I have been hiring teachers at my school for the last year or so.  Recently, I have been involved with hiring my replacement and have been interviewing teachers. I finally narrowed it down and offered a contract to a teacher who I think is going to be a great addition to our school.  We have now started the process of acquiring his visa and he should be in country by the next to last week in October.  I had to sort through so many bad resumes.  It was no fun.

Here are a few tips for people that are going to apply for a job in Korea.

  • If you must send a photo, choose wisely.  Do not send a photo of your self drinking a beer, dressed to casually, doing anything stupid, or hugging your best friend.
  • If you have a blog and regularly post items that are intended for adults, it is probably not a good idea to have a link for your blog as your signature in your emails.
  • You can find out a lot by searching for someone’s email address/user name.  Again, if you post to adult sites, dating sites, Facebook, Twitter, or any other kind of social media site, know that your information is out there to be read.
  • Your cover letter and initial email will be read.  That red line underneath the word indicates that you misspelled something.  Please use spell-check.
  • I am no where near an expert in grammar or writing, but if I read your cover letter and use it in my class as a “find the errors exercise”, you are not getting hired.
  • I actually received a covered letter with an animated gif.  You may think it looks cute, but I mean come on.  Who even uses animated gifs anymore?
  • I did an interview last week with a prospective teacher who was out drinking with his friends.  He had set the time for the interview.  I offered to call him back.  He tried to explain why I should hire him, slurred speech and all.
  • If you have worked in Korea before, be honest about your past work experience.  I know that there are some evil hagwon directors out there.  Explain your situation before we call your old school.  If you were fired or pulled a runner, tell me why.
  • When I ask if you are working with a recruiter or have sent any of your information to a recruiter, be honest.  About 6 months ago, I was interviewing a teacher and asked if she is working with a recruiter.  She replied that she had never talked to any recruiters.  I get an email from a random recruiting agency the same day saying that he had a good teacher that I may be interested in hiring.  Same girl.  We didn’t hire her.
  • Don’t lie about your Korean ability.  This is actually quite ridiculous.  We hire people all the time that have no Korean ability at all.  Why lie? If you say that you have a very good command of the language and have Korean friends that speak no English, you should at least be able to introduce yourself to me in Korean.  If you can’t say ” Hello, My name is ________” in Korean, you can’t get away with saying that you have a good grasp of the language.
  • While having an interview, don’t be afraid to sell yourself.  You don’t have to go overboard, but telling me you can’t find a job back home is not a good sign. I know that the economy is rough, but if this is your only reason for coming to Korea, I am probably not going to hire you.
  • Be young(or at least look young), white and female.  I really have a problem with this and wasn’t even going to include it, but if you fit the category, I bet your resume gets looked at first by hagwon directors. I have a director that is really opened minded and so have never really had a problems with this, but we don’t have any teachers over 40 either.

This will be last time recruiting in Korea for awhile. I will be relieved when our new teacher arrives in Korea and begins his training.