Korean Job Discussion Forums

[TwoFold]

Alas, my first post on Dave�s after being a long time reader!

So here�s the deal� my wife and I have been doing research about teaching ESL in Korea for over six months now and decided to throw ourselves into the mix. The following is what we gathered as an ideal situation/method for obtaining an ESL gig:

1) We will avoid recruiters all together.
2) We will fly over to K-land first to scout out the area and job positions via networking with current FTs.
3) Our city of choice is Bundang.
4) Type of school: public. (recommendations for other options of employment are welcome)
5) While it would be our preference to work at the same public school, it seems unclear whether or not this is possible. (could really use some insight in on this)
6) Interview and negotiate our contracts in person. Note: The contract will negotiate both shared housing options and salary.
7) We would seek a reasonable compensation in our salaries, relative to an entry level pay scale, as we will have avoided the costs associated with recruiters, airfares to/from Korea, and cost of providing two separate living conditions for the school. (This is not necessarily a literal compensation of money)
8) Find a nice loft-style apartment near future school(s) of employment.

With that said, it would be of great help if you could enlighten us regarding the following questions:

1) Is it probable, or even possible, that a couple could land a job working at the same public school while satisfying our other preferences listed above?
2) If it is not possible for couples to work at the same public school, how difficult would it be to find two public school positions that are relatively close to each other?
3) Given that we are new to Korea, how much time should we expect for job searching given our conditions listed?
4) In reference to #7 above, what would you consider to be a reasonable compensation to negotiate?
5) As a ballpark, what percent of public schools in Bundang use GEPIK to recruit their teachers? Note: We have no desire to contract through GEPIK.
6) Finally, if you had to redo your first year of ESL in Korea, what employment route would you take?

We realize that our rose-tinted glasses might be interfering with our logic here. So we would in closing ask if you would gauge whether or not the above is:

1) Realistic from your experiences.
2) Logically faulted in a way we may have overlooked.
3) Still missing some better options than the ones we detailed.

Thank you in advance to everyone that has the ability to help us with our transition to life near the sparkling.

But wait! There�s more!

We currently are trying to establish contacts in Bundang via skype, email, MSN messenger, and AIM to further our understanding of the city, FTs that live there, the schools in the area, and make some new friends in the process. If anyone has the time or the patience, we would love to chat with you about questions relating to the matters listed above. Feel free to send us a PM on the forum.

For those that are interested, we are planning to arrive in Bundang as early as late July 2009 and as late as September 2009. Our actual date of arrival in this time frame will depend on information we receive regarding the best time for public school openings in the area.

Again, thank you in advance for any help or feedback you can provide us!

[Otherside]

Ill answer your questions to the best of my ability.

1. Very Unlikely. Most public schools have 1 Foreign Teacher. There are some rare exceptions, but then you'd need to find one where both FTs contracts are expiring at the same time (or very close to eachother).

2. Very Possible. If your apartment was in a central location, there may be as many as 50 public schools within a 20minute commute.

3. It depends. The big public school intakes are March and September. Most public schools would want to have their FTs signed and contracted by July. However, there will be those that don't have teachers yet in which case they'll be wanting to get everything done ASAP. This can work for and against you. On the one hand, you'll be left with the scraps, and have a limited pool of schools to choose from (bare in mind, Bundang is one of the most popular GEPIK locations, so it's harder to get in here, than say one of the rural locations). On the plus side, schools will be in a hurry to get a teacher and may be more willing to negotiate.

4 and 5 are similar so I'll answer them together. ALL public schools in Bundang are affiliated with GEPIK. Some do not recruit their teachers through GEPIK (and use their own recruiters) but they all use the GEPIK contract. Thus your compensation will be based on the GEPIK contract, with very little (albeit some) wiggle room. The contract is pretty clear regarding airfare, and if you already in Korea, they won't pay for your airfare here (or give you compensation in lieu). They will pay for your visa run to Japan.

Some overall comments based on your prognosis of the situation.

1. Great in theory. Not so much in practice. Recruiters have the contacts and know the lay of the land, not to mention they speak Korean. While you may be able to find schools (this would take a lot of foot work and literally rocking up to a school resume in hand and asking them to hire you) It will be hard work. Not to mention, most public schools work through GEPIK and even those that recruit independently, prefer to use recruiters (for communication issues, recruiters are more familiar with immigration processes, far less hassle for the school).

2. Good Idea, but will cost you time and money. Your airfare to Korea will be written off as a loss, and you'll be spending alot of time and money doing what could have been at home. With public schools, interviewing in person isn't as valuable as in other places...as everything can change. In the 1.5 years I've been at my current school, I've had 3 principals, 3 vice-principals and 2 co-teacher/handlers (1 was great, which is a big reason I re-signed, my current one sucks).

3. Nice place. A bit harder to get into the public system there (especially as you guys are rtrying to negotiate a bit extra).

4. Public...definitly. I'm of the believe that most hagwons suck. But there's been a lot of debate regarding this, so read up on Dave's if you have more questions.

5. Already answered.

6. Ok, but you'll most likely be dealing with a fixed GEPIK contract (and you can get two schools to agree to provide shared housing - I've known this to happen a lot...and it's usually helpful if a good recruiter can get this sorted)

7. You won't get much monetary compensation for this. It's really just how it works. Regarding the housing - you'll have 2 options:
A is single housing (this is really a 1 person place...I couldnt imagine living with 2 people in my place). However, the second person will be able to pocket the housing allowance.
B is shared housing. From what I've seen (3 different couples within GEPIK) the shared housing provided is great, (far superior to 2 x single places) and I would definitly go with that. But then the school has "provided housing" and thus owes you squat.

