Recruiter In Korea

I’ll give you the lowdown.  I’m stating the obvious perhaps but from my experience, the vast majority of employers prefer newbies (from overseas) on E-2 visas.  Of course there are also a handful of schools (mostly in Seoul) who do prefer F-4 teachers.  F-4 teachers though (whether newbie/experienced, overseas/in-country) tend to be the most pickiest in terms of location.  Not only do they want Seoul, they want to be in Gangnam.  If a school in Daegu is looking for an F-4 instructor, I tell them to forget it unless they’re willing to pay the big bucks.  F-2s?  Pretty much the same.  Since they are married, it would be very unlikely they would go far from their residence.  No matter how good your pitch is, you ain’t moving a teacher who is 100% set on location.

Life use to be easier back in the day before the whole visa overhaul bullshit that immigration created with rules that don’t even make sense.  The toughest of the bunch to place however, would be in-country E-2 holders.  Once you have a year’s experience under your belt, you pretty much know where you want to go.  Not only that, E-2s usually want to start a new contract as soon as their current one is finished so the timing has to be perfect.   Also, if you want to change jobs in the middle of your contract, expect to have suspicions arise on why you’re cutting loose before one year.  Regardless if you finished your contract or not, expect your recruiter or potential employer to do a reference check on you.  We take the feedback we receive from reference checks with a grain of salt.  We understand that lots of teachers have not-so-perfect relationships with their managers/directors.  However, it’s always best to at least try to leave on a somewhat good note so that they could give you a decent reference.

Some of you may think that schools prefer to have you on an E-2 so that they could have you by the balls in case you want to leave.  I guess this is somewhat true but always keep in mind that regardless of what visa you’re on, there’s always an opportunity to leave if your employer tries to pull funny shit.  Don’t ever feel that you’re tied into a contract if your employer isn’t living up to the basic standards of the contract.  You could always pack up, get a new job, get  a new visa, go on a quick run, then come back to a (hopefully) better job.

I always laugh at schools who complain that we send them shitty teachers who want to quit 2 months into their contracts.  It’s not the shitty teachers we send, it’s the shitty work environment that you make them work in.

The visa laws here in Korea are unfortunately very discriminatory.  Having an E-2 visa is very restrictive; hard to get a cell phone or sign up for anything on the internet for example.  I had an E-2 when I first came to Korea in 2004 then switched to an F-series visa a little over a year later.  Man, it opened up a lot of doors.  I was able to get a cell phone under my own name rather than having a co-signer, apply for a credit card (sans deposit and co-signer), and my ID number actually works on some sites (albeit not on all).  If you’re gyopo and on an E-2, then get the F-4!!  I know that there are a few that don’t qualify for it but if you do, then having the E-2 is a total waste IMHO. 

If you’re not a gyopo, then just marry your Korean boyfriend/girlfriend:)