Korean Job Discussion Forums

[santafly]

Please help, must escape from Korea.

I've been looking at tealit.com - nothing ever comes of emailing responses to the ads on that site. Applied to Hess, no response. Any other ideas?

[gangpae]

Get a tourist visa and go to Taipei. Plenty of cheap hostels you can hang in until you find that perfect job. You should go now for a camp job, or wait until after Chinese New Year.

[shifty]

Most hakwons or rather bushibans as they are called in Taiwan won't hire from afar. They want to know what you look like and see you in action during a demo.. They are quite a mature market so the standards are appreciably higher than Korea.

Won't necessarily be a oneoff demo that you'll have to do, but a series over a week in case you've put everything into the shop window for that one demo.

As Gangpae says you'll have to go over on a tourist visa. Decide beforehand if you want to stay in a concrete jungle like Taipei. Go to where you would prefer to live so that the job offers from there are more accessible.

Unless you have a friend/friends in Taipei where you can base yourself.

[Ruraljuror]

I can confirm what the previous 2 posters wrote. The best way to get a job in Taiwan is to go to Taiwan first and pound the pavement. Stay at a hostel, they are cheap and they have a bulletin board with lots of ads from schools that are hiring. Track down every lead you can find, go on tons of interviews. It won't take long til you find a good job.

A friend of mine pulled a runner here, did what I just wrote (I was in Taipei on vacation, and ended up at the same hostel as him...small world, eh?), and got a job making more money than he made in Korea...plus he got to live year round in the tropical weather.

[Ya-ta Boy]

I can tell you to avoid Sunflower bushiban in Tainan unless Steven (the owner) has been released from jail. He should be by now. Copyright infringement is not all that serious a crime. It's not all that bad a place to work as long as you know TPR, but if you can't figure out how to use TPR in anything but the simple present tense, you might be in trouble.

[santafly]

bump

[pest2]

I'd confirm what everyone else already said, and I'd also add that you need some startup cash when you get there. The schools dont support you in anyway except for a simple paycheck. They usually dont provide a contract-end bonus, airticket, place to stay, and often they'll even force you to do thier "training" without getting paid for that, either. It might be up to 2 months before you get a paycheck. It's wise to take 3000$US if you can.. i guess you could scratch by on 2k, though.

Besides tealit.com, there's also esl99.com and one other one, cant remember now.

Best cities are Taipei, Kaohsiung and Taichung. Personally, I prefer the latter because the climate isnt too hot or cold and rains less, in general. Also, its big enough to have pretty much all the amenities of Seoul (more, maybe) but not so big that you cant hop on your scooter or bicycle and cruise around mountainous junges...

Taiwan is cool and you will love it, but working there sucks.

[Donald Frost]

P.M. me, Dude/Dudedette: Taipei and the rest of the more-or-less nation is a dirty place with serious problems and quite a few friendly people. The poster's message above this one strikes me as right-to-the-point.

Really, you are better off in the Republic of Korea. P.M. me for a more objective and detailed overview of Taiwan/R.O.C.

Donald

[gangpae]

The Taiwanese will stiff you in many ways, but they'll never stiff you on cash.

[shifty]

Yes, they are amazingly honest. You can leave yr motorcycle standing in a public place with the keys in the ignition, and it'll still be there 3 weeks later.

Teachers moving from Taiwan to Korea are always in for a rude surprise.