Korean Job Discussion Forums

[numb]

Hagwon owners just got more racist , and act like true assholes, because they think they have power over e2 teachers.

[Dalton]

IMHO recruiters happened.

It used to be that you put up a resume on Dave's and got 20-40 responses the next day. A handful of recruiters that were to be avoided. Now you put up a resume and get a handful of recruiters responding over the week all singing the same song. Too many teachers not enough jobs! This will never be the reality. There simply aren't enough English bachelor degree holders on Earth to supply this market. Let alone ones who would even consider doing this job.

The only reason people come to Korea is the flight and free accommodation. It used to be for the pay and the job conditions as well. Give it maybe two years tops and nobody comes here. Experiences like yours (compared to the 2010 people) will see to that. I mean are you going home with the same happy stories as the class of 2010?

Recruiters have killed this job market. Koreans will be the last to figure it out. Crisis management mentality.

[Ginormousaurus]

[Dalton]

[Ginormousaurus]

[Dalton]

I think recruiters have become bottlenecks in the free flow of teachers to Korea.

20-40 schools contacting me for a position within 24 hours is not the same as 7-10 recruiters within a few days.

I could/can find a job within a week when schools contacted me directly. I can't expect all 7 recruiters to send a single job offer in that time.

That is how I think recruiters create the impression of a flooded market. With no numbers to make the argument either way, they or others are free to argue that it's the market rather then the dominance of an expensive bottleneck of middlemen.

If the market were flooded then why are there so many job offers popping up on Dave's everyday? There are other busy sites as well.

If the market were flooded there would be no new job postings just recruiter ads. Recruiters would be giving you a number not shouting about how many jobs they have. If the market were flooded, if they are shouting when in fact they should be giving a number then they have to take some responsibility for flooding the market.

[hiamnotcool]

[Dalton]

Which is not an improvement at all over trying to come to terms with a hogwon owner or rep that didn't speak English well. But experience helped and knowing what was communicated back and forth also helped to smooth things over if the will was there. We have no idea what the discussions/promises/requests are between recruiters and schools.

Recruiters can be good, I used one for awhile but I had a choice. Now it's a machine with no innate responsibility.

[tophatcat]

[Dalton]

I think it's impossible for the market demand to be met at all let alone flooded. I've been the first native EFL teacher at almost every school I've worked for. A couple had waited so long for a teacher and they were quite excited. Humbling.

There may have been a surge or two because of the jobs situation, the fairly recent acceptance of non-NA accents and apparently some public school programs are releasing teachers into the wild. But the economy will/is improving, parents prefer NA accents and public school demands for extra certification along with the costs to get those will dampen their supply if it hasn't already.

I find it difficult to get around recruiters. I used to get offers complete with contracts as I said. Now I get recruiters requesting I go apply on web sites for example. Or write letters. Not happening guys. You're a bunch of hacks and opportunists. It's a bottle neck. Like a a couple lane closures on a major route to work. Rush hour. A huge negative impact. You usually don't even know who the school is and that is very important. Some schools are not good to work for. I refuse to work for some of the big chains or their franchisees for example. So I wait two weeks for the recruiter to get back to me and it's a chain that I wouldn't work for on a bet?

I just started looking two weeks ago by the way. I put a resume on Dave's every week and respond to ads on Dave's just as often. Recruiters are like deep mud on the path that I'm trying to run on. The single worst thing that's happened to working in Korea in my time IMHO. Worse than the visa changes. The people arguing China as an alternative may have a good point after all.

[hacheondo]

Getting a job here is not as easy as before. With 7 yrs experience and all the certs, it took me 6 weeks busting my ass here on the ground to get a decent job. True, I am ancient (3, and I did request housing allowance, but I was surprised how long it took and how few offers I got. I found the recruiters more than useless -- they just got in the way. They'd shoot me a crap offer once every few days. "How about a kiddie hagwon on Jindo -- it's awesome!" Hey dickhead, I said I want Seoul and adults... what makes you think I'm going to move to an island to teach 2nd graders?!

I missed two jobs because I am too old.

Anyways, I don't think anything has changed regarding the workload and pay... and that's the problem, it's the same as it was in 2004 when I was here. It's always been 120 hrs / month and 2.1 - 2.3.

[hacheondo]

[PatrickGHBusan]