Welcome back to part 2 of the craziness. I know these stories aren’t filled with beauty and joy, but I think it’s a valuable reflection of what kind of work goes into the lifestyle. It helps me (and others) to appreciate that it isn’t just luck or privilege that allows me to do my thing, but hours of hard work, lots of determination and not a small amount frustration. In the end it only makes the prize sweeter. So join me as we explore the realities of the job hunt in South Korea.

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EPIK

As I began to apply to university positions, it became clear to me that these were really competitive and difficult to obtain unicorn jobs, which I might technically be qualified for but would also be at a massive disadvantage because I wasn’t already in Korea with a visa in hand. Apparently the catch-22 of needing experience to get the job you need to get the experience is not limited to the US. So I decided I needed a solid backup plan. After all the work I was doing for this Korean visa, it would be a real shame if it all went to waste simply because I overreached in my job applications. Don’t get me wrong, I’m was still holding out hope as many schools said they would be conducting interviews in late Nov-early Dec, but I like back up plans.

I did some research about non-university teaching jobs and quickly decided I didn’t want to work at a hogwan (private language school), but could be open to teaching at a public school where I would have a Korean co-teacher and at least theoretically better hours and treatment than at many hogwans. I found the three main government sponsored public school programs: EPIK, GEPIK, and SMOE. At one time, these were all separate, but now it seems they’ve been blurred together due to funding issues, so filling the EPIK paperwork seems to be the only thing you can do.

I had my intake interview (which mostly felt like, “are you not a total idiot?”) and then received a packet detailing what documents I needed to mail to them in Korea in order to move on to the next step of actually being offered a job. I guess they don’t want to make offers to people who don’t have the paperwork, but I admit it made me nervous to think of sending all the paperwork I worked so hard to get while I was secretly hoping to get a call back from one of the universities. In retrospect, I shouldn’t have worried. It took another month after my interview acceptance to the time I finally got all my documents to send to them, and I’m starting to feel pretty committed to the idea that I’ll be an EPIK teacher instead of a university professor next year.

EPIK Application Form

This form is 8 pages long (not counting the 5 page lesson plan you are meant to attach to the end). It asks for your complete academic records including the names and dates of your elementary and middle schools. (I’m an Air Force brat, it’s not just one school.) It includes several essays, explicit details about any piercings and tattoos, 5 years of residency history and even more of job history. I once applied for a job with the US government that required the SF-86 background form. This wasn’t quite as detailed, but it was a near thing. I sent this form in as an email attachment prior to my intake interview, and then part of the interview process was reviewing the form in painstaking detail to correct any formatting or informational mistakes I had made in filling it out the first time so that I could redo it before printing the hard copy to mail to Korea with all the other documents.

This lesson plan was pretty intense too. When I did my TESOL certification classes, we had to write long elaborate lesson plans basically to demonstrate a grasp of the material we were learning, how to organize a lesson, how to manage time, how to actually teach the material, etc. At no point since then have I been asked to write anything so long as 2 pages for a 45-50 minute class. That’s not a lesson plan, it’s a script. The 5 pages of lesson plan that is part of the EPIK application is ostensibly meant to be 2 pages of actual plan and 3 pages of materials. I don’t have any lesson plans that long from actual teaching jobs, so I broke out the one I used for TESOL and revamped it to fit the EPIK format provided in the application file.

We talked about my lesson plan in the interview, which was fine. It’s actually really easy for me to talk about teaching or classroom management now. They asked me to find one flaw in my lesson plan, which seemed a little odd, cause I’m thinking If I thought it was flawed, I would have fixed it before I sent it to you. But fortunately the interviewer had asked a question about a game I used being problematic for a larger class, sooo I just kind of re-worded his critique and suggested some solutions. Later on, in the email review process where I sent in several more versions of the application to make sure it was perfect before shipping, he told me that my lesson plan was too short because it didn’t fill a full two pages and the ideal lesson plan should really be 2.5-3 pages.

I suppose if you’re reading this blog you’re probably thinking something like, “please, Kaine, we know you can generate pages and pages of text, don’t tell me you can’t bs a 3 page lesson plan”. Of course I can. But my ideal lesson plan looks more like this:

There was just a point where I realized that less than 5% of this application process was about whether or not I was actually qualified to do the job and the other 95% was about my ability to follow precise instructions to meet government mandated requirements. There was no way for me to add more material to the lesson plan without going over the allotted time, so I just had to resort to using the longest most descriptive sentences possible to bring my total length up to about 2.25 pages. Hoop jumped.

