Study Three: The Best Korean Website

>>>Full Study<<< We have submitted teacher profiles to six websites: http://www.elscafe.com/ http://www.marksesl.com/ http://www.hiteacher.com/ http://www.koreabridge.com/ http://www.englishspectrum.com/ http://www.teachkorea.com/. Websites that are hosted from Korean Recruiters such as Work n Play and English Kong have been omitted. It was determined the study would be biased towards the recruiter hosting these sites. The profiles of all the teachers used for this particular study are the same, the only difference are their email addresses. By using this method, the email which receives the most responses can be judged to the most popular website for Koreans seeking new teachers. We will also compare the number of resumes and job advertisements that have been posted on each of these websites. The goal being able to determine which website(s) is the most popular, not only for teachers, but also schools and recruiters. First impressions ESLCAFE is very easy to navigate for applicants. One simply provides an email address, name, advertisement title and profile description. For several years, http://www.eslcafe.com/ has been the best site for job searching. There is no registration required and it takes under a minute to upload your resume and other info into the system. It may take a few hours to be approved but once it’s there it stays. Unfortunately, there is no picture upload space, making it difficult for the employer to see who you are. Another downside is the inability to update or ‘top your resume,’ meaning once it is posted you can not delete or change it and as time goes on, your resume is eventually pushed to the bottom of the pile. MARKSESL is very similar to ESLCAFE except it lacks the latter’s popularity. As well, it generally requires more time on MARKSESL to have your resume approved; however, it does have an update feature, where you create a password to save changes at a later date. HITEACHER, another popular site, takes a little longer to register, but once your ad is uploaded you can edit your entire profile with your user name and password. There is also no approval waiting period. Once you post your resume it is seen immediately. And HITEACHER allows you to upload a portrait. It even records how many hits your ad has received at the bottom of the screen. You can hide your resume from people (i.e. your current school or an old recruiter) and by saving changes to your profile you automatically place it at the top of the pile. I believe this site to be very user friendly and it allows Korean employers the opportunity to gain a better sense of potential teachers. ENGLISHSPECTRUM is very similar to HITEACHER. However, it wants a scanned copy of your degree, leaving you vulnerable to identity fraud. Still, it is a very simple-to-use website. TEACHKOREA, like the previous two websites, require you to create a profile. They send you a confirmation email after you have submitted your ad to activate your account. This would add some extra minutes to the process. In this site you upload your full resume instead of cutting and pasting. This shortens the process by eliminating the need to deal with formatting problems encountered with cutting and pasting or by simply re-typing the information in a provided space. KOREABRIDGE is a mainly Pusan-oriented site, though occasionally you may access jobs from the rest of Korea . It is more of a forum and not so much a job board. You need to log in and then you can select the city you desire. There is also a place for your photo.
Click on images to enlarge		Resume and Job Ads Looking at the facts. Most foreign teachers post on Dave's ESLCAFE. Therefore it is fair to say Recruiters and Schools will have the best luck finding a teacher through this site. However, it is a pay site; to view the resumes you must pay $100. It should be noted English Spectrum is not far behind in the volume of resumes posted. On the other hand, schools and recruiters place more ads on English Spectrum than teachers. Korea Bridge is also a popular site. It is recommended for a teacher to reply to an ad on Korea Bridge or English Spectrum rather than post their resume on these sites. In regards to recruiter and private school ads, I attempted to examine the percentage representing each. However, upon examining each ad, I realized many of the sites posted multiple ads everyday, especially the recruiters. It is impossible to come up with an adequate number representing each. An estimation of “ESL Café” had a percentage of over 70% recruiter ads, “MARKS ESL” about 80%, “Korea Bridge” about 70%, English Spectrum and “Hi Teacher” about 60%. But it was difficult to make an adequate distinction between recruiters, individual schools and school chains. I believe replies to the personal portfolios show a better representation. It is simpler to make the distinction between multiple emails from the same school/recruiter and easier to see the difference between a recruiter company or not. Charts: Exact numbers have been omitted to prevent any problems with the websites. The first two charts compare the number of resumes posted by teachers on each of the major websites. The third and fourth charts compare the number of school ads in a week. Chart One: The number of daily resumes found on each website over the period of one week. Chart Two: The total resumes found on each website over the period of one week. Chart Three: The number of daily job ads found on each website over the period of one week. Chart Four: The total job ads found on each website over the period of one week.
		Replies to Portfolio The replies to portfolios from Dave's “ESL Café” and “Hi Teacher” were almost equal. It should be kept in mind, there are more teacher ads posted on “ESL Café” (see chart one and two, number of resumes) and therefore more competition for each job. If resumes are posted on “ESL Café” within just a few hours of each other, one will inevitably become buried at the bottom before any school views it. Two ads were posted on “ESL Cafe” one at 5pm and one at 2am the next day (labeled eslcafe.com and eslcafe.com 2). They were both approved the following day at the same time. However, the 2 am posting was on the top of the list. The results: 25% more replies. (see chart 6: Total Hit Comparison). Time of day is apparently a factor when submitting an ad to “ESL Café.” Further, investigation shows that "ESL Café" has more recruiters than "Hi Teacher" and "Hi Teacher" has the largest percentage of individual school responses. Charts: Exact numbers have been omitted to prevent any problems with the websites. The two charts compare the number of emails received from resume postings on each of the major websites. The bottom three charts break down each of the emails to franchise recruiter, recruiter or individual school/academy. Recruiter: Someone searching for teachers for any school. They receive a commission for each teacher successfully recruited. Franchise recruiter: Someone searching for teachers for a large school chain such as ECC or YBM. The teacher may work at any one of the school branches under that name. The recruiter receives commission for each teacher successfully recruited. Individual school/academy: Someone searching for a teacher for just one school. This person may or may not receive a commission. In most situations, the recruiter in this case is often the academic director, owner or a teacher leaving their current position. Teachers who try to fill their own position before leaving are usually provided some compensation determined by the school. Chart Five: The number of daily emails found for each website over the period of one week. Chart Six: The total emails found for each website over the period of one week. Chart Seven: The total emails found for each website over the period of one week that represents franchise recruiters. Chart Eight: The total emails found for each website over the period of one week that represents recruiters.Chart Nine: The total emails found for each website over the period of one week that represents individual schools/academies.
		Charts: Breaks down each website into recruiters, franchise recruiters and individual schools/academies. Look at the above note to understand the difference between each.
Conclusions: Keep your resume at the top. Post first thing in the morning (afternoon in America) when nobody else is posting. ‘Top your resume’ on “English Spectrum” and “Hi Teacher.” Be patient. Use English Spectrum to primarily send emails from posted ads and use “Hi Teacher” and “ESL Café” for posting your resume. Be aware there are more teachers on “ESL Café.” You must be fast to get the job. Competition is High and teachers will do anything for the best job. >>>Full Study<<<