Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Hatcher]

So I see ads for PhDs to move to Korea and conduct research. If they are good, they get resigned. And the pay isnt very good either.

So what PhD is going to move to the countryside of Korea for one year?

[big_fella1]

[PatrickGHBusan]

For a new PhD trying to start his or her career off, 5M a month is not that bad.

Then again, I assume it would depend on the area of study (ex: asian studies grad may find the offer more interesting).

[liveinkorea316]

Haha who told you they are getting offered 5M per month? Foreign post doc researchers in our uni are paid less than half that. I assume that's what the OP was referring to. They live on less than a Korean PhD student gets.

[Chaucer]

Just helped with hiring for two new spots at my university. We had 300 applications--many, many of them Ph.Ds.
There is a glut of liberal arts Ph.Ds out there, and only the best can even get an interview, back home. They need to be leaders in their field, great innovators in the rehashing of literary texts (we asked for a Lit Ph.D), or no job. So, teach EFL and publish some tripe in Korean journals; repeat.

[Weigookin74]

I knew a lawyer who taught in law school up in Seoul. They wouldn't give him tenure, so he told them to eff off and moved to a regional city and got hired permanently with tenure and with none of this one year contract stuff the rest of us have to endure. Maybe he's 8ish million a month. Prob make more in the west, but living cost cheaper here. He's not complaining. I'd gladly take 5 million a month if anyone want to hire my undergrad a$$. Ha ha.

[PRagic]

Depends on the major, depends on the university, and depends on the individual position. One year contracts for Ph.D.s are generally visiting assistant professor slots.

If you're hired on tenure track, then the first contract may be one year, but several universities offer 2-4 contracts. Again, depends on the university and the dicipline. Same goes for Korean profs, too, by the way. The second contract, once the promotion to associate prof has been taken care of, can be for 4-6 years. After that, assuming that you make tenure and full prof (happens at the same time here), contracts are a matter of formality.

If you check out the Chronicle of Higher Education's job board, you'll see some positions for tenure track Ph.D. slots. SNU, Korea U., Yonsei, and Ewha, along with Sogang, Konkuk, and Kyounghee all have a fair amount of foreign tenure track Ph.D.s working across the spectrum of diciplines, including, I believe, some in language education.

The jobs are here if you're qualified. Generally speaking, you need the Ph.D. in hand and at least a couple of SCI/SSCI publications and a bit of experience to even be considered for the interview. Some universities are less stringent, but the bigger ones play by these rules.

Starting salaries for entry level tenure track slots, which are about the same for an initial non-tenure track visiting slot, average at about 60-65 million a year. By the time you're an associate prof, that bumps up to around 70-78 or so depending on your time in rank. Throw in special lectures or research bonuses (several universities provide a payout of 1-5 million per SCI/SSCI publication), and it's not unlikely that an associate prof will be pulling in 85-90 a year, again depending on the time in rank.

Yes, some schools do try to pick up Ph.D.s on the cheap. My opinion is that you're better off holding out for a decent position. You can work cheap and get the experience, but best to move on when the opportunity comes up.