Getting Your Documents in Order

Before you start applying, it is absolutely necessary to start getting your visa documents together first. Even if you only think you might be interested in a job in Korea, you should still get rolling on your documents so you are ready to grab opportunities down the road. By far, the most time-sensitive aspect of this whole process is the FBI criminal background check, required by Korean immigration law. The FBI website states that a background check can take up to 12 weeks, and from what we’ve been seeing lately this is no exaggeration. Therefore, if you are considering getting a job in Korea at all, we highly recommend that you get fingerprinted and send in your request for a background check right away. (Look for an upcoming post from Lindsey that will explain everything you need to do.)

Private Schools

Most private schools (hagwons) in Korea hire new teachers year round, so there is no “right” time to apply for a job in the private sector. Once you know when you’d like to be in Korea, it’s best to apply 2-4 months in advance. There are “high seasons” from December to February and June to August when you have the best chance of getting many job offers to pick from but, again, you can get a hagwon job at any time of the year. Lindsey and I both had private school jobs our first year and this is what our application timeline looked like:

As you can see, we started applying just less than two months before we started our jobs, but what the graphic doesn’t show is that we started gathering our E-2 visa documents in September. Those two months were also quite stressful for us, because we were crossing our fingers that our criminal background checks would arrive in time! So our advice is to make it easy on yourself and order your background check at least four months in advance.

Public Schools

Public schools hire almost all of their new teachers at the beginning of one of the semesters: either March 1st or September 1st. And they begin accepting applications six months before the start of each semester. It’s also important to note that public schools hire applicants on a first-come-first-serve basis.  So if you are qualified and excited by the benefits of a public school job in Korea, the best times to apply are in April (for September start date) and September (for February semester). Keep in mind, however, that these are the earliest times you can apply–if you’re not ready to apply by these times, don’t worry, but it’s a good idea to apply for public school jobs at least four months before the coming semester.

Do you have any questions we didn’t answer here?
Not sure if you’ll be able to get all your documents together before you want to take a job in Korea?
Leave us a note in the comments below and we’ll do our best to help.

We wish you the best of luck!