Original Letters of Recommendation & Original Proof of Teaching Experience

So, my historical understanding of letters of recommendation is that you request them from employers on your way out for your files. You have a copy in your personal files, and you can show it, make a copy, etc to potential employers down the road. They are not meant to be single use items. People hate writing these things, and it’s kind of insane to expect a teacher, pastor, boss, or other person in authority to write them over and over. Yet EPIK is very specific that the letters must be in their format, and signed in INK (no color printed scanned copies of signatures, INK). So I had to get two brand new letters of recommendation, because the ones I have on file are not in the magical format, and they are electronic copies only.

I hate having to ask for these things. It’s always awkward. It takes up the time and energy of the people involved, many of whom do not have experience writing such kinds of letters and end up stalling because they don’t know what to write. In the past, I have written letters and simply asked the people to sign them. I did this because teachers have asked me to do it that way to save them time and to make sure that the letter has what I want in it. I hate even more having to ask for them on a deadline, or in a specific format, because then I feel like I’m asking for a really difficult favor, which I basically am. Thankfully, I am in a situation where two people are willing to print and sign new copies of the letters they just wrote for me should I need more than one original, but what it basically comes down to is that any time someone wants an original letter of recommendation, expect to have to inconvenience someone in a position of authority over you.

The original employment verification letters may be even more ridiculous, since those are pretty much just form letters given by an employer. I’m honestly don’t know what the obsession with getting your only copies of these letters is. Do they just expect your employers to print and sign letters of recommendation and proof of employment in batches, or is it’s just supposed to be really obnoxious to weed out those who lack grit and determination. Also, while the universities required the proof of employment with exact dates on it, the EPIK program wants them to say “full academic year” if the dates are less than 12 full months. Even though school years in nearly every place on earth are 9-10 months long. So, you may remember how kind and cooperative the school in China was to send me that verification letter in the exact format I asked for back when I was only applying for university jobs? Well, not being able/willing to infer that September to June  is a full academic year, EPIK needs new letters!

As you might conclude from the previous installation, there is no freaking way I’ll be getting this from the school in Saudi. Even if I could convince them to issue a 3rd letter, they won’t mail me an original, because you know, e-copies are good enough for “most” employers. But the school in China lived up to their original niceness and mailed me yet another letter which included the phrase “full academic year” just for EPIK. The good(ish) news is that this only impacts my pay grade, not my employability. None of my other experience will count towards the 2 years for the level 1 pay grade (my summer jobs can’t count because only whole years count, not cumulative ones) and this means I get bumped to a level 2+ pay grade, which is a difference of 200,000 won per month (170$US) so I’m not super happy about the situation, but it isn’t the end of the world.

SMOE

Also known as the “Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education”. This is one of the three programs to hire teachers for public schools through the government. EPIK is “English Program in Korea”, and handles basically everything that isn’t Seoul. There used to be one for the greater Seoul area called GEPIK, but it seems to have vanished. I tried to apply for GEPIK at the same time I applied for EPIK but the “official” GEPIK website routed me to a recruiter for the application page. I couldn’t find a SMOE website at all. Now I know why. Only after you’re accepted by EPIK can you fill out the SMOE attachments, addendum and contract to add yourself to the Seoul list of schools possible teaching pool.

Since I was already filing a huge number of papers, it seemed reasonable to go ahead and print out another ream of paper and initial every page… twice, and thereby be considered for jobs in the Seoul area as well as the rest of Korea.

PICTURES

Another ingredient of the international job recipe that is often discounted: photos of yourself. Pretty much every overseas job wants you to send digital photos of yourself as part of the application process since they will not get to meet you face to face before hiring you. Skype has really helped with the visual aspect of overseas interviewing, but it’s new and everyone still wants to see your picture first. Plus, a lot of government documentation will require “passport style” photos to be attached to official forms. When I was going through the Saudi application process, I spent way too much money getting passport photos from a local drug store at 10$ per 2 photos. A long time ago this made more sense because they had to take your photo against a plain white background and it had to be aligned correctly, then developed and cut to size. Now, you can take your own passport selfie against any white wall and crop it to passport regs in your phone. So why are they still charging me 10$ to take a digital picture?

