so.

When I first started looking into doing this I almost let this forum scare me off because of all the horror stories. But I found a recruiter I felt comfortable with, I was offered a job I feel comfortable with, and I have no anxiety about my upcoming trip and fully expect everything will go well.

Maybe I'm naive, but I think if you do your research then you'll have a good time. If you accept the first job offered without research you're rolling the dice.

[The Sultan of Seoul]

Indeed, what troglodyte mentioned - I have had a positive experience at a hakwan and a nightmare at a public highschool I worked at. Hakwans that are doing WELL (around 180 students) but not well enough to have a full 30 hrs of classes for you to teach (200 - 250) are best, heh heh.

[Chimie]

[northway]

[asdfghjkl]

I've worked at two hagwons that were both alright and at one hagwon-like entity that totally blew. In retrospect, the first one was great. My apartment was nice, they paid me, and I had a few days that were less than four hours long. For awhile, when business was slow, I only had to work four days a week. In general, I would think that both the best and worst hagwons are small, independently owned ones that nobody has ever heard of.

[The Sultan of Seoul]

[Juregen]

[Who's Your Daddy?]

I've worked at a lot of hogwons. Two as FT on contract. Countless as PT. I've always been paid as contracted. The first job here I had a bad contract with high class hours, but they upheld their contract obligations. People need to separate hogwons that offer bad contracts, from those that don't honor their contracts.

I think a lot of the positive hogwon stories are not reported here, because people don't bother with ESL cafe if they're having fun. I only joined ESL cafe when I worked for public school and had a lot of down time. That was after three years of hogwons during which I never even registered.

[comm]

My hagwan was great. Almost everything was by the contract, and they had lots of experience hiring foreigners and getting them set up (with ARC, bank account, etc). Also, there were 6 other foreigners already working there, so I had all of my newbie questions and issues answered and helped with. Though the contracted hours and overtime did make for a lot of work.

My biggest reason for not re-signing was that I'd been relegated to a younger age group than I was hired for.