Korean Job Discussion Forums

[The Great Wall of Whiner]

It seems that teaching in order to teach in Korea, you have to jump through hoops and hurdles like you wouldn't believe.

When I was in Korea many, many, years ago, all I needed was my degree. Now they are asking for transcripts, criminal record checks...

Being in China, it's a task and a half.

Is Korea trying to keep foreigners out of Korea, or what?

I wouldn't mind doing one final ESL year in Korea, but it seems that Japan looks far more easier than Korea at the moment.

And is it true that British teachers are falling off the map because of this?

[Seoulio]

Yeah we should all be teachers back in our own country, I mean there all they ask for is a degree, a teachers certificate, transcripts, a criminal background check.........oh wait Korea is EXACTLY like teaching in our home country.

Its almost like they want to make sure that we a clean responsible qualified and trustworthy before they leave us in charge of CHILDREN.

Yeah it's a hard concept to grasp I know.

Yeah a decade or more it was easier, just as a couple decades ago it was much easier to get an American or a Canadian Teaching degree, hell a few decades ago it wasnt even a degree it was a "certificate"

Its not that hard of a thing, if you want a job you get the documents, if you don't want to then you clearly didnt really want to work in Korea, you just wanted a job in any random asian country.

[air76]

The new regulations take you all of 1-2 hours of phone calls and generally cost less than $50. Sure, it used to be easier, but get over it. Can you imagine the BS that people must go through to immigrate to our countries? I guarantee it's MUCH MUCH worse.

I totally agree that the new visa process won't actually achieve the aims that they'd hoped...but they are not trying to keep people out of Korea. It's been 3 years now since the changes so I can't believe that people are still making a big deal out of it. I did all of my paperwork from a country that wasn't even my home country and like I said....1-2 hours on skype max, and $50.

[edwardcatflap]

Back in the UK these days you need a CRC to drive your mate's kids to football practice once a week. I think they're relatively lax here

[salgichawa]

[air76]

Fair enough...I didn't have to do the embassy interview because I'd lived in Korea before.

I am not saying that it wasn't a bit of a pain in the arse...just that it wasn't THAT bad, and that in 90% of the cases where foreigners go to live in another country it is a FAR more complex application process.

A lot of foreigners need to go through all that junk just to VISIT the US for a week...and then they can still be denied and lose their application fee...and I'm talking about places like Brazil and Chile, not Iraq or Libya.

[AndrewL]

I don't think it's so much that they want to protect their kids from bad or new teachers. After all, they're letting anyone with a college degree and good phone charisma teach in Korea.

I think the goal behind of all of the bureaucracy is to weed out people who aren't persistent and determined.

It took me months of running around, writing essays, and writing applications in order to get myself to Korea. I did spend around $200 for the following: criminal background check, notaries, apostilles, rush-order transcripts, and my visa. I had to drive all around my home area to get this stuff done.

People who aren't determined or just have a passing inclination to go to Korea aren't going to go through the trouble.

[nautilus]

[oldfatfarang]

[air76]

[nautilus]

[air76]

If you're losing wages between jobs that is from poor planning (if having continuous employment is imperative to you, that is)...you can't count that in as part of your visa cost.

At any rate...I would be very interested to see an itemized list of how you came up with that figure.

If you make enough phone calls and are firm, yet polite, you can find solutions to getting this stuff done without running all around on your own. My girlfriend got all hers done for about the same cost and she's from a different country than me...so we both did it from a 3rd country that was not Korea and not either of our home countries without too much issue.

[AndrewL]

[quote="air76"]

[oldfatfarang]

Sorry, my bad. I was including all my expences to get to Korea (clothes, airfare, and my first month's expences $400.

My total E2 visa cost was$514.68 (not including accommodation while waiting on visa). I did my application and visa in Thailand - and it was messy.

NB: The last figures are USD$ amounts.

USD $
Korea
Postage: degree K to home 20,000 w 18.00
Thailand:
Courier 745 bt (Thai to K) 22.80
Printing 980 bt 20.00
email 500 bt, 15.30
Call from recruter 200 bht 6.12
Printing 357 bht. 10.92
Courier 745 bt (Thai to K) 22.80
Courier 745 bt (Thai to K) 22.80
EPIK 200 bht 6.12
Travel to Embassy (BKK) 220 bt taxi 230 bt, mrt sky train 80 bt, (530bt) 16.21
E2 visa (BKK) 1,700 bht 52.02
E2 Vis travel to Embassy (pick up 360 bht). 11.01
Various emails 50 emails @ 30 bht 1,500 bht (Thai to NZ / K) 45.90
Home Country
Uni trans (X3) $30 NZ 20.96
Notary Public $130 90.84
Apostil $90 63.00
Courier from NZ 45 31.44
*Uni trans $10 NZ (transcript mix-up) 7.00
* Courier from NZ $45 NZ (transcript mix-up) 31.44

[Banana_Man]

I get my transcripts for free. A degree copy costs around $60 each time (30 pounds), criminal record check is $40 (23 pounds) - postage is all paid by my Uni for transcripts/degree and CRC isn't much a couple of pounds maybe $5.
That's all that is needed - yes, it is hard to get them everytime you want to change job. Also it is annoying. It's not that expensive and for the school to have some piece of mind about the relatively unknown new foreigner it's a fair price. As someone saidm it would be very nice to have these on file so we didn't need to get new ones all the time, but hey, life is full of hassles.