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Terms & Conditions of Employment | |
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Chances of Gaining Employment
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Unfortunately, we only able to help you seek employment in Korea if you are a citizen of a country, or hold a passport from a country listed below: USA, UK& Ireland , New Zealand, Australia, Canada, South Africa This is because Korean Immigration will only issue the E2 work visa (solely for the purpose of teaching English) to passports holders of these 6 countries.
If your decision to work in Korea has been strongly influenced by factors other than a genuine 'like' of young children, you may not be prepared for the sudden 'learning curve' that teaching in Korea will give you. Also, you will need to take advice, to train and learn to understand classroom management and lesson preparation. We do experience employer's comments about their teachers, such as:
To work in Korea you must be able to show to an employer that you will do your very best to educate the students with care, planning and discipline. You must be open minded and flexible. You must be able to 'go with the flow' and accept sometimes less than complete information. You must be able to be fun and entertaining, yet professional in your work. Of course, you must not partake in any illegal activities and always strive to demonstrate your good character and preserve the employer's good reputation (i.e. keep drinking, partying, etc. especially within reason in your employment area!) If you are a person who likes to have set routines in your day and you get stressed and intolerant if things change at short notice, or for strange reasons, then Korea will be a very big shock to you. You should not be a person who will be expecting to work to a strict schedule or timetable, or for things to be logically organized and structured around you. This 'magical workplace' does not really exist in Korea, especially in the majority of English schools you may be required to work in. You should be going, not just to make money, but also to experience a new and different life living in Korea and to learn about the cultural differences between Western and Asian cultures. If this is your first O.E (overseas experience), or workplace employment, please prepare yourself for the change as much as possible and take off the 'rose tinted glasses'. In all certainty you will experience the 'homesick blues' and the 3-6 month settling in phase of cultural shock and 'teaching' shock.
An employer will usually ask us to present at least 3 applicants to them to make a choice from. If an employer requests that we only put forward female applicants, then we must do so. The same goes for any request to NOT put forward couples wishing to live together etc. We can only follow the request of the employer. Each employer will have a variance in what they accept but overall the market is similar in its employment practices. It is no use an applicant strongly demanding we 'should be able to find them work' if we have made them aware of the statistical chances for them to gain employment to start with! The fact is that just because a person holds a bachelors degree, is a native English Speaker and has a relevant passport, it is no guarantee they will get a work offer.
We do have a choice to decline to work with any employer we feel is blatantly acting in a discriminatory manner but unfortunately it is often hard to define when employment discrimination has occurred. It is our company policy to effectively do all we can to change the patterns of employment for the future by initiating standards and protocols in international recruitment. Korean employer have the right to select who they feel best fits the job and to work within their own country's laws for employment. They give us their job description and a person specification and request to view resumes to match. We do this for them in a professional manner. Most jobs do have many applicants, and employers have a choice of whom they select, so this makes it extremely difficult to blame 'not getting the job' on a particular discriminatory action against any particular candidate. They do not have to provide any reasons as to why a candidate was not selected. The employer makes a final decision on whom to interview and a final selection. We play NO part in the final selection of the teachers. It is simply no use us trying 'change the status quo' or 'make a stand' against discrimination practices we might be seeing, as we would be effectively 'shooting ourselves in the foot' and losing all our employer customers. In a nutshell, collapsing our own business! We make strong recommendations to an employer and will always try our very best to make inroads to break down concepts and barriers and attitudes. All people who officially qualify for a visa to work in Korea can apply to our program. However, we do guarantee to all applicants that we will be professionally upfront and honest to an applicant as to informing them what we feel their chances of gaining employment will be. Because we have monitored the market for 5 years now, and been involved in the employment processes of hundreds of teachers being placed into schools, we have seen a pattern of employment practices in Korea. Because of this we can suitably give any candidate simple advice as to how we see their chances of gaining employment based on prior patterns of employers selection requests and selection methods. We would feel proud to present any qualified suitable candidate to all our employers but the reality is many people of different ethnic backgrounds, having other than American speech accents or having a less than happy and professional appearance may miss out on jobs. The employer also places a very strong emphasise on a teachers appearance and age. This means that someone who is considered too old or perhaps too untidy or lacking professional appearance will probably not be offered employment. Any applicant falling into these categories could ultimately be extremely disappointed. Many schools and agencies can tend to just ignore or lose applications from people who may fall into these categories to avoid telling them the truth. World English Service Ltd at least promises to truthfully tell the person what their odds of employment may be. Many annoyed and upset applicants can tend to 'shoot the messenger' (ie. our company) when they hear they may have extreme difficulty getting work in Korea or may not be wanted by an employer. But this same 'angry' person can also fail to think of how our staff feel by being honest with them and following our policy of giving them our truthful opinion of what we feel their chances will be. It is never easy giving upsetting and disappointing news to aspiring applicants. Even though we operate our own application procedures without discrimination, it is no use allowing a candidate to spend time and money on an application that ultimately will go nowhere if Korean employers do not easily accept them for employment.
Despite sending many resumes of such applicants who would fall into this category to employers, all employers have simply requested that any ethnic Korean heritage applicants apply through the Korean heritage visas to work in Korea rather then using the E2 native Speaker visa. Our company does not organize this Korean Heritage visa process meaning we will be unable to work with applicants employed for this visa status. Therefore all applicants with Korean background are advised to undertake their own work applications directly with employers in Korea and to check the Korean visa information on our website or at the Korean immigration Office. PLEASE NOTE: We have also never managed to get any person with distinct Asian features (from any North or South Eastern Asian country) accepted for a job, no matter what their qualifications might be (despite always trying our best). Also, if you do have an ethnic background that isn't Caucasian, you may also find a delay or difficulty in being offered employment suitable to what you are requiring. Please check personally with our office regarding this.
We do have a number of schools that require 2 teachers, but they now seem to specifically ask for 2 unconnected people to be sent to them or from 2 different nationalities. When 2 jobs together do come up, the school often prefers at least one of those teachers to have an American accent or to be a female. What we are currently advising pairs of teachers (non married) that it might be easier if they were OK teaching and living separately - and we will try and get them nearby each other. This policy of placing friends close together requires some patience, but overall we have successfully managed to solve a lot of employment issues with thinking of ways to overcome the problems.
Because the retirement age is 60 years any person over 60 will not qualify for a work visa. Most employers are somewhat reluctant to employ any candidate over 45 years of age, even with good teaching qualifications. Any qualified person of a noticeably different weight or height (other than what is considered average for their age) would need to personally check with our company staff for advice as to how we can present them to their very best advantage.
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Our Program | Employment Contracts | Terms & Conditions of Employment Information about Teaching in Korea | Living & Surviving in Korea | Useful Links Applications & Contact Details | Korean Employers Application Form Copyright © World English Service Ltd. All rights reserved. Last updated 17/12/2004. Design & development by Karere.
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Teacher with students |