Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Riker]

How long is your typical day at a hagwon?

I'm applying for off season public school positions which have an 8 hour day. I would take a hagwon , but all positions I've had offered to me are 9 - 10 hour days. Usually something like 10am-7pm or 10am-8pm.

Seems like you would burn out pretty quick at those hours.

[bobbybigfoot]

My first year gig in Korea was a 7 hour day, 35 hour work week with mindless desk warming built into the contract.

My next gig was a sweet 20 hour week. In and out. The good times lasted about 1.5 years. Times then changed and my work week then hit 30 hours, stayed there for a few months before pulling back to about 25 hours.

Times are definitely changing in Korea. Employers are wanting more for the same amount of money (or less).

[Louis VI]

the standard small town hagwon 3-9pm, six hour day

in eight years here I've never had a hagwon boss who gets out of bed before noon, and all but one closed up shop by 9pm

[Riker]

[Ice Tea]

My first job

MWF: 11 hours/day T/TH: 8hrs/day

Not fun.

[decolyon]

A lot of hagwons are building full time kindergartens into their system. That's where the longer hours are coming from. You'll work kindy in the morning and then hagwon stuff in the afternoon. They get to charge more parents for the kindy and keep paying their teachers the same.

Sad, but that's the reality these days. There are more teachers than they know what to do with so they can pretty much set the terms how they like. If you don't take it, some other poor sap will.

I haven't seen 6 hour days in years. Perhaps some are still out there, but I bet they make you pay rent or don't give paid holidays or something. There really isn't a "great" gig anymore. Either employers are trying to take advantage of the excess teachers and milk them for all they've got, or the schools that used to be swell now have to cut back just to survive.

You might wan to hold off the public school search for a few months. They'll start picking up for the Fall term in just another month or two. If you just have to get here before then, look at a summer camp. Pay is pretty good with those.

[tehdee]

have to say i find myself in a similar boat as the OP.

heading back to korea for my third year, and have enlisted the help of "recruiter nation" [i envision an army of cockroaches scuttling along a tile floor]...

all ive gotten back are the same "9-6" kindy/elementary listings at fly by night gangnam clipjoints. that are making a mad dash to hire ASAP [if the gig was that good, it'd be snatched up by now... how are they having a hard time attracting even the most desperate?]
the after school gigs have been snatched up, and the only public school gigs available around now are out in gyeonggi, as opposed to seoul where im dead set on ending up...

i end up kicking myself for turning notorious 'jes island' and 'hanam poly' gigs down, hoping something better is around the corner. patience, patience... but is there any hope?

[SeoulNate]

There are still a ton of 6 hour jobs out there. I work one now, in Seoul. Also, in my immediate area there are a few openings that I know of hiring for 6-6.5 hour days.

The catch is, they are not being offered through recruiters. Mostly they are through connections or an odd craigslist ad.

If you guys have truly been here before, contact your friends and former korean coworkers to aid you in your search.

[northway]

I work 9-6:30 MWF and 9-5:30 T-Th. If you're teaching the whole time, a la Poly, it's pretty brutal. If you're teaching 30 hours a week and the rest is prep time, it's actually pretty easy.

[jrwhite82]

Yeah those 10 hour days are pretty brutal. If you want something with low hours, look into after school programs. But the Achille's heal of these positions is that your job rests in the hands of little kids showing up to your classes or not. There is no management helping you usually which means if kids stop coming, you're probably going to get fired.

[Joe Boxer]

The worst part of the newbie 9/10-hour workdays:

120 hours - 2.2M, with overtime 20,000/hour

"I worked my ass off for 40 hours/week for three weeks straight! That's 10 hours of O.T. per week. Sweet! ... oh, wait... it's July, and we get the last week off from school, so... no O.T. for me!"

For the most part, working O.T. at a hagwon is for suckers. Holidays will eat up your hours.

If you have some eager-beaver co-workers, let them take the O.T. classes.

[northway]

[furtakk]

Almost all hagwon jobs that have morning hours will have long hours (8-10). If you want to work at a hagwon that has a shorter day specify that you want a job with afternoon hours. They typically run from 2/3-9/10.

Public school is 8 hours a day, but it involves lots of desk warming.

[sojusucks]

If you become a popular teacher at a hagwon, more mothers will bring their children to the hogwan just for your classes, and you may end up teaching more and more classes later into the night. Many mothers recommend good teachers to other mothers and they might all ask for you when they enroll their kids at the hagwon. Meanwhile you may have a co-worker who is also a foreign teacher who isn't as good at teaching and they may get the same base salary while teaching fewer classes. If you are in this situtation be smart about handling everything. Make sure you count your hours for OT pay, if applicable, and keep track of the number of students you are teaching, because if you decide to stay, at the end of the contract, make sure you get the raise you deserve for bringing in more business.

[hamie]

My first job in South Korea was at a Wonderland (Wonderhell) and that was 8am - 4:30pm. My better half though was there from 8am - 7:30pm.

This year we get to work at 1:30 (first hour is planning) and are out by 7:30. It's about to change to 8:00 but we can easily live with that.

These jobs are out there but we have just renegotiated our 2011-2012 contracts so you can't have ours