A lot of people keep asking me, “How do I get a job in Korea?”

A lot of people keep asking me, “How do I get a job in Korea?” So I’m going to start sharing some tips one by one. To be honest, what I’m saying is definitely not the “only right answer.” It’s just what worked for me, and I hope some of it can help you too. I’ll probably write several posts about this, but today I want to talk about two things: 1. Accept that you are in a weaker position in the Korean job market 2. How to write your CV Let’s start with number 1. When I was in school, I thought getting a job in Korea would be easier. The school helped international students a lot, and sometimes I felt like being a foreign student was kind of a special thing. But the job market was totally different. Here’s the thing you need to understand. When a company hires you, it costs them money. So why would they spend money on you? Because they expect you to make money for them. But if your Korean is not better than a Korean person’s, and you don’t fully understand Korean company culture yet, do you think the company will automatically believe you can bring value? Honestly, no. You need to remember this. Companies will constantly question you, doubt you, and try to verify whether you are really worth hiring. Why? Because hiring the wrong person means wasting money. There are so many foreign applicants. If the company cannot clearly understand why they should hire you specifically, you will probably just be rejected. So you need to prove why they should hire you. You need to show that you are worth the salary they will pay you. And the first place to prove that is your CV. Now let’s talk about how to write a CV. Honestly, please don’t send the exact same CV to every company. If you just apply everywhere with one general CV, you’ll only get your hopes up and feel bad when you get rejected. Your CV needs to be customized. HR people look at around 30 to 50 CVs a day. If you want your CV to stand out, you either need to look like Karina or Cha Eunwoo… or you need to make your CV actually worth reading. To make someone want to read your CV, you need two things: 1. Analysis of your own experience 2. Analysis of the JD for the position you want to apply for Let me give you an example. A while ago, I worked part-time at a restaurant. The owner asked me to help manage the store’s social media for a short period of time. I made and uploaded several short-form videos. Later, when I applied for a content marketing position, I didn’t just write: “Managed SNS for a restaurant.” Instead, I wrote something like: “Improved SNS exposure by 150% compared to the previous period through target customer persona analysis and short-form content production.” That’s what you should put on your CV. The point is this: Even if your experience is not exactly the same as the job, you can still use similar experience. Companies don’t just want someone who only follows instructions. They want someone who thinks, analyzes, and creates results. And if you can explain that with numbers and specific details, it becomes much stronger. I think the CV topic will get too long, so I’ll stop here for today. If there’s a position on KOWORK that you’re interested in, leave it in the comments. I’ll analyze the JD and explain how you can appeal yourself for that kind of position in the next post. At the end of the day, the most important thing in your CV is this: How specifically and numerically can you show your relevant experience? Sorry if this sounded a bit aggressive. I said it strongly because I’ve seen many international students and foreign job seekers think about the Korean job market too naively. If you have any questions, leave them in the comments. I’ll try to cover them in the next post. You can also comment with a position you want me to analyze. I truly hope all of you succeed in getting a job and settling down in Korea. Fighting.