Korean Job Discussion Forums

[heartcooxbrain]

Hi everyone, I've just been offered a job as a recruiter. I've been looking for different job opportunities other than teaching, so this kind of fits the bill at the moment considering my past work experience.

I know that recruiters have a bad rap, but from what my potential boss told me, this place seemed like they really took good care of their teachers and seemed to be more concerned about the teachers' well being than the schools'. I felt really excited about it when he was walking me through expectations and duties during the interview, but it would help me out a lot in making a final decision if someone who is or has worked as a recruiter could give me their opinions on what the job is like.

I think my main concern was how stable a job it is--I was told that if I could recruit 6 people a month, I would make about 1,800,000 a month during the 3 month training period. After the first three months and I become a regular employee, my required number of recruits changes to 2 a month, and every extra recruit thereafter I would get a 300,000 won bonus on top of a 1,000,000 base pay. So if I could recruit at least 6 people a month, I would make 2,200,000 won, which seems like a pretty decent salary for me. Is getting that many recruits impossible?

I would really appreciate your comments, thanks!

[chrisinkorea2011]

While that seems like a decent salary, have you taken into consideration the other costs you may/may not incur such as

housing costs
various bills
low months
the time required for each potential recruit

I have a friend who is a recruiter but he was making more per recruit than you stated, so i wonder exactly how much companies actually make off per recruit. The same friend said it was probably almost 1 mil a head but i have no idea really. He does seem to be enjoying the job, but it would take a lot of dedication and korean level. Good luck in your endeavors!

[ttompatz]

You should consider talking to PT Barnum (or his ghost as the case may be) unless of course you are on an F2,4,5 or 6 visa.

What were those famous quotes that were so often attributed to him?

.

[beentheredonethat777]

[Otherside]

Lets look at the salary.
While 2.2 sounds pretty reasonable and is comparable to an average ESL salary, it's missing many of the benefits most employees get.
The average ESL teacher earns about 2.5-3mill salary + housing. Throw in things like severance (your severance will most likely be calculated off the 1mill base) and pension (ditto for pension, if it's even included) and flights, and the package can easily be worth between 35-40mill per year.

Ignoring the probation period, a 2.2mill salary + 1 mill severance works out to 27.5 mill. That's a pretty big hit to take. What's equally troubling, while the downside is pretty large, (i.e. you could only get 1mill a month) the upside doesn't appear to be that big...

Regarding recruiting teachers, it depends. If your agency has a large roster of decent schools, hitting those targets shouldn't be tough at all. However, the market has changed. In the past, the bottleneck for most recruiters would be the number of teachers they are able to recruit, now it's the number of positions available.

Are there other recruiters working for your agency? and how many? In a tight market, these will be your competition. If 3 of you are working, but you only have 15 positions to fill in a given month, someone is going to come short. This is the part I'd be most worried about. A couple of months of earning 1.5 with no housing would be pretty painful.

That being said, if you're looking to get in the game, and are willing to take the risk that your salary may be pretty poor, it could be a good move.

[Fox]

[ttompatz]

And nobody has even brought up the visa issue.
Unless you are already on an F-visa that allows employment it isn't even a legal job offer.

You are unlikely to get an E7 as a recruiter unless you have both a background (several years in human resource management) coupled with academic credentials in HRM.

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[heartcooxbrain]

Thanks guys, this has given me a lot to think about. So far I think I'm willing to take the risk.. I hope I'm making the right decision!

[modernseoul]

I looks like your 3 month training period is commission only 6 x 300k = 1.8mil. So if don't place anyone you'll earn nothing.

Also having worked in recruitment (not in Korea), it's a repetitive job and there's a lot of wasted time explaining to people what they need to do or that they're wrong for the job. Plus you'll only get paid when the person has arrived in Korea and at least pass the health check.

If you have an F series visa you can earn so much more teaching with less hours and more benefits. If you don't have a visa, then you're taking a big risk as this role is unlikely to be sponsorable.

But if you want a non-teaching job or love recruitment go for it.

[PatrickGHBusan]

Also consider that (from those recruiters I know in Korea and Canada) to place one teacher successfully you typically have to go through 10-15 applicants. This means evaluating their applications, sometimes a warm up interview and so on.

Then you add the number of applicants who are just "fishing" (which ios normal) and those that work with a few recruiters at the same time (normal) and will dump you near the end of the process because they found something else (again normal).

So that can get to be a pretty big drag and you need to be ready for it.

I would also make sure of the following:

1- What the company policy is on placement quotas (ie what happens if you fail to meet the placement quota).

2- The placement fee (how long until you are paid or how long until the payment is confirmed as yours...most companies seem to have conditional placement fees based on the teacher staying 2-3months at least).

3- Who handles publicity and finding candidates / applicants (if its you, that can be a lot of work).

4- What is the company application requirements (documents and so on)

5- Who handles assisting the applicant with the visa process (you or someone else at the company)?

6- Who handles the after-placement service for teachers (you or someone else).

All this will impact your workload and potential stress level.

Finally, assuming this job offer is in Korea, I would say the #1 consideration for you right now is the work visa issue (ie can you do this job legally).