New Part-time Employee

I need some help working on Seoulistic.com. So I posted on the sites I mentioned in my previous post. I am not offering much as this is coming out of my own pocket, so I went with a student as my first employee.

I love Korean student employees. The younger they are the better (chill, I’m not a creep! just read on). When I was working at KoreanClass101, my first part-time employee was Minkyung. At the time she was a 20 year old college student just looking to make some spending money. It wasn’t a lot of money, but she appreciated it. And she was really sincere and hardworking.

That was in Japan. Now I’m in Korea, and minimum wage in Korea is about 4,600 won an hour. So I know any Korean student would jump at the chance to do easy research work from home for what I’m offering, 8만원 a month (about 70USD). They’ll appreciate anything that doesn’t require serving food in a McDonald’s uniform.

So I picked this 19-year old kid with no job experience at all. When she replied to my ad, she had no resume and said she had no work experience (not exactly the best way to get a job!). When I met her, she seemed lost and it seemed fairly obvious that she had never applied for a job before. But that’s the exact reason I chose her. I know she’ll do what I ask without complaints. She already seems to be hardworking and sincere. And as long as I’m fair to her, I’m sure she’ll keep doing this until she’s got something better going on.

I would like to build my entire team with these college kids. But I mean, that’s not really sustainable nor very smart. But for the time being, these kids are perfect for what I need!

Job sites for Korea – Still a Pain

In my last post I mentioned I was looking to hire Korean natives through craigslist and networking. That didn’t work out too well. I was going to go through the streets and start posting some fliers, but before I could do that I met with a friend who told me about some more online resources for hiring Koreans.

She said that Naver.com and Daum.net both have cafes that are useful for hiring.

Here are the job sites she posted on:
http://cafe.daum.net/breakjob
http://cafe.daum.net/4toeic/

These are exactly what I was looking for: free job postings to a site with tons of people looking for jobs. No stupid Korean business registration number, no fee to pay. Just post and let the applications flood in.

But it’s still not that simple for foreigners, mostly because we’re not used to the whole online “cafe” system. These are essentially online forums with added levels of difficulty. Korean internet is a royal pain in the ass. Here’s a typical example of Korean cafes:

Me -> I want to post so I go to the site.
Site -> Says I must sign up.
Me -> Ok cool. I’m in. I press “write post.”
Site -> Says I must upgrade to a “regular member” to write posts.
Me -> Why? Fine,  how do I do it?
Site -> Request the admin to be upgraded.
Me ->  WTF why??? Fine. Done. Request made. Press “write post” again.
Site -> Your request must be approved by an administrator.
Me -> AHH whatever… fine. I’ll wait.
Site -> (next day). Congratulations, you have been upgraded!
Me -> Finally! Press “write post” again.
Site ->  You must write 5 comments in order to post.
Me -> …. I hate you…

To Koreans it’s normal protocol on the internet. To me, it’s like having an argument with my mom: I don’t understand half the things she says and I never win.

I didn’t even try this time. I asked my friend to post for me, and within 1 hour, I already have about 10 applications. I’m loving that I found these sites. But it still doesn’t change the fact that I freaking hate the Internet in Korea.