Soon I Shall Return

A fair bit has happened since my last post. I got my interview with EPIK, but to my surprise, was not accepted. For a couple of days I was not sure what I was going to do, but I found out that there were other options besides EPIK for getting into public schools. I have since secured a contract working for a public school in Sacheon in Gyeongsangnamdo, not far from Tongyong, where I taught last time.

The interview I had with the recruiting company I chose to represent me for EPIK went really well, because I was open, and honest and treated the interview like a friendly chat and I think I failed my EPIK interview for the same reasons.

I was a little surprised when I saw that the person interviewing me was younger than I was (she looked to be in her early 20s). I remember thinking that it was odd that they would give someone who clearly didn't have much experience with this sort of thing with such an important job. Upon reflection, it makes more sense. There wasn't any real dialogue in this interview: just her asking stock questions and me answering them. I suspect she had a list of acceptable answers and just followed the criteria given to her.

A warning to anyone trying to get a job through EPIK: don't try to be funny or quirky or philosophical. Just answer the questions as you think they want you to answer them. Ask them to clarify their questions if you're not sure how to answer and hopefully they will lead you in the right direction.  

This failing of the interview turned out to be a blessing in disguise. After about a day of personal reflection, I decided to go on Dave's ESL website, and it quickly became apparent to me that EPIK wasn't the only way to get a job at a public school in South Korea, especially if you want to teaching in the southern provinces. After going through one recruiter that didn't seem to know what the hell she was doing, I found Korean Horizons, which was able to get me a job for the following month. In fact, because I went through Korean Horizons, I will get to start a month and a half earlier than I would have going through EPIK, AND, I will be working in the province that I wanted to be in.

So, if you're following this blog, expect the updates to be a little more frequent. And if you didn't pass your EPIK interview don't give up! There are other options out there.