Korean Job Discussion Forums

[michi gnome]

I agree you have a good attitude and perspective. I'm in Chicago at the
moment, and it is tough to find anything that pays better than 9/10hr, no
benefits. (If you are in are in business/medical/tech fields, perhaps
prospects are a little brighter). That's the reality many of us are facing
now, and it doesn't look like it's going to be any better for the next
generation. For many now teaching in Korea, little do they realize, I'd wager, that this is as good as its going to get for a long time.

I suggest trying to land a summer job in Korea or China. That would give you several months to feel the situation out. From there, you could set up a few interviews and plan the next step for a longer term. Maybe park the car in a friend's driveway for a few months. If things don't work out in Asia, it will be there when you return. I don't think I'd fly over without enough savings to survive for at least a few months.

A teaching gig in Asia beats a crap survival job back home. I think this is
true whether you are in your 20s, 40s, 50s, etc. Instead of being criticized, you should be commended for taking bold steps to survive and improve your situation.

Good luck to you!

[toby99]

I think the issue is that he doesn't have any money for the plane ticket, hence he needs to sell his car, get a bank loan, or borrow from family or a friend, or get a credit card. I'm guessing based on his interest in selling his car that the other options aren't on the table.

[silkhighway]

$36K isn't very much and I assume most restaurant and bar wait staff would earn at least mid-40's once you factor in tips. I think a lot of educated people who work in those type of jobs actually get stuck in them not because they're unqualified for anything else, but because the money is decent, they don't have clear goals, and become complacent. Lots of people teaching ESL fall into that same trap.

[World Traveler]

Exactly. Servers and bartenders can make quite a lot of money (at least in the United States, and those who disagree must not know any). If you are an attractive woman, you can make $50 an hour at the better locations. (I guess not everyone can do this though, as looks do matter, and females are prefered over males.) I think silkhighway is right. Some people in ESL do it because they don't have clear goals and don't know what else to do with their life so they stay in it. And they tell themself things are horrible in the West and that ESL in Asia is a much better deal. Some people on this board really don't know what they are talking about. They claim inflation is raging in the West...but you know the rate of inflation over the past year in the U.S.? 1.1%.

[toby99]

Yeah, many ESLers constantly whine about how bad things are in the West, etc etc without really having any idea what they're talking about. I think it's mostly a means of justifying their stint in Korea. It's always easier to blame someone or something else for your issues than own up to your own faults and try to fix them.

That said, there are many, many excellent reasons to do the ESL thing either as a stint or even a long term plan (I'm in this boat). But complaining about how it's the highest paying job you can get, the best job you can get, that there's nothing 'back home' is such a tired argument and I get sick of hearing it. And to be frank, with that attitude, I can see why no one would want to hire you.

I'll get some flack for saying this, but I think people also tend to lump all university degrees in the same boat. Not all BA's are worth the same- people with degrees from schools higher up the totem pole tend to have a much easier time finding employment than schools of less prestige. In that sense the West is more similar to Korea than we'd like to admit; we like to think of ourselves as being much more meritocratic, and when the reality doesn't line up with our thinking we blame 'the economy', etc.

[World Traveler]

Great post, Toby. I just saw this online (good advice):

http://www.englishtoolbox.com/teaching.html

You hate your country and want to get away from it. This is, of course, your prerogative. However, you may be surprised to discover that�outside of Paris�criticizing your homeland will make the natives you encounter lose respect for you rather than applaud you. Asians are still very much influenced by Confucian values, one of which is respect for one�s country and leaders. Besides, people who constantly badmouth their own culture and country quickly go from being non-conformists to just being bores. Your students will be very interested in the differences between your country and theirs as you perceive them, but they won�t be comfortable with you mocking your own culture or countrymen. Instead, they�ll view you as a loser who couldn�t make it at home and fled to their country; needless to say, they won�t want to have such a person as a teacher for long.

The good advice is: when people complain about the West (whether in the West or in Korea) they only make their lives worse.

[silkhighway]

Getting back to what I was saying, let's say with tips and liberal interpretations of tax rules you're a social guy with a four year degree in something you don't really care about making the equivalent of 50k/yr bartending at a trendy restaurant in downtown Toronto. It has it's downfalls. You're underemployed, you work shiftwork, always evenings and weekends, no full-time status or benefits.. On the other hand you meet a lot of hot chicks including the other wait staff, and are clearing pretty good money compared to a lot of your friends. Plus you like living in Toronto. Would you trade that for a 36K/yr entry-level job in insurance sales in Sarnia? That's a rhetorical question, some people would, some people wouldn't.