For Applications

This is going to change from country to country, and sometimes even from job to job within a country. Some places want to see you posing in business dress, others want to see you in a more natural habitat, engaging in your hobbies or out with your friends. Most of them want the photos to be less than three months old. I try to keep a pretty up to date stock of fun photos (no NSFW photos) so that I can provide some shots of me being a fun loving, outdoorsy, go-getter, but the professional shots really confounded me. Korea specifically seems a little schizophrenic about what they want, because I was told professional attire, but BIG smile.I have a hard time working up a fake smile, so my business pose tends to be a small smile, polite and friendly, but not “hey I’m having a great time in this suit!”. The picture I sent to EPIK the first time wasn’t “smiley” enough. However, it’s still easier to do this yourself or with a friend. You don’t even need Photoshop anymore to touch up your imperfect selfies because Pixlr offers most PS features for free online. I was able to remove my facial piercings (easier to Photoshop them out than to take them out for a photo, I’ll remove them for real before I fly out), change the background to a better shade of white, and brighten up the colors all pretty quickly. It’s also great for removing zits.

For Passport Style

To make things more fun, each country could have a different standard size or ratio for passport style photos.America is 2”x 2” square, but Japan and Korea use a rectangular aspect ratio (and cm). So a standard “passport photo” from your local drugstore is not only expensive, it might be the wrong size. When I realized I needed a million passport photos for Saudi, I decided to make my own sort of contact sheet by putting the photos into an A4/letter sized document and just having them printed off on photo stock paper. It was certainly cheaper, but thanks to the internet there’s an even better way.

Here I have one piece of good news for the international paperwork questor. There are about a dozen websites that will take the photo you upload and help you re-size and crop it to fit the passport size for the country you select. You don’t even have to know the sizing (though I like to double check) you just select your country of choice and upload your photo. Here’s the cool part: they turn it into an American standard 4×6 print (or 4R other places) with however many correctly sized photos will fit. Then you simply send this file to a photo printing place and they print you off a copy for less than 1$ (I actually got 4 copies for less than 1$, I placed the order online and the photos were finished and waiting for me in less than an hour). If  you have access, you can even print it out on a home photo printer. This one small breath of fresh air, of ease, convenience and inexpense deserves a standing freaking ovation.

The Final List

I was really surprised at how quickly the apostilles arrived once they were sent off for, and found myself waiting with increasing anxiety on the final document: the second letter from my former employer in China. I passed a couple of weeks by checking and rechecking the checklist, going over my documents with a fine tooth comb to ensure that I had not missed anything, emailing my EPIK liason with re-edits of the application for approval, making copies, learning how to use the scan function on the office copy machine to send myself digital copies, and hunting down “passport photos”. In the end, I had everything ready to go and waiting in a neat little file folder but still the letter had not arrived. To make matters more frustrating, it was coming on time for another couch hop (ok spare bedroom hop) which would take me about 90 minutes of driving away from the address the letter was coming to.

One day after I’d moved across town, I got a text from the former roomie letting me know that the letter from China had arrived. Not being willing to wait another 5-6 days until the next time I had planned to visit their house, I drove up in the middle of the night (after I get off work, plus less traffic) to retrieve the letter. I was so excited to finally have everything together I actually couldn’t get to sleep until I’d gone over the checklist one more time and put everything together for the great mailing. The instruction packet sent to my by EPIK on how to assemble my documents is 15 pages long, by the way. Here’s the final list:

1. completed and signed application + 5 page lesson plan + passport size photo (notice how they just slip three things into one item on the list? sneaky.)
2. scan or copy of the passport : the instructions say they prefer color copies but will accept black and white if it’s legible. I’m kind of wondering since they have a color scan already, why they can’t just print it if my copies aren’t good enough?
3. criminal background check with apostille attached: it’s really important to make sure the apostille doesn’t come loose while you’re making copies of this document too.
4. I’m really happy to have avoided this one, which is only for UK and Australians, but original birth certificate with apostille. I’m pretty sure my original is long lost, but I have this crazy credit card looking one that they were experimenting switching to the year I was born. No one knows what the heck it even is.
5. copy of degrees with apostille: and if you don’t remember what was involved with this headache, check out “part 1“.
6. sealed transcripts: please write “transcript” in pencil on the envelope… 
7. original letters of recommendation: must be on official letterhead and have INK signatures.
8. smoking sworn declaration & tattoo/piercing sworn declaration
9. copy of TESOL certificate with proof that it’s at least 100 hours and proof of how many hours are in class vs online
10. original proof of teaching experience: that letter I had to ask for from China twice, and will now never see again. also please write “PTE” in pencil on the envelope. So much for giving those stamps to my niece.
11. Seoul attachment form,
12. SMOE Addendum,
13. SMOE contract: yes, you have to sign a contract pre-accepting a job with SMOE in order to be considered for a job with SMOE

