Research South Korea

If you read my last story, you will know I spent a lot of time researching South Korea and jobs there. I spent months reading blogs, watching vlogs, making sure I had tons of apps downloaded in preparation. It wasn't until I felt comfortable with the culture and had committed to leaving my life in the U.S. that I started looking for work.

I ended up going through a recruiter. She did not listen to me, constantly lied to me and the schools I was interviewing for, and didn't want to fight to get me the pay I knew I deserved - I'm not fresh out of college. I've worked as an educator, I have a Master's in Education and a B.A. in English. Starting salary for a foreigner just out of college with no experience in education is approximately 2.1 million won per month (under $2k USD).

After my first contract fell through, I decided to post my resume to Dave's ESL cafe. I had A LOT of recruiters contact me and I took on another three or so to try and find work. Of these, only one made me feel like I was being reasonable in asking for a living wage, but was realistic in the fact that many hagwon wouldn't want to pay that. There are a lot of naive people out there that will take a low salary just to get to Korea. I'm talking 1.7m krw/mo. I'm talking 10 hours days. Make sure you have a contract that is reasonable and you are willing to work with and stick to. If anything sounds strange, ask for them to take it out or revise it to say what they think it's supposed to mean; a lot of hagwon will try to explain away why certain things are in their contract, but unless it is clearly stated in writing, they'll throw the contract back in your face later.

Read through your contract carefully. The contract I finally ended up taking, I had a lot of issues with. I went through each page and marked out things I knew to be illegal (make sure you go to the Ministry of Education and Labor website or join LOFT on fb so you know what your rights are) and also reworded things to mean what they were supposed to and make it more palatable for me. The school came back and said their lawyers wouldn't approve any changes. I asked for a letter outlining the issues I had and how those provisions of the contract were not applicable (not why they weren't applicable).

If a school isn't willing to make these changes or write you a letter to this effect, don't sign the contract. If you do get a letter, make sure it addresses all of your concerns and that it is stamped with the promisor's seal. If it isn't stamped, there's no way to prove that the person who gave it to you has even seen the document, much less approved it.

Check with the school whether there are apartment management fees and if that is included in your housing - Korean apartments have apartment managers who clean up the hallways, hold onto packages for tenants if unable to be delivered to the unit, etc. These costs are not included in rent, but placed as a separate fee. If your school is covering your housing, it doesn't necessarily mean they're covering the management fee (though you won't know there is a management fee until it comes time to pay). If this is an issue, try to get the school to add it to your housing and, again, get an explicitly stated letter saying that the school is covering it as a part of your apartment/housing costs.

Utilities will always be separate - water, electricity, internet. These shouldn't cost much, maybe $100-200/mo. depending on your internet package. The high cost, I've seen, is water - the floors in Korea are heated by water (make sure you leave your water heater off unless in use). This takes a lot to heat and pipe the water and can be a surprise on your bill. All of the blogs and vlogs I've seen say to keep this off when you're not in the apartment and to use sparingly.

Due to the COVID pandemic, South Korea is being very strict (yay!) with how things are being handled. You will be required to quarantine for two weeks (see video). I made sure that my school was covering my quarantine cost, but still they tried to spring additional fees on me; when I arrived, my apartment wasn't ready, so they had to rent an apartment for me to quarantine in - they were trying to get me to pay apartment management fees and utilities for both apartments. If you have to quarantine somewhere other than your own apartment, make sure you get it in writing that they are covering all costs, including housing and whatnot. It is not your fault they weren't ready for you to arrive - alternatively, you could have gotten an approved airbnb and not have to worry about all that.

When in doubt, just turn down the contract. It is expected that the public school options (EPIK, GEPIK, etc.) will be open for foreign applications the next school cycle (September 2021), if you want to bypass the hagwon route and get hired directly by the South Korean government to teach. Just keep in mind that public school teaching means you will be possibly the only foreigner/fluent English speaker at your school and you could be teaching at multiple schools/locations, but you also won't have to deal with non-payment like many hagwon workers do.