Job Applications: Phone Interview(s)
In addition to the four applicants mentioned in my previous entry, we received another promising resume yesterday afternoon. This latest individual has spent the last three years working for the same academy in Korea and recently bought an apartment in 의정부 to share with his girlfriend / soon-to-be wife. Our academy director made the remark that his application is both really good and really bad. His reasoning for the first half is that if this teacher spent three years at the same school he ought to be a dependable employee with a fairly reliable character. The perceived downside is that he's already familiar with Korea and has a girlfriend, so - according to my academy director - he won't be the best friend for me. Considering how much I loathed my first American coworker and how the 교포 teacher is always busy meeting friends on the weekend it's not like the situation would change that much if we were to hire this person as our new teacher.
However, what is a little more problematic is his current visa standing. (Wikipedia has a page of South Korean Visa Types that may be helpful for reading this next part.) In his cover letter he mentioned applying for an F4 Visa (actually an F2 Visa - the F4 is for ethnic Koreans while the F2 is for non-Koreans with a Korean spouse) which will allow him to work here. The problem with this is that he isn't married yet, which means he can't apply for the F2 Visa and will either have to go through the process of getting an E2 Visa like any of the other applicants or wait until after his marriage to start working for us. A third option is for him to work illegally until his paperwork goes through but the academy director is against that option.
Today I called three of the applicants - both of the previously mentioned Americans and the newest applicant, who is also from the United States - at times that they said they would be available. The new guy specified a time between 10am and 2pm in Korea and we called at 1:00pm but he didn't answer. Next came the girl currently in Taiwan. She wanted a phone call in the early afternoon, but her flatmate said she was out and would be back at nine o'clock this evening. I tried dialing again at 9:20 but nobody answered.
My third call was to the guy with no teaching experience and, despite it being later than he specified - on account of the academy director mixing up what time zone we were calling - he didn't mind the timing and we spent 20 minutes talking. He had a lot of questions and it sounded like he had done some research before applying, which is a good sign. However, when I asked if he had any experience travelling abroad he said that he had been to South America a couple of times and moved to Colorado for university -- adding that his time in the Centennial State was "an intense experience".
A Google images search for "Coloradan" does turn up Ultratumba's Angry Red Spider; if I had to deal with those on a daily basis I'd probably find life in Colorado to be pretty intense as well. Joking aside, his comment does make me wonder how well he'd adapt to Korea.
[ The Angry Red Spider - Colorado's State Animal. I hear kutay keeps them as pets ... ]