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| A sample of a job advertisement I found back in 2012. I guess I don't qualify. |
There are tons of positions to be had throughout Korea, the majority of which are either in public schools or in private academies, known as "hagwons". Most of these jobs are obtained through recruiters. These are the middle men whose job is to find qualified candidates for open positions in Korea.
Why do we have recruiters? Well, since the majority of job candidates speak little Korean, and the majority of school officials speak little English, recruiters are a necessary evil. From the job candidate's point of view, recruiters introduce them to job opportunities they wouldn't have found otherwise.
One day, I began the job hunt for my next position. At this point in the game, I much preferred dealing with schools directly, although I was still open to recruiters if they happened to have the type of position I was looking for. While looking at a desirable position, I thought about the particular recruiter that was offering it. I was pretty sure I had sent my resume to that recruiter before, but I never remembered them ever replying back. I took to my magical e-mail search function.
I was half right. Since 2010, I had sent them my resume 3 times. I had only heard back from them once. In that case, they wanted an interview, but requested a picture beforehand, not realizing I had already sent them one -- it was in the top-right corner of my resume. Nonetheless, I complied by sending an additional photo. I never heard from them again. This, in turn, caused me to think of all of the other resume black hole experiences I've had. I was wondering how I'd have fared in the job search if my skin were a different color. Would I have been treated differently?
