Anyone here working in Korea? Just starting a thread to share info and experience, organize meet ups, etc.

I'm just into my 2nd month working in Seoul. I can share my limited experience/knowledge thus far if anyone is curious.

This post has been edited by thurtin: Mar 15 2018, 04:45 PM

What do you do now and what do you plan to do there? Do you speak and write Korean?

Korea is not an easy place to find a job if you are not Korean. Period. The easiest and most popular job for non-Koreans is to be an English teacher but you have to be from the list of approved countries with English as the first language. Malaysia is not one of them. I heard and read that there is a demand for programming and engineering jobs for non-Koreans but I dont have the details. You are also unlikely to get a work visa without a sponsor.

As for me, I am in the communications field. I quit my old job in an international agency in KL and while on a break, I was asked to join my Korean branch. I don't need to write or speak Korean in my current job which is not very common in Korea.

Average salary in Korea for professionals is about 2k to 5k usd per month. Living expenses in Korea is probably medium-high, somewhere between Singapore and Hong Kong. Monthly expenses are from 500 usd to 1.5k usd per person excluding rent.

The rental system here is kinda complicated. You may need anywhere from 1k to 30k usd as rent deposit with monthly rent payments from 500 usd to 1.5k usd on average for a room or small studio.

Summary: Yes, I did quit my old job. So happen that while I was on my break, the Korean branch office was looking for someone that could read and write English well with the relevant experience. I was hired.

There are 3 systems actually:

1. Jeonse - pay a deposit between 50% to 80% of property value. Rent is then usually free or super low, like maybe less than 100k won.

2. Wolse - pay a deposit anywhere from 10 to 50 million won. Rent is then "market rate", anywhere from 300k to 1 million won depending on size and location

3. Western system - pay a deposit of 1 or 2 months rent in advance. Rent is then higher than market rate, about 20% to 40% higher.


It has always been option 1 or 2 all this while. A lot of Koreans cannot afford the deposit, so they have to ask their parents or take a loan from the bank. If you are foreigner, you have to figure out how to pay the deposit if your employer is not covering it.

Option 3 is getting more popular because bank interest rate is very low now. Landlords cant make money from the interest anymore, so they prefer to get more from the monthly rent.

Cool. Where are you based and what are you doing?

Nice. Suwon is quite far from Seoul. Good luck and all the best.

Yes for sure, i stayed for over one month in airbnb before i found a place to rent. Short term room rental is generally expensive and kinda hard to get in certain areas. Either they will want minimum one year or a very big deposit. Maybe in expat areas they can do short term, but its probably still gonna be expensive.

I read its possible just with passport, but depends on which telco and shop you go to. Some of the staff may not be familiar with the process. KT seems to the be one that is foreigner friendly. Try to go to the nearest one and ask. Good luck.

If you are applying for the E-7 visa, your Korean office is supposed to do most of the visa application for you. That's what I was told. My company hired a specialist lawyer to do this for me. I was only required to submit the necessary documents which had to be certified. Even that was a pain because the Korean government wanted things like proof of employment all the way back to my first job. lol.

I don't know if you know this already but it seems that getting your documents notarized is not enough now. It has to be apostilled as well. See here

I would suggest you ask your company and embassy clearly on all the documents you need. You would also need to do health check up and TB test. Would save a lot of trips and headache. FYI, it took me about 1 month+ to get the actual visa.

I got mine done in 2017 before the new requirements came into effect, so am not sure how this aspotille process works. Sorry. I just remembered that I had to get my previous workplaces to write me a letter to prove that I used to work there. I then made a 2-week trip to KR to pass all my original docs like school certs, etc to my HR. They then got the lawyer to sort it all out. I think it's best you make a trip to the KR embassy in KL to get detailed instructions on how to get everything in order.

The cost of living in KR varies on location and lifestyle. Incheon is probably a bit less expensive than Seoul, but by not by much. Is your company covering your rent first of all? That is probably the biggest cost. Have you read up about the key deposit money or jeonse/wolse rent system? If your company is not covering the key deposit money and/or monthly rent, that expense will be very high.

I would say the basic expenses alone excluding rent would be about 400k to 500k KRW a month in KR. For me, I think i spend about 500k to 800k KRW a month just on meals and entertainment. I used to live 10 mins away by foot from my office so I don't spend much on travel to the office.

