Finding internship in South Korea.

Hello everybody,

I'd like to share my experience, and the experience of some of my friends who did a 6-month internship in South Korea.

First of all, let me introduce myself briefly, I am a student from a French University (actually what we call "Grande École" but that does not matter for the next of the article). I came in Korea for my first time in January 2009 to study one semester at KAIST as an exchange student. My major is about Graphic Rendering and AI.

In order to pursue my studies, we have a 6-month internship to achieve. However it is usually difficult to find it since we have to do this internship after only 3-year studying, so we do not have so many abilities and experiences.

Although I know it would be hard, I wanted to find this internship in South Korea. Three of my friends in Computer Science, and Mechanical Engineering field also found their internships in South Korea. Let me share with you some tips to find such of opportunity in Korea.

Let me say again, before I go ahead, that finding a long internship (not summer school) for a foreigner without speaking Korean is really a difficult task, and you cannot be sure to success it. Furthermore finding this internship from outside of Korea is doable, but even more difficult.

Secondly, once you make your mind to find an internship in Korea, start to prepare all the classical tool you will need : Resume, Cover Letter, Statement of Purpose, Letter Of Recommendation ... If you can have some translation for these documents, it is not that bad since it can help sometimes to have a first contact.

Then if your are in South Korea : networking is the key. I do not know anybody who get his internship without networking. So have always with you a copy of your resume, try to say around of you that you are looking for an internship...

Also, start to spread the words on the different forums, community and so on related to the business in Korea.

Try also to send mail to different company related to your field of competences. But do not send just one mail ^ ^ Try to call them, try to find some people working there and so on.

Especially Korean people, they probably do not understand well what does mean a 6-month internship. So always explain that your are looking for a 6-month job to train your skills. Try to find some argument to make people think that they need you, even if they did not need intern at a first glance.

Here is also a really good website to find internship in South Korea: http://www.kopra.org/

And finally a clue about the stipends : Usually it is between 600.000 KRW and 1.500.000KRW depending of your experience, and the company. However, some companies give nothing, so do not be surprised about it.

I hope this can help, and fill free to add more advice to this discussion. Since I am again looking for an internship starting in January 2011, I will listen to it carefully.

Tags: advice, internship, job

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Permalink Reply by Youngil Ely Loew on October 26, 2010 at 7:10am
Wow, that was a very well written piece of advice. Thank you Valentin :) I think most foreign students would have just assumed it is impossible, outside of maybe working for an Embassy. I know for U.S. citizens, every summer they have an international internship program, where all the Embassies around the world can take student interns. You have to apply pretty early, and they usually offer a stipend. I imagine some other Embassies might offer something similar, or you could take Valentin's approach and suggest it. I think that's an excellent idea, but it takes quite a bit of initiative. Anyway, thanks again for sharing your experience.
Permalink Reply by Valentin JANIAUT on October 26, 2010 at 10:30am
Without giving the name of the company, here is an idea of the company you can work for:

Me, I personally worked for a small video game studio (less than 5 employees) run by Australian guys (so the main language at work was naturally English).

One of my friend, studying Computer Science too, worked in a small company (about 15 employees). It was only Korean people, but they was speaking in English with him. Although, he could not join all the meetings and so on ... But still an interesting experience, even if the working condition was pretty hard (working late, working in the week-end ...).

Another friend, studying Mechanical Engineering, worked in a big car manufacture company in Korea. It was not that great, since they almost did not give him any job to do. The language inside of the company was English, so no problem. He could even got Korean class from the company.

Good luck for everybody looking for an internship.
Permalink Reply by Michael Chan on February 23, 2012 at 11:37pm

Hey!

About your friend studying Mechanical Engineering, i'm also interested in applying to a big car manufacture company in Korea. Would you have any details or information on how he applied?

Thanks You!!

