So you want to teach English in Korea. Ideally, you'd be able to come here to ESL Whitelist Korea, find a job with the conditions laid out up front, and hear from teachers who've actually worked there. You'd know who was making the offer before deciding how much of your own information to share. That's what we're building toward, and it's why I started this site.
But we're still growing, and you might need a job now. Offers are scattered across recruiter websites and job boards, with the same frustrating pattern turning up again and again. An unnamed academy, a vague location, and very little about what the work actually involves. Somehow you're supposed to figure out whether it's a great opportunity or a contract you'll spend the next year regretting.
It can feel like walking through a snake pit, especially if you're applying from overseas. You can't drop by the school, you don't know anyone there, and you're trying to make sense of an industry you've never worked in. Even after more than ten years teaching here, I still have to do a lot of sleuthing when I'm looking for work.
I don't say that to scare you out of coming. I arrived in 2015, and I don't regret taking that leap. Even with a job you love, you'll have your work cut out for you learning to teach while figuring out life in a new country. You don't want the added hardship of finding yourself locked into a horrible contract for a year, counting down the days until it's over.
So for now, let's work with what's available and improve the odds a little.
Step 1. Get enough information to research the academy
You've probably seen ads along the lines of "Job 3618, Gyeonggi-do." If that's all you've been given, the first thing you need is the academy's name. You can't do much research without it. Find out which branch is hiring and where it is, and make sure you know which agency the recruiter represents (e.g. recruiters often post on craigslist completely anonymously).
From there, bring up the academy's website and have a look around. Translate the page if it's only in Korean. See what you can learn about the classes, the students, curriculum, and how the school presents itself. Find their location and see where it's located on Kakao Maps or Naver Maps. Jobs that are advertised as in "Seoul" can be just about anywhere, and while it's true that the city is well-connected, your day-to-day surroundings and experiences will vary tremendously depending on where you actually are. I worked in Gangnam for 4+ years within walking distance of the subway station, the hustle and bustle was exactly what I wanted but it's not for everybody! For some people, having access to nature or living in a more residential neighbourhood is important. I've lived in 7 different areas of Seoul and plan on creating an overview/guide on this soon! The point is, you'll have more useful questions once you know a little about the academy before the interview.
Now often times, when asking for information about a job post, recruiters will ask you to send your resume, passport scan, degree scan, or other personal information up front. I don't recommend doing that. Dozens of random people you don't know could end up holding your documents before you've even decided whether you're interested.
Always ask for the basic job details first before handing over your documents and personal information, and be especially careful with passport scans or other sensitive paperwork. If someone won't tell you which academy they're recruiting for, I'd move on. You shouldn't have to give that much of yourself away just to learn who you might be working for.
We've taken that approach with the teacher profile on ESL Whitelist Korea. The document-readiness section asks whether your paperwork is ready; it has no upload fields for passport scans, degree certificates, or criminal record checks. You can tell an employer you're prepared without handing them copies of those documents through your profile.
My advice is to have the interview and decide whether you actually want the job before sending sensitive documents. Once you're proceeding with an offer, confirm what paperwork is required for your situation and who needs to receive it for the visa process.
Step 2. Piece together the story from teachers
I'd start with Academy Reviews on ESL Whitelist Korea. Over time, I want this to become the place you can come to for teacher accounts all in one place. We're not there yet, though, and the information is still fragmented across the internet. For now, you'll probably have to piece it together across several sites.
Search the academy's name on TokyoJon's blacklist and the HagwonBlacklistKorea subreddit. Dig around in other search results too. If someone has talked about working there on YouTube, watch it. You're trying to build a picture from people who have actually experienced the place.
Pay attention to the dates and which branch they're talking about. Check whether you're finding separate accounts or the same post shared somewhere else. If several teachers describe the same problem, I wouldn't brush that off because someone says they were all just difficult employees. Don't be afraid to confront this head-on in the interview as well; recruiters and academy directors and recruiters are all well-aware of the the blacklists.
That being said, franchises can be tricky. I recently accepted a position at one and was surprised by how much freedom the individual branches had over workplace philosophy, pedagogy, curriculum and scheduling. But if a franchise keeps coming up in the blacklists, trust your gut on it. At the very least, find out what, if anything, the advertised branch does differently and whether your concerns still apply.
And please try to speak directly with teachers there. I mean a voice or video call, ideally, rather than an email passed back through the recruiter/director. It's much easier to have a candid conversation when you can ask a follow-up as something comes up. If two teachers are willing to talk, that's even better. I'd try to arrange those conversations before the interview so I know whether it's worth moving ahead. Ideally, try to arrange the interview with the teacher before or after their work hours so that they can speak candidly and openly.
Ask them what the working day is really like. When do they leave? How often do they take work home? What caught them off guard after arriving? You're about to move across the world to join them, so asking for a short conversation is reasonable. If the employer makes it difficult to speak to anyone, red flag.
Less commonly, you may find no reviews or meaningful information about an academy that you're looking into. People are more likely to post about bad experiences than good experiences so the absence of blacklist reviews is likely a good thing. empty search result doesn't tell you much either. You might just be looking at a school nobody has written about yet. That's when those 1-to-1 conversations become especially useful.
Step 3. Ask direct questions in the interview
By this point, you should have a better idea of what you need to find out. The interview is your chance to put those questions to the employer before you commit, so don't be shy about asking for specifics. Remember, you're uprooting your life and moving across the world for this person, so don't hold back; you're interviewing them too!
