This is the first part in a series directed to recruiters, employers & schools looking to hire foreigners in Korea and helping them eliminate the mistakes they make when posting jobs online.  Would appreciate your commentary and thoughts below.

Attracting qualified, native-English teachers to a position depends almost entirely on the style of your online job posting.  In this three part series, I’ll discuss content, structure and formatting of an online job posting to ensure that your job opportunity not only stands out among 1000s of other “Teaching English in Korea” jobs, but attracts committed teachers that meet your exact qualifications.

Investing in an online job posting to recruit foreign employees is not an inexpensive proposition.  Some sites will charge anywhere from 50,000 to 75,000 won per posting.  To make sure you get the most for your money, an online job posting must (1) attract the attention of the potential candidate while they are browsing jobs; (2) represent the employer or recruiter in a professional and trustworthy manner; and (3) convince the potential job candidate that they should take action--in this case, submit their resume.

This article focuses on the title of the job posting--the first thing a potential candidate will learn about the job opportunity.

A Single Sentence That Will Ensure Failure...

The title is the most important part of your online job posting.  If the title is not compelling, professional and coherent, no one will ever click on it.  Regardless how fantastic the job is or how well-written the rest of your job posting may be, if no one reads it, you won’t have any applicants. 

Every title needs a “hook;” that is, something about it that makes the user want to click and read more.  When I review the most successful job postings by clicks on HiExpat.com, they all manage to list in the title the most interesting part of the job.  Perhaps its unusually high pay for a role (“Earn 4.2 million Won a Month Teaching English”), the type of job (“School Seeks Freelance English Teacher Consultant”); or even the hours (“Part-time Instructor Sought for Lunch Time Tutoring in Mapo”).  Every job has something unique about it -- your goal is to find that differentiator and use it to grip the reader.   “Looking to be an English Teacher in Korea?” is not enough.

Next, the title of your job posting, as well as the body, must be professional.  Using symbols or strange punctuation will serve only to confuse potential candidates.  Stay away from using stars, smiley faces or ALL CAPS.   Remember your target audience:  young, skeptical, recent college graduates that are constantly exposed to job openings through their schools or other job boards that come from top-notch, global corporations.   These quality candidates are attracted to professional postings because they want to work for a professional employer they can trust. 

“**@@LOOK HERE FOR JOBS IN KOREA NOW!! :) @@" ? will not drive your job posting to the top of their list; instead, it will most likely cause that perfect candidate to look elsewhere. 

Lastly, your title should be concise and coherent.   Job seekers are busy -- they will not waste their valuable job search time reviewing a lengthy title that reads like a novel, nor will they spend hours trying to decipher poorly written entries.  Instead, they’ll skip your job posting and go to the next one that they can quickly understand.  To be concise, your title should be no more than 10 words, and should veer away from abbreviated phrases or slang.   Don’t worry about getting every detail across in the title; you have the entire body of the job posting to do that.  Successful past examples of titles on HiExpat.com include “Private English Instructor Needed for Corporate Employees” and “Native English Speakers Sought as Teachers for Beach-side School in Busan.”   

In less then 2 seconds after reading the title of your posting, a job applicant should easily understand the role and want to know more.  The only time your job posting title might become complex is when you have a very specific qualification that must be filled, such as Korean language fluency or a special type of visa.   Still, if a job has a compelling title, you’ll have applicants clicking through to get the rest of the details, such as pay, benefits, students, classroom hours and vacation. 

For coherence, practice reading your title aloud.  Does it make sense to you?  Have a friend review it with you, ideally one with a strong English background.  If it makes sense when you read it to them, you’re on your way to coherence.    A title that’s neither concise nor coherent: “35,000 won teach PT in a romantic country-side housing not included looking for female Australian with blonde hair and white skin, 1-2 years teaching experience already in Korea and must have existing medical insurance, no calls please apply through the email.”   Not only will few people actually read this title all the way through, those that do will be instantly turned off.  

The worst decision is to create a compelling title that does not match the full reality of the actual job or, worse, is untruthful.  Not only will you have very few applicants, but those that do read the actual body of your job posting will have a strong negative feeling towards you, your school and any future job postings you place.   The community of English teachers in Korea is a close and vocal one.  In fact, a bad reputation in Korea could impact your future recruiting efforts in other countries, as teachers do tend to blog about their experiences, and potential teachers do tend to review blogs of experienced teachers prior to taking a role or moving to Korea.   The good news is, the opposite is also true:  generate a good reputation among English teachers in Korea, and word of mouth will spread to the point where you’ll have potential applicants contacting you directly before you ever post a job!

I hope this Part I was informative.  If you have any other suggestions that have worked, or any problems I missed out on, please feel free to submit a comment!  I appreciate your feedback.

Part II is here:

 How to Write a Job Description

Good luck in finding the perfect employee.

Daniel Behrendt is a co-Founder of HiExpat.com, a website for English Teachers living in or coming to Korea.  The website has over 29,000 registered members and features a job board as well as 100s of posted resumes from qualified native English teachers.  He can be reached at danb@hiexpat.com.

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