[beison]

Man you guys are all over the place with opinions--I've got one too. Likely nobody will care about it though ^_^

I currently live in the US, making 71k/yr due to my degree in chemistry. This is the second company I've worked for since coming back from Korea, and the first position I took (with no related experience in the field, only a degree) netted 65k. Sure sure, I'm the anomaly, of the group because I have a STEM degree, but the fact is that it's possible. It's standard and my coworkers are paid this too. I'm planning to pay for an MBA myself in the fall, so I took a second job vending beer at sports games. This gets me another 15k-20k/yr. It's hard work, but it wasn't hard to find--again, diligence will make shit happen.

I've helped coach 6 personal friends with college degrees into jobs paying at least $30,000 and In addition, I see leads for positions making 15-20/hr relatively consistently. Jobs ARE out here, you just have to bust your ass and work the job boards/linkedin/connections to get one. Remember, the unemployment rate for the degreed graduates is less than 4%.


So I guess my first point, is that people who say there are no jobs in teh US are crazy. After coming back from korea a few years ago, I haven't been without two concurrent jobs for more than 1-2 months total. You just bust your ass, look real hard, and make stuff happen. But like I said, it's difficult and I can definitely understand how people can be incredibly frustrated. It's much harder than it was pre-crash.

My second point, is that it's NEVER a bad thing to do what you feel like doing. The way you get ahead in life is stopping the bitching and doing what you need to do to get closer to your dreams and make your life better.
OP, you're totally on target for going back to Korea. The numbers work out to be approx a 40,000/yr USD job. The tax breaks, free accommodations, airfare, healthcare, and pension you get enrolled in make it such an awesome deal for someone who has a hard time finding something else. I spent a year working in Korea in ESL, clearing the normal 2.1-2.3mil/mo salary everyone makes. I felt like I had more freedoms to live a financially carefree lifestyle as an ESL teacher than I do these days.

My last point, is that whatever the hell you end up doing, just believe it will work out. The law of attraction is shockingly powerful: Whatever you really want to happen, believe that you have the ability to make it work, and you will probably succeed.

[misher]

[Threequalseven]

Wow, this quickly turned into the Rush Limbaugh thread. While there are dozens of points I could counter, I think the article toby99 posted says it best: "those lucky few who find jobs in their field can expect to earn a higher starting salary than their predecessors did." Yes, I understand this doesn't apply to some majors (engineering, pre-med, etc), but it does for a lot.

I think the previous posters on here are failing to consider other people's circumstances. First, by the sound of it, there's a big age gap in the conversation here. I have no doubt that a social sciences major who graduated in 2000 had a relatively easy time getting onto a decent career path in the non-profit or government sectors. A graduate in 2010? Not so much. Consider this when you read statistics like "social science and humanities grads start out on average with $36,000" or whatever it was. You can't use statistics for yesteryear's grads and apply them to today.

Another misconception is cost. To get that master's degree or to retrain yourself costs money. If you already have $30,000 in debt, can you really afford to double or even triple that? It doesn't matter if you're "willing to bust ass and do the work" if you can't afford it.

I could go on and on about the importance of not working through college, taking the right classes in high school, being born into the right family, and so on, but I'll save it. The only other point I really want to make is that there are good reasons why people aren't proud of their country. I understand that some folks are too dazzled by their big bank accounts to look past their own four walls. But there are almost no business, engineering, or medical jobs that don't rely on the exploitation of other people. You could go right on down the list toby99 posted: Aerospace Engineering - War, Chemical Engineering - War and Agribusiness, Economics - Low-wage labor, ECE - All of the above. I can't speak for other people, but that's why I decided on a social science major instead. I figured I'd happily work for that $36,000/year instead of $56,000/year if it meant I could distance myself from that profit over everything else mentality. But my particular major is hired mostly by local and regional governments, which have come under extreme attack by certain elements in our country. (Many of whom share the same sentiments as those on this board.) So even if I did "bust ass" and get a masters, there's still no guarantee for a job. Likewise, I could go back and get a degree in accounting or something, make lots of money, but begrudge what I'm doing with my life.

Anyway, I realize nothing I said will make any difference to some of the folks on here. But not everybody is going to be an engineer or business major, and not everybody wants to. That doesn't mean you should thumb your nose at those people and regard them as failures for not having the exact same goals as you. What are you even doing here anyway? I don't understand the point in coming to another country to take a lower-paying job, just to insult the people who need those jobs to get by.

[toby99]