Ask to see the schedule
"Most teachers teach about 27 hours a week" doesn't give me much to work with. Ask to see a sample weekly timetable. How long are the classes, how many run back-to-back, and when are you supposed to prepare for them? Ask what changes during the busiest weeks as well. There is a rhythm to most curriculums and academic calendars, so workloads are rarely uniformly distributed. Take for example a writing class that runs on a four-week cycle: topic introduction (week 1), brainstorm & outline (week 2), first draft (week 3), final drafts (week 4). The first week will likely be light, a discussion class and ideation. Brainstorm and outline checks involve some correction and 1-on-1 time with students. Week 3 involves checking entire assignments for spelling, grammar, structure, and lesson application. This is a demanding task, especially if you have many students. Final drafts may involve administrative tasks like writing evaluations and inputting scores into gradesheets. All of this is in addition to your regular classes, so those "breaks" can easily become frantic administrative blocks.
To illustrate the point, in one recent interview, the teaching schedule ran from around 2 p.m. until 9:30 p.m., with classes packed through the day. I mean absolutely no administrative blocks, prep time, or "breaks". No 1-hour lunch break, no coffee breaks, just 5 minutes between each class so that the students can swap out. I asked the interviewer when teachers were supposed to take a break or eat. She replied that there is an hour before classes start (arrive at 1:00, teaching starts at 2:00), so teachers just eat before and then after work for a 10:00 or 11:00 dinner.
Keep in mind, a five-minute gap hardly gives you enough time to use the bathroom, get a drink of water, and load up your slides and teaching material for the next class.
For reference, Article 54 of Korea's Labor Standards Act provides for at least one hour of recess during an eight-hour working day, which employees can use freely. The Ministry of Employment and Labor explains the break requirement here.
Ask when the rest of the work gets done
In that same interview, the workload described to me was around 80 students per teacher, with the 4-week essay cycle described above. So I asked when teachers were supposed to do that work.
The answer was that teachers often preferred to bring it home. Apparently it came down to teacher preference. But if the timetable is already full, how much of a choice do they actually have?
That's where I'd keep asking. Find out how much feedback is expected, how often the writing comes in, and what other reports or daily admin you're responsible for. "It depends on the teacher" only gets you so far when everyone has the same deadlines and very little time to meet them.
I don't want to spend my evenings grading 80 essays because nobody made room for it in the working day. If that's what the offer amounts to, I'd want to know before signing.
It's also why I developed the teaching-to-preparation ratio in our jobs table. It compares advertised teaching hours with the rest of the scheduled hours, so you have something to start from. You still need to ask what fills that remaining time. Meetings and other duties can eat into it, and it doesn't guarantee a proper break.
Be specific about pay and housing
Don't let "you're a new teacher" end the salary conversation. Compare the offer with jobs asking for similar hours and responsibilities, and try to negotiate. If the ad says "2.4 to 3 million won," ask what they're actually offering you and why.
For context, the official 2026 minimum wage announcement gives an hourly rate of 10,320 won and a monthly equivalent of 2,156,880 won on its stated 209-hour basis. That's the precise figure behind the roughly 2.2 million I mention in the video. It doesn't tell you what a teaching job should pay, but it gives you a reference when you're looking at how much work an offer asks of you.
Our salary comparisons use scheduled-hours bands, so a job with a short working week isn't compared with a full-time schedule. You can read how our market averages work before using them to compare offers. They're based on eligible advertised jobs in our data, and you still have to decide whether the actual conditions suit you.
Make sure the base salary and housing allowance are clearly defined in the contract, separately. This is particularly important for anybody looking to eventually transition into a long-term resident visa because points are allocated based on reported income and housing allowance is often excluded from that value. A combined number can make an offer look better than it is. If housing is provided, ask to see the actual place and check the commute.
Check that the contract matches the conversation
I recently attended an interview that was advertising a campus in Daechi but during the interview it was revealed that the position involved floating between three branches. That would have been a nightmare commute (~3+ hours of commuting per day). Ask whether the role stays at one branch and how much the schedule can change.
Help the next teacher find the good places
If you've had a good experience here, please share it through Academy Reviews. Teachers need those accounts too. Tell us what made the job worth staying in and what the school did well. You can also browse the academy profiles to see how workplaces present themselves alongside teacher reviews.
I want us to make the good employers easier to find. When teachers can see where people are happy and why, those schools have a better chance of attracting applicants, and their competitors have more reason to improve what they're offering.
Please include your experience with recruiters as well. You can find the agency in our recruiter directory, open its profile, and leave a review there. If you were drawn in by one offer and then pushed toward a different job, describe what was advertised and what changed, or comment on their overall professionalism and communication with you. If someone pressured you or spoke to you rudely, you can explain what happened in your own dealings with them. The same goes for a recruiter who was helpful and honest; I'd want to hear about them too.
Recruiters have a huge part in this process, and I want teachers to be able to research them just as they research employers. We're trying to improve the whole experience of finding work here.
In the meantime, you can join us on Discord if you want to talk through an offer or figure out what to ask. I'm there as Matt, the founder. I know it's harder to walk away when you're running out of time. I was interviewing with my own visa deadline approaching, so I understand that pressure. I hope these steps help you get a clearer idea of what you're agreeing to while we work toward making this whole process less of a gamble.