Verification standards
Exactly what the badge means — and what it doesn't.
Updated 2026-10-26
There is one badge. An employer either passed our check or has not, and the mark says which — no levels, no rungs, nothing to climb. It carries the date it was granted (hover it to see), and lapses if the employer fails re-verification. Two things are always true:
- Verification is never for sale. It cannot be bought, and no paid feature will ever grant it. It runs the other way too: passing the check puts the employer's most recent listing in the Featured block for a week, which is why that block skews verified. Featured is always labelled.
- A badge is not an endorsement. It tells you a specific fact was checked — nothing more. Read the listing's Job Quality Report and ask your own questions.
✓ Verified
What we checked: the employer's Korean business registration (사업자등록), that the registered
legal entity is the one on the listing, and that the person posting is an authorized contact for it.
For a recruiter, also its registration as a job-placement business
(직업소개사업; a staffing company may show its dispatch permit instead).
A reviewer reads the documents by hand, and where the employer holds a
사업자등록번호 the number, the owner's name and the opening date are matched
against the National Tax Service's public record.
What it does not mean: that we vouch for the job. Working conditions, legal compliance,
workplace safety, financial health, and how an employer behaves in future are all outside this check.
Pay, schedule and conditions are the employer's own claims — the Job Quality Report shows what they
did and didn't put in writing. No badge replaces your own due diligence before signing a contract.
An organisation is verified before a listing it posts on LucyESL goes up. On the board those listings sit under Verified schools & recruiters, above the openings from other job boards, which we copied and have not checked.
What do the direct-hire and recruiter labels mean?
Separately from verification, every listing is labeled with who you would actually sign a contract with:
- Direct hire — you contract with the listed academy or school. No undisclosed intermediary.
- Public program — a public school or education-office program.
- Recruiter / Verified recruiter — an agency hiring on behalf of a client school. "Verified recruiter" is the same check as any other verified employer — the agency's business registration and an authorized contact — plus its job-placement registration, whose number is shown on its listings, and its agreement to what Korean law already asks of it: to say in its adverts that it is a placement agency recruiting for a school. An agency may also pledge to name the actual employer to you before you sign, and to charge you no fee; those it chose are listed on its listings as Recruiter pledges. They are promises it made to us, not checks of each placement. Verifying a recruiter does not verify the schools it hires for.
- Staffing company — you would be employed by the staffing firm and placed at a workplace.
How does verification stay honest?
- The badge shows its verification date and is re-checked; stale verifications are removed.
- We keep an internal evidence record and approval history for every badge we grant. The documents themselves are shredded the moment a reviewer decides.
- Listings that misrepresent the employer, the pay, or the recruiter relationship are taken down, and repeat problems cost the account its verification.
- See something that doesn't match? Use Report this listing on the listing page — how reporting works.
For schools and recruiters: how to get verified (in Korean) — 기관 인증 안내.