Are they taxing you based on the fixed expat rate or are they putting you on the local tax rate? PM me your salary, position and package. I kinda know the market rate for expats and locals because my colleagues has shared a lot of info with me before. I can help with some intel if you want.

Yes, its good that they are covering your rent and a bit of the food. Those two are probably the biggest cost to your monthly expenses. Subway is considered affordable in KR because most stops are only 1250 KRW. Taxi is not too bad too with most rides under 15k to 20k KRW within Seoul, but rides in and out Seoul will be expensive.

Cost of a normal meal in Seoul is anywhere from 5k to 15k KRW. Three meals a day for 30 days is then about 450k to 1.35mil KRW. You can do your own math for your own food budget. This is all purely eating out.

You can save a bit if you cook mostly Korean food and eat it for days, but you will get sick of it really fast. Imported stuff is expensive and not easy to get. To be honest, I find it cheaper and easier to eat out than to cook for one person.

Sorry for late reply. From what I know, the tech market is very insular and domesticated. It's hard for foreigners or non-native speakers to get a job with any Korean companies. Things are changing, but I would say the majority of tech companies, even the big chaebols like Samsung, LG, Hyundai, etc, still mostly hire locals.

I know the korean companies targeting the global market and startups do hire more foreigners, but positions are limited. You would need to be either very experienced or offer a specific set of skills that locals do not have. What these skills are I'm not sure but I'm guessing it's the stuff that is trending now right, e.g. AI, machine learning, cloud, fintech, etc.

Good to have dreams, but here is the reality in KR as far as I know from my observations and conversations with former colleagues.

The job market in KR is very competitive because they prioritize locals first and which university that you graduated from matters a lot. The good (tier 1) jobs first go to those that graduated from the SKY universities. Then the tier 2 jobs usually go to next Big 8 universities graduates. If you didn't graduate from a top local university, employers then usually will only consider those from the Ivy League schools. I heard that they might consider graduates from top UK schools, but they prefer US schools more than anything because KR is very US-centric.

A degree is pretty much a basic requirement because a lot of KR graduates have more than that, e.g. double majors, double degrees, masters, etc.

For foreign graduates, you pretty much will be judged on the same standards. If you didn't graduate from a top local or US school, your chances will be super slim - almost zero. I would say 80%/90% of companies do not hire foreign graduates unless you are super smart or what you studied is very specialized. The tech/startup sector is booming in Korea, so those guys may hire foreign graduates for technical talent like programmers, data analysts, AI specialists, etc.

On top of the "right" qualifications, you need to also know how to write and speak Korean because 80% to 90% of the time, everything will be in Korean only. If you don't come from the right school and can't speak Korean, your chances is guaranteed to be zero.

There are also other factors like visa stuff, understanding of Korean work culture, work experience, employer background/size, industry, etc that also matters, but I think the two requirements above are the two most important ones that you have to get past first.

Is it impossible for you to get a job in KR? No, but it will be extremely hard.

If you didn't get what I tried to say in the previous post, I think should you try to look for a job in Malaysia first when you graduate.

Wow, didn't realise that this was quite a while ago. Anyways, without knowing your exact details, I would say the most realistic pathway to getting a job in Korea is to work in a Korean MNC where you can potentially transfer there. Finding a job directly in Korea at your level will be very difficult for various reasons I've shared before. What would help you improve your chances are the criteria below.

1. Read and write business-level Korean

2. Understand and know how to apply the formal/informal customs and work culture

3. Have a lot of experience. tbh 7 years is not much. It's just their daeri (assistant manager) or gwajang (manager) level.

4. Have a specific skillset that no Koreans have. While mass comm is not a unique skillset that Koreans lack, it can be something specific within the space that gives you an advantage, e.g. experience in marketing/selling Korean brands to a global or specific market, experience in a niche industry, etc

5. Worked in large recognisable global or Korean MNCs

6. High level command of English. I know its weird, but Koreans do have a thing for "native English speakers" or foreigners who speak it very well. Also, if you can speak other languages like Mandarin, Indonesian, French, etc, that can also help in certain cases.


To be very frank, it will be probably easier for you to find a job in Singapore compared to Korea. But hey, never say never. Try looking online for jobs in Korea and apply from there. I'm sure you will get feedback or at least a sense of what you need to do to improve your chances. Good luck.