Korean Job Discussion Forums

[deusbelli]

Before I spend the time and effort, I want to know how competitive the job market is for University positions in Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and Thailand. Have any of you heard of anyone getting an MA and not being able to get a University job?

[da_moler]

Having an MA does not guarantee you a university job in Korea. I applied to every university in Seoul with MA, years of experience and excellent references. Private schools and recruiters were eager to hire me, but I had no luck at all with the universities. It seems that for universities, you need contacts. Since ariving in Korea, I've known a few people who have got jobs in universities - and they were all through connections.

[freshking]

I agree. For better or worse, at my university it's more about who you know. Now there are a lot of universities that are requiring the MA, and that number is slowly growing. At my university, the management has a hands off approach toward our teaching. They like us to take care of our work without having to deal with us much. I think that is one of the main reasons that they want the teachers there to know each other before coming to our uni to work. They want us to work as a team independent of them.

Another simple reason is that our uni has been burned in the past by teachers (with and without MA's) who, for different reasons, were impossible to work or get along with. So, the personal reference tends to carry a lot of weight.

[kangnam mafioso]

having connections helps, but if you have a non internet MA (particularly in a subject related to what you will teach, ie, English, literature, education, tesol) and some teaching experience (particularly at the uni level) you should be able to get a job at a uni. the uni jobs in seoul are more competitive than the ones outside but even those should be fair game. a recognized tefl certificate will help as well -- especially if your MA is not in tesol. at my last uni we had quite a few people without MA's teaching there -- albeit they had to teach more hours in the uni hogwan and made less but they were able to get on there with a lot of years experience despite not having a masters degree.

[robot]

of freaking course not.

[Typhoon]

No. It will help, but in the end it is who you know and your interview skills that will determine if you get a uni gig.

[makemischief]