Korean Job Discussion Forums

[rvintage]

My friend wanted to come to Korea, so I told him to send me his resume and I would pass it on to some schools that I knew that were hiring.

His resume ended up in the Head Office of GNB Pusan, who wanted to hire him. I have another friend who works for A GNB Head Office in another city, who said that everything was straightforward and no problems. They had just gotten a new teacher and she wasn't made to work before her visa run.

He had some other offers, but nothing fantastic, so I recomended he take this job at GNB. They wanted him to come right away and go on a visa run. I told him that was no problem as long as he didn't teach before his visa run.

So he arrives on a Sunday night then is told to work on Monday morning. I am out of the country when he arrives and for the next week so I am unable to be contacted for advice.

Anyway, blah, blah, he says he doesn't want to work, they say it's o.k. because he's going on a visa run in a few days anyway. So, Wednesday, they put in the paperwork for his visa at immi, and what do ya know, here they come that same afternoon and bust him teaching on the monitors.

So he spends the next two days at immi, where he meets 3 other teachers WHO HAVE BEEN WORKING AT OTHER GNB BRANCHES IN PUSAN ILLEGALLY FOR MONTHS!!!! He's scared shitless about what's going to happen to him.

He and the school are heavily fined, until the director pulls the normal strings and the fees are reduced. Then the school is told that they are prohibited from hiring another teacher for a year unless he signs these papers(don't know what these papers were or anthing). Being new and dumb, he signs them..

He is told that he cannot work for GNB and that he has 2 weeks to go on a visa run with another school or go home. So he contacts a recruter who finds him a job, which was a pain in the ass because of his situation.

He files for another visa, he is denied and told he has been blacklisted. So he has been royally screwed, yes, partly because he was new and dumb, but because GNB did nothing but help themselves while giving it to him in the ass. Which is what I fully expect of hagwon, it just sucks that this has happened to my friend at a job that I kinda recomended.

Needless to say I feel horrible about his situation(he has to go home and live with his parents with no car, no job, no money, no possesions, nothing) and thought that this story should be told.

THEY ARE OR WILL BE LOOKING FOR ANOTHER TEACHER! BEWARE!!!

[PortHardy]

That's a shite situation but I think it was just bad luck.

Lots of schools have teachers work while their visa is being processed and never have immigrations drop by. Maybe immigrations has gotten smart and now visit schools when they start a visa application and the teacher happens to be in Korea? It's what I would do if I worked at immigrations.

Also, I am very surprised that he was deported. I know 5 teachers that have been caught in the same/similar situation and only one was given a 6-month ban. She had been working for over 3 months and the stupid school hadn't filed her visa application yet. She's American so she's only allowed to have 30 days in Korea as a tourist. She just didn't know but was fined 500,000Won.

The other teachers only got a fine that was paid by the school and their E-2 visas were allowed to be made.

It seems like immigrations have gotten a lot stricter as I saw on the news that they caught 40+ teachers in Busan on an immigrations sweep 2 or 3 weeks ago.

So, no matter what your school tells you, don't start teaching until you get your E-2 visa.