Safety & reporting
Most Korean employers are legitimate. Here's how to handle the ones that aren't.
UPDATED 2026-09-02
What are the red flags in a Korean ESL job offer?
Stop and ask questions if…
- Anyone asks you to pay money for a job, a placement, or "visa processing". Employers pay recruiters — you never should.
- You're asked to send your passport scan, diploma, or apostilled documents before you've had an interview and a concrete offer from a named, verifiable employer.
- The contract differs from the listing — different salary, more teaching hours, a different employer name, or housing that quietly disappeared. Compare every number against the listing and its Job Quality Report before signing.
- The salary is far above market with urgency attached — compare any offer against the live medians on the salary data page. If it looks too good to be true in ESL, it is.
- You discover you'd actually sign with a different company than the one on the listing — an undisclosed recruiter or staffing arrangement.
- You're pressured to sign immediately or told a lawyer or a translated copy "isn't necessary".
What should you check before signing?
- Get the full contract in writing, in a language you can read, with the employer's legal name.
- Check the listing's Job Quality Report: anything marked "not stated" is a question to ask in the interview — especially severance, pension, and health insurance, which are legally required for full-time employees in Korea.
- Confirm who sponsors your visa and who pays you — they should be the same entity you sign with.
- Know which documents are yours to gather and which the school files — the E-2 document checklist.
- If a clause worries you, get qualified advice. LucyESL provides educational guidance, not legal advice.
How does reporting work?
Every listing has a Report this listing link — no account needed, and the employer is not told who reported. We review every report. Depending on what we find, we take the listing down, require the employer to fix it, or remove their verification. Serial offenders lose access entirely.
If something happened off-platform (after you applied), email hello@lucyesl.com with the listing link and what happened.
What happens to your data?
LucyESL never sells applicant data. When you apply through a listing here, we hold your application and show it to that one school — nobody else — and only the profile fields you ticked when you sent it. Changing your profile later never changes what a school already received. Listings copied from other boards have no inbox here: those send you to the original posting, and what you send there is between you and them.
To have data we hold deleted, email privacy@lucyesl.com — details in the privacy policy.
In an emergency in Korea: police 112, medical/fire 119. Employment-rights complaints: Ministry of Employment and Labor 1350.