Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Real Reality]

Visa Rule Tightened for Foreign Instructors
By Bae Ji-sook, The Korea Times (October 28, 2007)
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2007/10/117_12672.html

[Bigs]

My favourite is the interview...
If I decide to apply in my home country (Australia), would tham mean I'd have to fly for 5 hours (from Perth - yeah yeah... no jokes ), at my own expense, to have a 15-30 minute interview!?

Watch either (or both) there being no teachers come to Korea, or this getting rolled back within a couple of months.

[LexusNexus]

[MarionG]

What's with the health records business? Will "She/he doesn't have AIDS" do it?

[Homer]

Unless of course they mean to run interviews in the applicants country through the various consulates/embassies.

Some Japanese ESL companies do this as doe some government sponsored programs.

It is not impossible that the larger hakwon chains/school boards would be able to set that up by coordinating with Embassies/Consulates abroad.

You could also see Immigration/Ministry of Justice get involved in this process through the placement of more personel abroad to run checks and verifications.

Do not dismiss this too quickly.

As for asking a teacher to fly to Korea for an interview....that would be counter-productive. Some universities do require in person interviews already and will not do phone interviews. I know of many that simply reject applications from abroad (including the University I work at).

You could also see Korean schools attending education fairs abroad in greater numbers. I know I suggested to my administrator he send a couple of people to the annual international education fair in Toronto. He is working with other universties to see if that is worth it.

These are all possible options.

Will checks get tighter?

I sure hope they will! Korea might see a drop in the # of teachers initially but perhaps someone figured out that the ESL market here would just end up winning in the mid to long run as the overall quality of teachers would improve. Of course, to attract those better teachers you need to fix certain endemic problems in the system here...but thats another debate and bureaucrats being typically short-sighted....

[sojourner1]

It did require a criminal background record check from my local police station in the states to get my hagwon job last December. They ran my name through their computers which queried all departments in the 50 states as they are all linked together and printed a form that said, "No Record Found" in about 10 minutes for $7. Since I was ready by having all necessary materials together upon accepting the position electronically, it only took 3 weeks to process the visa and arrive in Korea. I hope the critical last minute nature of the timing of the process goes as smooth next time as to prevent delays or a missed flight waiting on the visa stamp. I do realize that if you are taking a public school position, it will take longer as they have to FedEx you the paper contract to sign and then you FedEx it back which I suspect easily adds 2 weeks to the process. Hopefully they work in a timely manner as I already know who I want to work for, what type of job, and province location for next March. I am already preparing to apply and get my documents together in attempt to not arrive late or be beat out of position by other applicants. It could be possible for me to interview in Korea in December since I am still here, but only on a weekend as I have to be a job like most of you. It really is not practical to do in person interviews which is why it's not usually done.

The new consular interview rule could be a problem as when I called the Korean consulate in Chicago a couple times, no one would speak English with me, but my recruiter told me what to do, I did it, and everything went well. I don't see how they could learn anything about an E-2 applicant during a consular interview that would cause a denial of visa issuance. I am not sure how they are looking to use this as a visa issuance method, but they should have just one call center such as at the head immigration office manned by a couple English speaking Koreans if they are politically motivated enough by a chain of recent negative events to actually waste their time and resources like this.

[Boodleheimer]

[Homer]

[yingwenlaoshi]

One says criminal check and interview. The other says criminal check, health check and interview.

What?

[mithridates]

[yingwenlaoshi]

[Typhoon]

It also said that these regs are for people apply for visas in their home country. There is a loophole if you are in Korea. I guess this is only for the interview at a consulate. It has also been better to come to Korea and look for a job to make sure it is a good school. Now it will be better to avoid having to fly to a consulate to have an interview.

[aarontendo]

You guys think there's a chance that it'll be a once-only interview for us? Or do you imagine that we'll have to go through the process every time we change jobs?

[Alexander]

[Boodleheimer]