Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Threequalseven]

I'm several months into my first year teaching in Korea, which I know is nothing compared to most people here, but there have been two types of folks who really bring me down. (Note: this is a rant, so if you get defensive easily, there's no need to keep reading.) The first are some of these public school teachers. Some of these folks talk about ESL in Korea as if everybody has a public job and hagwons don't even exist, still find room to complain about their jobs despite having a nice setup and months of paid vacation, and sneer at others who even attempt to get jobs like theirs without going through the formal and ridiculous recruiter process. There's also this know-it-all, more-important-than-you attitude that sometimes exists, as if everyone else was born yesterday. I've heard the expression "having crystal balls up their butts" used once before. To be clear, this doesn't describe ALL public school teachers by any means, but all the people I've met who fit this description do happen to work for the public school system.

The second are these recruiting agents. I understand that they fill a role for teachers who are coming in from abroad - getting their plane tickets set up and so on. But for people who are already in Korea, there's no need for them. I'm here with my partner, and there's no reason we shouldn't be able to get an interview with a public school without a recruiter. Yet, for some reason, they still get all the power and control of placing teachers. Some of them won't even entertain the idea of hiring couples (even though they could), and others (like EPIK) will place couples but there's no guarantee where you'll teach or if you'll even get to live together. I don't see why schools can't just reach out to teachers directly without all this bureaucracy in the way. You need two teachers? We're two teachers! Let's have an interview. You don't even need to pay us for the flight, and you can save on housing! But no. Since there's an overabundance of cheesy, single, suburban white kids with low standards, recruiters won't even lift a finger higher than they need to.

I realize that this is the system that exists, and I can "love it or leave it." And I know I could just keep my mouth shut and deal with it, which seems to be the prevailing attitude here. But this is partially a plea to those who do have a good jobs to show some courtesy to those of us who don't, and partially just a rant to see if anyone else is seeing what I'm seeing here. I wish I could be one of these play-it-cool hagwon workers, but I can't help but feel put off by some people's attitudes here.

[Lucas]

Bad day at the office?

[Zyzyfer]

[nicwr2002]

I feel ya. I had a recruiter almost send me death threats through SMS because I took a better job through a friend. The recruiter wouldn't do what I asked him to and kept telling me Seoul is better Seoul is better just work in Seoul. I didn't want to, I wanted to stay in Gwangju where I met a lot of good friends. So, I told him thanks for the help, but I'm going with this. He told me that he hoped I was kicked out of his country.

[Threequalseven]

[dairyairy]

You gave us your take and now here's mine.

1) I don't know any public school teachers with "months of vacation" but understand that even many public school teachers don't like every other public school teacher. There are many different public school teachers with many different attitudes, opinions, and maturity levels.

2) You do know that no matter how many times experienced expats post warnings to stay away from hagwons and hagwon life, so many refuse to listen and end up screwed. At many you won't be paid, and even if you are paid they will work you to death. They'll lie to you to get you to sign a contract and then they will play games to make sure you never get 100% of what you are owed.

3) Do you know why many schools won't touch the dreaded "couple"? Because, as one school once told me, there's always one good teacher and one bad teacher. There's always one happy person and one that hates being in Korea or just overseas. That couples add their drama to everything. Is that true? I don't know but it has become the perception.

I'm sure that you're the exception and that both of you have PHDs from Paul Reubens University and someone else will disagree and say that they've been in the ESL business for 100 years and they've never heard of a hagwon paying late or of any problems with hiring couples. Whatever. Take it FWIW.

[detonate]

[LiAlH4]

I am wondering why do you want to find a job for a couple? Is there anything wrong with you and your luv working in different schools?
I think there are few reasons why I wouldn't do that if I was a native speaker and looking for a job in Korea with my gf:

a) I think it may be unhealthy for a relationship to work with your girlfriend, wife etc. Sometimes we guys need to take a rest from home and home related problems and even from our lovers(!)

b) You get two apartments. I am not sure it is legal but if it is you can rent one of them and save more money.

The only serious problem would be finding schools that are relatively close from the place you live.

It is just my personal opinion since I have absolutely no experience in teaching. Correct (do not hate) me if I am wrong

[Squire]

Be fair, it isn't as if couples frequently apply for jobs at hospitals or banks and get given jobs working right next to each other. Best just to shoot for the same city and live together, using one apartment as storage or whatever you can think to do with it

[blm]

[SMOE NSET]

You could just both work in different public schools and take the housing allowance. Then you could find a larger apartment and try to find a place that is halfway between your schools or that is most convenient (near subway).

[Lucas]

[Lucas]

[Zyzyfer]

[Threequalseven]

Lots of good points brought up so far. But many of you are misinterpreting my main point. We would rather work at two different jobs, but the way it's set up makes it very difficult.

Working at two public schools in the same area is technically possible, but it's very improbable. First, we finish our contract at the end of August, so we would have to start in Sept or Oct. Second, unless we want to risk working on the opposite sides of a big city (since the recruiting process forces you to make that risk for metropolitan positions), we would have to apply to work in provincial towns which are less likely to hire in Sept or Oct (and even less likely to give us both housing stipends.) And all of this goes back to why I'm frustrated that we can't just apply to schools directly since we're ALREADY HERE.

Why do we put public school jobs on "a pedestal"? Two main reasons: Better hours (9 to 5 instead of evenings), and you actually get time off. In the province we live in, public school teachers get two months off! That's compared to our two 5-day weekends we get all year. But working PS jobs here isn't really an option for us either because they only hire in Aug, Feb, and Apr, so we'd have to leave the country and do all the paperwork over again just to try to get two jobs in the same area.

There's also the housing issue. Sure, there's the extremely off-chance that we both get public school jobs with housing stipends in the same area of the same city with the same start date. However, if we don't want to take that risk, we would be in a situation where only one person looks for work and we move to the apartment that school provides. Otherwise, we would have to live out of a love motel or something until the other person could find a job, and only then could we find a suitable apartment of our own. And even then, the only jobs that other person could apply for would be daytime hagwons, since we can't apply to PS jobs directly. And this defeats the whole point of changing jobs in the first place, which is to work daytime hours and have some vacation.

I'll sum it up with this anecdote. There was a couple teaching in my city who were leaving their public school positions last February. They posted on facebook that they had a nice setup for the last 5 years, and both their schools were happy with it, so they wanted to extend that offer to other interested couples. Later that week, I talked to the provincial coordinator at the bar, and he said that couple was "stupid" for posting their positions online because the schools have to hire through the recruiting process.

TL;DR? It's easy for singles to assume that it would be easy for couples to change jobs. But with all the barriers in the way, couples are more or less forced to take hagwon jobs because it's the only way to guarantee they won't end up in a s*** situation.