Thursday, April 28, 2005

People who come to this page

Nothing to do with recruiting today. We use something called Statcounter (www.statcounter.com) to see who comes to this page. The response is about as good as I expected - not as much as the main page but still not too bad. Check this out:

15 www.eslcafe.com/jobs/korea/index.cgi?re
7 www.blogger.com/publish-body.
3 hiteacher.com/ads/detail.php?siteid=67
2 www.eslemployment.com/dcforu
2 marksesl.com/Master%20Links%2
1 www.google.com/search?q=pyeongchon&a
1 hotjobs.yahoo.com/jobseeker/jobsearch/linko
1 tesol.net/links.cgi?FA=AdminMod
1 easyenglishcons.netfreehost.com/viewtopic.ph
1 www.tesol.net/teslrecruit.html
1 www.teachoverseas.ca/links/index.pl?read=171
1 hotjobs.yahoo.com/jobseeker/jobsearch/linko
1 www.tesol.net/links/Employment%20(Recru
1 www.teachoverseas.ca/links/admin_confi
1 hotjobs.yahoo.com/jobseeker/jobsearch/linko
1 korea.wikicities.com/wiki/Easy_English_Consulting
1 www.blogwise.com/admin/submissions/index.php?1114279763
1 www.search4blogs.com/bloggers/admin/ind
1 www.google.com/search?q=konglish&hl=en&
1 portal.eatonweb.com/country/Korea,%20South


I cut off the ends of some of the links that were rather unsightly. Long links make the page look like some problem arose when the page tried to load. No, just an ugly link.

Anyway, that's where everybody's been coming from recently! Just thought I'd share. You can also click on the links to see what country everybody's been coming from, what provider they're using, operating system, monitor resolution, etc. Nothing private of course like name and email address, but there's quite a bit you can find out by installing one of these counters. Don't forget that your internet browsing isn't as private as it may seem. Nor is ours. Unless you use an anonymous proxy, of course.

And now back to posting ads.

Monday, April 25, 2005

Public school positions from September

This time around we have close to a hundred public school positions starting in September. The first week of September, that is. Last time we had a bit over sixty and it wasn't all that easy getting them all filled; this time we have even more and so we're starting early, posting on Hotjobs and other paid sites to try to get the widest exposure possible right away.

Korea intends to have one English teacher per school by the year 2009, so these positions are only going to increase. Personally I wonder if that isn't a bit late; sometimes it feels like the fervor for English education has already started to die down slightly. Not that the ESL industry will be going anywhere but according to the latest statistics English webpages are a mere 33% of the internet, down from a high of 85% in the nineties and still going down. In China 800 000 people start using the internet every single week.

For the industry here, that would just mean switching over to Chinese as well. Hagwons have already started adding Chinese to the curriculum and I expect it will just be another subject that people here are expected to study. Probably. The thing about Chinese that makes it easier to study is:

  • Prevalence of hanja in Korean vocabulary. 70% of the vocabulary in Korean originally comes from Chinese. Grammar is easy too.
  • Proximity. It's easy enough to just get on a plane and go to China for a week, stay for a while without using all that much money and coming back wherever. Not the same as packing your bags and going off to the States for a year or two. Prices there are cheaper too, so a student could easily take off to a city like Qingdao (靑島) and live for two weeks for somewhere just under 500 000 won.
Those are two of the factors that might make the Chinese language industry over here different from the English one. It's possible that schools and hagwons here might just stick with the if-you-want-to-learn-a-language-you-must-bring-native-speakers-over-on-one-year-contracts type of thinking that dominates the place now, who knows. We'll know in a few years.

As always, send applications or questions to esljob@hotmail.com.

PS salary for these positions goes from 1.7 to 2.4 million won depending on education and experience. I think they're hoping for a hundred people with master's degrees and a few years of education under their belt, but a bachelor's is enough to get a job there. The pay is lower than a hagwon at first for someone with no experience but goes up after a year and looks better on a resume. Usually more vacation time too. Public school vs. hagwon is always a difficult choice.

Thursday, April 21, 2005

Where is everybody?

Looks like everybody's stepped out of the office to do...something. Then phone calls begin coming in from here and there within the company:
"Is so and so there? Well, what about so and so?"
"No, that person's not here. Nor is the other one. Why?"
"Um...okay!" (hangs up phone)

Just in case anyone thinks that Korean companies look chaotic on the surface but everybody actually knows what's going on, it's not true.

Oh look, somebody just came back. Looks like she went out to buy stawberries. (shrug)

Wednesday, April 20, 2005

Where the links are

Every once in a while we'll submit our site to a directory that requires a link in return. That's understandable. We'll put them all here with a small description of each as we go along.


THE LINKS


Blog Directory & Search engine


Blog Directory / Add Your Blog
The Google / Yahoo alternative



Mark's ESL World Jobs



Blogarama - The Blog Directory


Find Blogs in the Blog Directory


Listed in LS Blogs






Tuesday, April 19, 2005

Two positions worth mentioning again

We have a large number of positions on our site but there are two that are worth recommending as they are apparently quite good.

The first one is a school called GnB in Seoul which apparently is quite a low-stress environment:

Basic Information
Job Type full time
Name of Employer GnB school (서울)
Contact person Miss Lee
Location Seoul
Closing Date ASAP/May 16th 2005
People needed
1

Class Information
Student Type Elementary
Students per class 12
Working hours/week 30 hours/week
Working days M-F
Time schedule 2~8pm
Housing allowance optional

Benefit
Monthly salary 2.0millon Korean won
Bonus One month salary
Type of Housing single
Over time rate 16,000 Korean won
Vacation 10 Days + Korean holidays
Airfare round trip
Medical Insurance 50%
School or Housing photo
Comments 용모단정,국내거주자 우선 - prefer a candidate already within the country, neat appearance.




The next one is a position that pays higher than most, and is quite a nice place. A lot of hagwons will attempt to reduce or eliminate benefits if the applicant is a Gyopo, but this one gives the same benefits regardless. They do prefer someone with a major in education though. Notice that they pay anywhere from 2.2 to 2.7 a month, which is normally unheard of:

Basic Information
Job Type full time
Name of Employer Pyongchon Poly( 경기/평촌)
Contact person Robyn
Location Kyeong gi
Closing Date ASAP, April 25th
People needed
3

Class Information
Students Type Kindergarten,Elementary,Middle
Students per Class 10
Working hours/week 30 hours/week
Working days M-F
Time schedule 10-7pm / 2.4-2.7mil.
1-9pm / 2.2-2.4mil.

Benefit
Monthly salary 2.2~2.7 mil. Korean won
Bonus One month salary
Type of Housing single
Over time rate 15,000 Korean won
Vacation 10 Days + Korean holiday
Airfare round trip
Medical Insurance 50%


Pyeongchon is located on line 4, just south of Seoul one stop before where lines 1 and 4 come together.



As always, send applications to esljob@hotmail.com.

Removing Konglish

We've almost gotten all the Konglish off the site. The only bits left are the ones that I can't get at - the windows that pop up when applying on the site. Over at
http://www.eze365.com/english/working_in_korea_application.htm
where people apply, there's a section called 'overtime rate' where teachers are supposed to enter the hourly rate they would want for overtime work. If it isn't entered a window pops up and says "Please enter overtime late!" or something of the sort. *^^*
So that part needs changing. Besides that I think I've gotten rid of all the Konglish. Let me know if you spot anything else on the site.

Just checking

Just checking to make sure everything works.
This is Easy English Consulting.
http://www.eze365.com is our home page.
한국어도 잘 되네요
All right.