The Interview Process By: Bradley

We had our first interview; it was interesting because it was over the phone with the director of a hagwon.  I was surprised to find out that the director was a female.  To start the interview the director began with a friendly meet and great.  This went well and then the interview went into some important questions.  She asked us why we wanted to go to Korea to teach.  I felt a bit uncomfortable because she was on speaker phone and couldn't quite understand all that she was asking me.  But in the end I felt as if I did a good interview. 

After some time without any interviews we decided to make an introductory video to have our recruiter send to the schools he was contacting to get us jobs.  Boy did this help!!!  We got two interviews the next day and 1 more the day after that.  These interviews were very similar to the first except that the current ESL teacher did the interview for the school rather than the directors.  As Carrie and I talked about which school would work for us we got another email from one of our recruiter’s sources inviting us for another interview.  We decided that if we got an offer from one of the three schools we interviewed with that we would take it.  But, we wanted to do this new interview to have one more option. 

The bad news is we didn’t get an offer from the school we decided to accept.  The great news is that we had the new interview still to do.  This interview was once again with the current ESL teacher at the school, whom was leaving to go back home for personal reasons.  This interview was the best we had.  We answered the questions without hesitation and I felt that we gave all the correct answers.  Our interviewer even told us that we are way more qualified than he and his wife were when they started two years ago.     After the interviewer hung up Carrie and I both looked at each other and smiled. We both know we really wanted this job, we hoped that they wanted us for the job as well.  

We waited a few days to receive our answer because the interview was on a Friday in Korea and we had to wait for the weekend to pass to learn our fate.  Finally, Sunday evening in California, we got an email saying the school would like to offer us a contract.  Without hesitation both Carrie and I were ecstatic and emailed them back as quickly as possible to accept the offer. 

Now we are in the process of sending our paperwork to the school.  The school is called Songwon Elementary School.  It is in Gwangju; this is the sixth biggest city and is located in the Southwestern portion of South Korea.