Korean Job Discussion Forums

[bcjinseoul]

The one and only hogwon I ever worked at put me on a black list sometime in 2006 or 2007...I didn't learn this until 2010 through a friend who is married to a Korean recruiter. Not that I care, since most (but not all) hogwons are kinda crappy anyway.

While I left my last public school on decent terms, complete with letters of rec, I had some serious issues with a coteacher (which I vented about hear, about a year ago now). As professional as I tried to be, there was a cold war between me and this person for 10 months, and I think the whole school figured it out by the time I left --although I NEVER gossipped to other coteachers. Just kept my head down and finished my contract. I have reason to believe the school is shooting me down these days...

Long story short, I can't get a job in GEPIK to save my life. Thing is, I really want Bundang, where I was at my 3rd year. I didn't use multiple recruiters all at once, BUT I did use them one at a time as they failed to get me a GEPIK position in Bundang, one after another. Granted, one or two had some positions on the northern or southern edge of Gyeonggi province.

Is GEPIK that full of teachers? Could I be on two blacklists, or is my last public school just being wrathful? Is GEPIK and the whole entire EPIK/SMOE thing very slowly being phased out? I saw that thing about GEPIK in the Korea Times recently. Truth be told this is about my 3rd or 4th choice type of gig and 3rd or 4th choice location. Damn. (On the top would be 5-6 hour long afternoon hogwons like 2/3-8/9, 12-6 after school programs, private public schools with mucho time off...and of course colleges; preferabbly in Seoul, Gyeonggi, Busan or Gwangju. That's right, I said Gwangju.)


Yeah, there are jobs still out there in Korea....but mostly 9-6 kindies, 1-9/2-10 franchise elem hogwons, and rural public schools. Tight, tight, tight....but not saturated.

[treehouse]

One explanation could be that GEPIK is in the process of making budget cuts and therefore reducing the amount of total jobs available for the next semester until, well, who knows when.

You're probably familiar with how it works, but the program gives funds to public schools to hire English teachers and certain school will not be receiving that money.

When you consider the amount of people trying to get jobs and also the people trying to renew their contracts at their schools and combine that with budget cuts, the simple answer may be a lack of jobs/ job openings.

[treehouse]

double post, sorry.

[bcjinseoul]

Well....they did get about 1200 resumes for 200 positions about a year ago. For all I know they could be getting 2000 resumes for 100 positions this time around....

[Ramen]

i just heard that they're particularly looking for korean-americans who can speak korean.

[Catfisher]

[OculisOrbis]

You earlier hagwon problems wont be an issue now. It's your last school that is burning you. The extent of a recruiter's reference checking ends as soon as they get a negative one and then youre passed over.

The second factor is an assumption based on how long you have taught here, but my guess is youre at or near the top of the pay scale. That is a problem when looking for a PS job now.

[Sincinnatislink]

Are you a man?
I watched very young women get chosen by two public schools straight out of pools that were well over 90% male and contained a couple certified teachers.
One elementary, one middle.
They want cheaper people who won't cause problems - i.e. younger women, theoretically.
Their theory, not mine.

[jrwhite82]

One other problem could be that you are using multiple recruiters. If you apply through more than one, it is an automatic rejection. Did the recruiters actually submit your application to GEPIK? If more than one did, you just shot yourself in the foot.

[bcjinseoul]

[Troglodyte]

In general Bundang is a good area and a lot of teachers want jobs there.

If you're really on the recruiter blacklist, then ask them to remove you. They will usually do it because it's illegal to maintain and getting a lawyer involved will likely cause them more problems than it's worth to keep you on the list. Plenty of other people have had success getting their names removed from the list.

[DosEquisXX]

I'm using one recruiter for GEPIK now (Global Campus), but I would like to use a second. One has offered such services after I inquired a bit ago about it.

So long as we have not submitted a GEPIK application to the government, we can use multiple recruiters, right?

[southernman]

Why even use a recruiter, just apply diectly to GEPIK. That's what I did with EPIK and it worked out really well. Plus you are far more informed in regards to job placements, cut off points and just general information

[DosEquisXX]

[southernman]