Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Hyeon Een]

I'm interested to know what the best position, in your opinion, you've heard of someone having here? I'm more interested in stories you've heard first hand rather than rumours you've heard or messages you've read on this or other message boards. People you know, not people you want to know.

When I first came here everyone in my town worked in a hagwan, except for one guy. This was before the MASSIVE increase in public school teachers that happened a few years back. Anyway we were all hagwan workers, doing 30 teaching hours a week, except for the ONE public school guy. He had 16 teaching hours a week and a month off summer, and a month off winter. He was mildly jealous of us because we could stay out late at night on, say, a Tuesday, but we were much more jealous of him due to his slack working hours and long vacations.

Since then, working conditions in public schools have generally gone downhill. I never got a public school job.

At that time, I also heard rumours about great university jobs with long vacations and short teaching hours but I thought they were as unobtainable or non-existant as unicorns or leprechauns. There were no universities in our little town. So the "uni job" thing was not something most of us even thought about or considered. None of us knew any university teachers. The "getting paid for not working hard and having 5 months off" thing sounded fantastic. In fact, about 6 years ago it was a dream of mine to get a job like that.

The other kind of jobs I heard about that sounded appealing were the company jobs. The 5 million a month for working at some company's little outpost in the countryside where they sent their employees for an intensive week or month or two months at a time. The money sounded awesome at the time. As a fan of small towns the idea always sounded appealing to me. I never tried it though.

So these are the jobs that have impressed me, at one time or another, during my time here:

Public school, 16 hours a week and 2 months vacation for 2.2 a month
Company, 35(?)hours a week and unpaid vacations for 5m a month
University, 9 hours a week for 2.7m, 22 weeks vacation

What are 'the best' jobs you've heard of? I know some people value money over free time, and others the reverse, so I'm curious to know what you guys think are great jobs.

No imaginary ones though please =)
(I forgot about the time I earned 10m a month working as a lotion rubber for racing girls.. then I had to drink whiskey with them and entertain them after work..)

[sluggo832004]

The best jobs or positions with good pay and good hours are NEVER POSTED.

Its always who you know. And they are never vacant for long if they were.

[Hyeon Een]

[interestedinhanguk]

I know a lot of people on here are going to start lying and embelleshing about how great their job is, as that is what people usually do on threads like this. I'll get us started.

I make more money than all other Dave's posters. 47 million a month. I work 6 hours a week, no office/prep time required. I get 40 weeks paid vacation. I have a 7-bedroom apartment in Gangnam.

[stevieg4ever]

Haha nice one!

Yeah exactly, and when do you ever meet these people in real life?? never!

[PRagic]

I think the best paid university English teacher I know makes 3.5 a month for 12 hours a week. Full paid vacations in summer and winter. Some of the long term teachers at universities where they don't impose term limits may be making more by now.

The company jobs the OP mention aren't worth your while IMHO.

The English teachers in general I know who make the most money are those with their own 'study room' set up in their residence. They can pull upwards of 10 million a month, but they'll work their arses off for it and it isn't usually consistent income.

The highest paid full time teachers I know who teach the least, make the most, and get the most perks are all in tenure track jobs at big universities. The downsides, of course, are the admin duties and publishing requirements. The ultimate downside, if you want to view it as such, is that you need a Ph.D., a few ranked publications, and a couple of years experience just to even be considered for the job!

[Mr. Pink]

My last job wasn't too shabby. I was at a private high school for 6 years. I started at around 2mil a month and worked 14hrs a week (14 40 or 45min classes, not even hours). I ended with 3.2mil a month and worked 20hrs (same as above, not a full hour class) a week. I had some pretty good paid vacation too. 5 weeks in the summer, 5 weeks in the winter, and usually about another 2-4 weeks in the year plus 4 weeks of exam periods where I didn't teach.

When I look at my current job and the hours I have to do, I think I was lucky as hell for those 6 years I worked where I did. I was idealistic to think that there would be more satisfaction in teaching something besides ESL...sure there is satisfaction but there is also a crap load of work attached to that, which I am not sure it is worth.

[T-J]

Totally off subject, but it really bothers me when people post above the quote like this. Just a pet peeve of mine. /rant

[SinclairLondon]

My buddies work at an international school. Speaking Korean or whining in English result in after school detention.

Enough said.

[edwardcatflap]

[olsanairbase]

One of my best jobs was a private i did for Bank President in Seoul for him and his son.

We would meet at his office which was set up for putting and we would just take turns and put the balls. Then afterwards he would take me to room salons where he would order and spend about a million won a night on girls, food and stuff.


The other was when I worked in Changwon for a bit. I had a private with a the LG Factory Plant director that makes all the microwaves by LG in the world (plant is like 4 football sizes and his office was the size of an entire locker room. Meeting with him was fun because we talked about all the interesting places hes traveled to. Including the Falls in Argentina which so miraculous the way he described them.

[Hatcher]

I think I have the best job because the last time I saw my boss, I wasnt even sure if it was her. I had to double check. Whenever something comes up, she says, "you tale care of it!"

Oh, base salary at my uni is 42 mil annually for 9 hours a week and full vacations.

[Jimskins]

The girl's high school I left in Daegu in August was pretty sweet. I only taught the 1st grade and as they had 15 classes in each grade this meant 1 lesson plan a week repeated 15 times. I was on 2.4 a month. Although I had camps in each vacation -like most people- if I had no class I didn't have to come to school. This usually meant about 5 or 6 weeks off in each vacation, not to mention all the exam periods and stuff as well.

Other perks included state-of-the art classroom with all the SmartBoard malarky, no interference from co-teachers (I always told them to take a break and not to come to class), and complete freedom to teach whatever I liked. The school also had a gym and running track that I made great use of. They were also generous with time, "have to go to immigration for an hour in the morning? take the rest of the day off." Young, liberal Principal who had a PHD from Berkeley (and owned the school) and encouraged me to form an indie band club for the students. When I did after-school classes for 1 semester they paid me 40,000 an hour. Etc etc

Why did I leave? After two years it was no challenge whatsoever and as you can probably imagine, a little boring. The dream job for a lazy teacher though. I've just started at Hongik, 12 hours a week, Mondays off (as well as every morning), full vacation, on 3.4. But I'm working my ass off and more in comparison to my previous workplace. And loving it.

[NYC_Gal]

My friend works for Samsung, but not in the ESL sector. His housing allowance alone is 2.5 million per month. The salary is phenomenal.

The downside is the schedule. He gets 15 or 16 days of vacation, and works long hours. Kudos for him, though.

[Xylox]

I have to check with my super model wife and two actor kids before I can decide which one of us has the best job, hold on one sec.