The next day, once the letter had been scanned and copied dutifully, I checked the checklist and every piece of paper again before sliding it all into a thick manila folder and heading over to FedEx… where I paid nearly 100$ to ship this brick of paper to Korea. I’m really happy to be there, but man I don’t know why we couldn’t just do this electronically for free. I tried to remember how much it cost me to ship my documents to Saudi and eventually realized I never did, I only sent them to a US based visa specialist, so got the far cheaper domestic overland shipping costs.

The Takeaway Lessons

Last year I recommended to myself and my readers:

Do your own research:I’d like to add to that – research should include phone calls and/or emails with a person who will oversee whatever it is or who has undergone the process before. Cursory internet/website research is often incomplete, outdated or just plain wrong. So are untrained cogs.

Have patience: Yeah. That’s really reinforced. I spent three months just gathering the documents I needed to get hired, and I haven’t even started the visa process yet.

Hold on to the story: Last year I thought that was so I could look back while I was having wild adventures and laugh at the red tape blooper reel. I still think keeping the story is important, but now I’m looking at it more as a learning opportunity. The paperwork isn’t going away. Re-reading my Bureaucracy stories from Saudi really put some things in perspective for me about my current trials.

This year, in addition to adding a few caveats to last year’s lessons, I can say I’ve learned the following:

Be as tremendously specific as possible when requesting documents: It’s better to over document, send extra letters, attach extra instructions, assume that the people who will receive your request  are going to do the bare minimum asked of them, or look for a way to avoid doing it altogether. I don’t think this is really true of most people, but it’s like those direction writing exercises we used to do in school, assume you’re writing instructions to an alien and be really really specific.

Leave yourself enough time to do it twice: It turns out I had to do several things twice, part of that was improper research and part of it was lack of super specific requests, but I’m sure there’s something else I haven’t accounted for that will make me need to do something twice again next time.

Look carefully at who or what is causing your frustrations and setbacks: Re-reading my posts from pre-Saudi paperwork made me realize how much of my hair-pulling and head-desking was the result of the company that hired me providing incomplete, contradictory or erroneous information on how to proceed. It turned out that my whole working experience with them was just as frustrating, so maybe I should have been clued in before I ever got on a plane that it wasn’t going to get better. Meanwhile, this time around much of the frustration has been caused by domestic institutions and not at all by my potential employer. I won’t know for a while yet if this is a reliable correlation, but it seems worth paying attention to.

It’s ok to say “no”:

As an international adventurer, I’m usually all about the power of “yes” but over the last year I had some intensely disappointing situations that I ended up having to leave in less than ideal ways. Of course we want to maintain an open mind about travel and adventure to make the most of the time and opportunities. It is important not to wait for everything to be perfect or the ideal situation because we might end up waiting forever. But it can be dangerous to jump into situations that seem too much less than ideal. Looking back on my blogs, I can’t believe I didn’t see what a bad idea that Saudi company was. The job in Japan seemed great until I showed up. My reluctance to say “no” once I realized how disparate the reality was from what I was promised led to a great deal of frustration, heartache and eventually to my premature departure from the country because I didn’t have enough time to search for another visa sponsor. This time, I decided firmly that I was simply not interested in working for another private language school. It would have been easy as pie to get hired by a hogwan, I had recruiters banging down my inbox with private school opportunities, but I said “no”. Only time will tell if I made the right decision, but so far I feel better about it.

and last but not least…

It’s worth it!: No matter how frustrating the preparation work is, or how many potholes or pitfalls I’ve met along the way, I wouldn’t give up the last year of experiences for anything and I’m really excited for the next year, too.