If you have any more questions, I'd be glad to help. (and I'm sure others will chime in with some useful advice too)

[AussieGav]

I think otherside has hit the nail on the head (again). I would prettymuch agree with all of that assessment.

I think that your plan to come over first etc could just prove to make things more complex and expensive. As mentioned you airfare (not an insignificant amount) would have to be written off.

Are you determined to go to Bundang? It is a nice place and I have heard people that are very happy there but you might be restricting your options.

I would like to say something about the employment options for your first position. I came here and worked a hagwon gig for two and half years first up and now work in a public school. The hagwon I was at was about middle of the road, not great but not totally terrible either. In the public system though its pretty much 100% that you will get all your benefits ($$$$) on time and you get reasonable paid leave. If I had my time again I would have gone down the public path.

Do some searches on Dave's (you probaly ahve already) you should be able to sort the quality information from the rest. There are a lot of helpful people on here.

good luck.

[browneyedgirl]

April fools?

[plynx]

[TwoFold]

First off, thank you for the great insight that you guys have posted so far. After reading your comments I came to realize that I should highlight our main intentions, motivations, and concerns rather than hypothetical situations.

The first post was quite cumbersome with specifics, and again thanks to everyone for their patience with us for such a long post. It was in fact our gathered research form the forums and other sites that lead to those criteria. However, it might be easier to list why those criteria are important to us.

Our intentions:

1) Eliminate the risk of a bad employment situation.

This manifested in the form of public schools as it would avoid the hassle of not being paid or just being cheated out of other contracted benefits. We would still consider doing hagwon positions, provided that they have a good reputation and are recommended by past and current FTs.

Flying over to K-land first to scout out the situation would also fall under this category.

2) Live in an area that is relatively clean and quiet.

This is where Bundang came into play. Don�t get me wrong, we love going out and having a great time, but we do not have the desire to live in a place where we can�t escape from the party.

Out of the cities and districts we researched in the Seoul area, our top three places were Bundang, Ilsan, and Gangnam.

3) Live in clean and quiet apartment.

It goes without saying that this is tied to the area we would live in. Once again, Bundang seemed to have the newest and nicest looking places to live.

Also, while it is not critical, we found that the loft-style apartments are our favorite living arrangement.

4) Live in an area with a decent sized foreigner community.

This one is a bit harder to really put our finger on, but it really boils down to our need to have a social life, surrounded by good people.

It�s also suggesting that we don�t really want to live out the middle of nowhere for our first year.

So here�s the basic summary: we don�t want to have to worry about constantly being cheated at work, we would rather spend our energies towards more positive things. Reading the post make us sound a bit demanding, but in reality we are really easy going. We just like knowing what we are getting ourselves into and don�t like being cheated. Perhaps all of this is common sense, but we thought it was important to point out.

Reading further into your comments, I see that there is some debate when it comes to using recruiters and types of employment (public v. private). Perhaps it�s best then to take a different angle when asking questions. These are the questions that don�t seem to have an easy yes or no answer to them. We�ve searched the forums, and it seems people are torn on these subjects. It is also easy to look back in hindsight and say how easy �this� or �that� would be to do. So I guess we�ll ask for you to�

Put yourself in our shoes for a minute�

If you had to do it all over again with the knowledge you have now, how would you go about securing a job in K-land? Would you use a recruiter? Would you fly over first? How would you determine a good recruiter from a bad recruiter?

Feel free to answer that one, or just leave a comment about our approach to the ESL experience in SK. Finally, we can�t say it enough, thank you for taking the time out to comment, answer questions, and help us out.

[bundangbabo]

[dean_burrito]

Another thing to thing to consider is that if you have never had a Korean work visa then you must apply from with in your home country.

[TwoFold]

[Otherside]

I had a really long reply typed up and Dave's timed out. Your loss I guess.

If you want I can pm you my skype Id and we can have a chat at some point.

For the record, I'm 99% sure it is possible to get your FIRST korean e-2 visa outside of your home country.

[John Henry]

People get paranoid from reading the insane ramblings posted here.

99% of the time things are better than fine here. That 1% of the time people have problems is usually caused by the teacher's attitude (ALL KOREANS SUCK, THEY HATE ME!). Rest of the time is just the b.s. you will have anywhere.

A public school 100% is going to pay you. If you don't like your apartment, you can ask them to move you (yes, I asked them to move me from a shi--y place to a nice loft place).

Public schools have contracts they follow with set pay scales. They don't negotiate them. Do yourself a huge favor and just use a recruiter for public schools. You will save yourself a ton of money, hastle and headaches. And understand most people that post their madness here have significant mental/personality issues in RL, and come here to vent. It's not a good representation of life here.

[Korussian]

It looks as though you've done your homework on working in Korea, and you are asking some great questions - very nice to see.

To add onto others' advice:

One track to consider is to work at an independent (private) Middle School/High School pair. They are physically next to one another, likely sharing the same principal (and possibly admin staff). This would be substantially easier than finding two positions in the same school, since, as mentioned above, it's very rare for a school to have two foreign teachers of the same language.

In terms of salary/housing:

Although it's almost unheard of to negotiate a higher salary bracket for your first public school contract in Korea, it would also help to be negotiating with an independent school. However, to make a salary boost more palatable to any school, there is a much easier way:

Our one-bedroom apartment, intended for a single teacher, is large enough for our needs. This being the case, my school provides the (cheaper) apartment, and my partner receives a 400,000won housing allowance from her school. Splitting this allowance is a nice bonus to our salaries.

Best of luck!

[Looney]

[blackjack]

[TwoFold]