Private School Application Process: 1. Submit an Application Interested teachers should fill out the online Teacher Application available on our website. This gives us information about your experiences and preferences and helps us get to know you a bit better. Attach a resume and a recent, formal head and shoulder photograph. Resume Guidelines
Resumes need to outline your work history and should be as detailed as possible to show what training and experience you gained in each position. Any teaching or tutoring experience should be highlighted. Any experience you have working with children is very important and should also be mentioned. Be sure to indicate any travel experiences that you’ve had, especially extended stays overseas. Include your current contact information. Planet ESL will contact you by phone for an interview to determine your suitability before submitting you to prospective schools. Photograph Guidelines
Please be aware that your photograph is very important to Korean employers. Photos should represent how you would look if you were actually going in for a job interview. Ensure the photo is clear, bright, and professional looking. 2. Applicant is Screened by Planet ESL All online applications are reviewed by Planet ESL, to determine a teacher’s suitability for working in Korea. Factors considered:

  1. Applicant’s age: Private Language Schools usually prefer teachers under 40 years of age.
  2. Educational Background: A Bachelor’s degree from an accredited university is the minimum qualification required for teaching in Korea.
  3. Work History: While some schools will hire teachers with no previous teaching experience, preference is given to those applicants who have taught previously, or have experience working with children.
  4. Nationality Requirements: You must be a Native English speaker (English is your first language), and must have citizenship and a valid passport from one of the seven designated countries outlined by the Korean Ministry of Justice (Immigration) to teach English in Korea. These seven countries are: Australia, Britain, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa, and the United States.

If an application passes Planet ESL’s initial screening, they are contacted for a phone interview. This is not an official job interview, but an assessment of a teacher’s suitability for being placed in one of our schools. 3. Applicant is Submitted to Schools After a successful phone interview with Planet ESL, the applicant is submitted to prospective schools. Your resume, recent photo and our recommendation will be forwarded on to the school. This is another reason why a great photograph of yourself is important. It will introduce you to your future employer! Applicants cannot always be matched with a position right away, as jobs matching their specified criteria may not be immediately available. Applicants who are very open to location and student age can usually be placed very quickly, while applicants who want a specific city or age group can take longer to place. Once the applicant has been matched to a school, employers usually decide within a day whether or not they want to proceed to a phone interview. 4. Applicant is Interviewed by the Prospective School If the employer informs us that the applicant is a suitable candidate for their available position, we then arrange an interview. In cases when the applicant isn’t located in Korea, the interview can be arranged over the phone. One interview is almost always enough. Applicants should understand that by the time a school requests an interview, they have already learned most of what they need to know from the applicant’s resume and photograph, and that they are they are impressed enough by what they see to hire the applicant. More often than not, the interview is really just a formality to allow the teacher to ask any questions they may have about the school. In most cases, the interviewer will only ask a couple of questions about the teacher’s previous experience, and in many cases, they may not even ask any pointed questions at all. As long as the teacher speaks clearly and has a positive attitude, the job is usually already theirs. Once an interview has been completed, the employer will usually inform us of their decision within a day or two. We in turn, will inform the applicant of the results immediately. 5. Signing the Contract Employers will then, through PlanetESL, offer a successful applicant a contract. We at PlanetESL review all contracts prior to sending them to ensure that they include all the benefits that our teachers deserve, as well as to ensure that they conform to Korean law. When we are satisfied, we send the contract to the teacher who must sign it and send it back to us, along with a scan of the signed page. This completes the hiring process and we then move on to apply for a work visa for the new employee from Korean Immigration.