Korean Job Discussion Forums

[ella]

My boss is a university professor who's going to be in a village in rural India for the next four months. Will it matter if a potential employer can't reach him right away, or do they even bother contacting references?

[Woland]

My experience is that places that are serious about hiring the best people do check references. I say that as someone who has applied for jobs, who has hired people, and who has been a referee for others. Not every place is this serious. I have worked at places that haven't checked references and have occasionally suffered with the results.

Given that most hiring takes place on some kind of deadline, if the people at the job you are applying for are serious and can't contact one of your referees for four months, that may be a problem. If they're really good, they'll let you know that they haven't been able to reach one of your referees and set you to work on solving the problem. But really, they have no obligation to do this. For most teaching jobs there are plenty of qualified applicants and they can just turn to another person in the pool.

What you might do in this situation is ask your professor to leave a copy of the recommendation for you with another professor at the university. On your CV, list the original professor with contact information and a note that while the professor is out of the country/unavailable, this other professor can be contacted for a copy of the recommendation and give his/her contact info as well. One problem with this is that the recommendation then is generic and not tailored to the job you are applying for. Recommendations that specifically address the job are more impressive. It also might look like clutter on your CV. Think creatively about how to do this neatly.

Another possibility is just choose different referee who can write a more pinpointed letter, even if you feel you are giving up your strongest supporter.

Good luck!

[Yu_Bum_suk]

Few employers here check references. A clear, simple letter from him on university letterhead would probably be better than a name and phone number they won't bother contacting 95% of the time.

[ella]

I will have a letter of recommendation from him on university letterhead, I just wondered if they would need to talk to him as well. He'll be in Delhi from time to time but returning calls to someone in Korea is probably not going to be much of a priority until he gets back to the U.S. and I don't want that to interfere with me getting a job.

[Homer]

Get a letter (and copies of it) as was suggested.

[alabamaman]

I will give you a reference!

[princess]

Well, I have four years experience, but one of my hagwons closed down and the othe one had a change in management. So, for those two places...no references for me.

[guangho]

I have a computer file containing different LoR's, and use different letters depending on the situation. The letters all have contact info but usually people don't bother checking.