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How Employers Find Teachers
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It is very important that any person considering working in Korea understands the different methods of recruitment. They are as follows:
- Word of mouth among staff or people in the school area, sometimes a teacher at the school is offered a payment or a bonus to get someone else to come to the school. This can mean that the teacher who originally 'hooked' someone else into the school takes the bonus pay and then later leaves the school.
Little accountability can ever be assured with situations like this. Sometimes you won't be aware that the teacher talking to you is actually being paid to say all the good things!
- Approximately 10-20% of schools advertise on the Internet and the director or a staff member deals with your inquiry or application. Sometimes the information will be very biased towards you being told what you want to hear rather than getting the big picture of how this job compares to others.
Some large academies are well organized to do this, but others lack of knowledge of the law and what should be provided and might not understand contract law.
- There are people who have perhaps just returned to their home country from working in Korea and have been told before they left Korea that they will be given an agents 'cut or fee' if they find people to go to Korea to a particular school or franchise chain. Normally you will be 'hooked' into answering any of the frequent small advertisements in local papers with a hotmail address.
Sometimes these 'returnees' develop 'dollar signs in their eyes' and think getting teachers for Korea will earn then a quick buck. There is no accountability in circumstances like this for the teacher who signs up and finds it all goes wrong.
- The school gives the advertisement to a number of recruiters who then actively source names from the Internet of people who have posted inquiries; they may contact a second agent in another country such as New Zealand or Canada. The agent in the other country then advertises employment opportunities in their own newspapers and interested people apply to the NZ agent. The NZ citizen applying for work is often not made aware of the many links in the employment chain, and that their name is being passed on to other agents.
Many times once you have been recruited by a smaller operator in NZ or Canada, the original recruiter in your home country will have no more control over your employment as they will have received their percentage payment from the Korean agent, who then handles your employment from then on, or who then passes your details and documents on to someone else in Korea. (A recruitment services fee is paid by the original academy and then each party involved takes his/her proportion of this fee).
The more agents involved the less likely there is to be any real accountability if something goes wrong with your employment, or if it is not what you expected it to be.
- Some agents are advertising the work opportunities in Korea and not actively declaring they are working through other agents in Korea. Some university staff and lecturers and students (usually Korean) are being able to use their position and status within a university to advertise, within their university, for people interested in working in Korea and then sell the names to other agents in Korea.
The original agent has no accountability under the law if something goes wrong.
- Some large franchise operators in Korea are sending a Korean person to NZ to do recruiting specifically for their company.
At least you are being employed directly by the franchise you will be working for (or are you?). You should correctly check the agent and look at his business card. Then go to the franchise website of the company to check its authenticity. All major franchises and schools do have websites in Korea. Any contract you sign should have the company?s name and address on it not just a blank space to fill something in later!
- There are individual Korean citizens living in a country such as USA or Canada also taking opportunities that exist in the market by advertising for teachers and helping out their relatives and business friends back in Korea.
Once again the chain of accountability is lacking under your own law as you are being employed to work in another country. Unless of course, the Korean agent is correctly registered in your own country as a company and are operating a legitimate business.
- The school approaches a recruitment company directly, or runs its own recruitment program. The head office or individual directors will then communicate directly to the recruiter and arrange personal interviews and negotiations for a specific job. This means the person applying is in a direct communication with the employer rather than being part of a chain! (A professional services fee is paid to the recruiter by the company according to the terms and conditions contract that is in place between both parties.
World English Service works in this capacity with a number of academies and businesses in Korea. You will have direct control over your employment and have contact and support for the full 12 months of your contract. World English Service also operates its own voluntary Standards of International Recruitment.
Design & development by Karere. |
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Teaching in the classroom
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