Permalink Reply by Valentin JANIAUT on February 27, 2012 at 3:35pm

My friend worked for Renault Samsung, he got his internship through connection at Renault in France. I still have some contact there, feel free to give me your resume, I will see if they still have some openings.

Cheers,

Permalink Reply by Erik Cornelius on October 26, 2010 at 2:45pm
If there are any other computer science, UX, AI or NLP foreign students at KAIST looking for internships, please have them contact me directly. My company could put their skills to good use.

A question for you Valentin: Did the companies provide housing in addition to the monthly stipends? KAIST is a long way from Seoul.
Permalink Reply by Valentin JANIAUT on October 26, 2010 at 3:14pm
No housing ^ ^ However, we can usually get scholarship from French government if we do an unpaid internship. But it is not that great. Anyway, KAIST will never provide housing for any Internship outside of their laboratories.
Permalink Reply by Ana Karen Acosta on May 5, 2011 at 10:10am
Hello Valentin, I am also seeking an internship, I will be at Korea University this Fall semester. I am a senior year business student. Thank you for your advice it makes me feel more confident about my initiative. It seems like every door is closed and the difficulty of being oversees makes it seem impossible but your post gives me hope! :)
Permalink Reply by Harald Stoll on June 27, 2011 at 9:58pm

Hi Valentin, 

 

Nice to read that there are indeed success stories in this obstacle ridden quest for an job/internship in Korea. I have started to spread out the word over forums and what not. I will give the KOPRA website a look, thanks for the reference.


Did you end up finding an internship again? 

 

Thanks for your input!

Permalink Reply by Valentin JANIAUT on June 27, 2011 at 10:13pm

Hello Harald,

 

I finally moved outside of Korea, to work in India. But thanks to Erik, one of my closest friend found an Internship in Seoul. As far I know, everything is going really well for him.

 

However, my experience in India is not going really well for me ^ ^ Fortunately, I graduated, and I managed to land a job at LG Electronic starting in September.

 

This offer from LG was one choice among three job opportunity I got in Seoul. So finding job or internship in Korea following the few condition I described is definitely a not so difficult task.

 

Good luck for you :)

Permalink Reply by Niels Scholten on February 28, 2012 at 11:23pm

Hi Valentin and others,

To start with I would like to thank you for your inspiring story and advice on how to find an internship in Korea. I am in a kind off simular situation like you were in around two years ago? About two months ago I read your post while I was searching for an internship in Korea. I used your advice and felt ready to start searching, but never expected it to not be this hard. That does not stop me from trying though, I still frequently send out emails, and apply at websites. But this approach has not worked for me untill now. I am considering moving to Korea and establish a network like you said, but since this is a big step to take. I would like to be prepared and know what I have to do in order to create a network successfully. 

It would be nice if you, or someone else could give me some useful tips. I have lived in China for  about year (studying) . While living there I figured it was really easy to establish a network in China. There were many websites, organizations and many networking events that brings people together for either business or recreative purposes. Does Korea has this too? I know for example that there is a Dutch organization ( DBCKorea ) with members of many multinational companies, but I will have to pay an admission fee, and dont know what this will bring me.
And furthermore, I am curious about etiquettes, what are some dos and donts in Korea. Or any other experiences

It would be nice to hear your stories and experiences. Thanks a lot in advance.

Kind Regards,

Niels Scholten

Permalink Reply by Valentin JANIAUT on March 6, 2012 at 2:52pm

Hello Niels,

Well, do not feel discourage, it is challeging to find an internship in Korea, but this is also rewarding. As I metionned earlier, finding an internship in Korea from abroad is really more difficult, especially if you do not have network.

You might want to consider some other option to get a first step here (korean language class, exchange program ... ) in order to start to build your network and find some opportunities.

Concerning networking in Korea, I think you are on the good website to talk about this, just check other topics and you will see a lot of extremely valuable information. It would be hard for me to summarize everything here.

Regards,

Permalink Reply by Ruby Maurandya Tobing on March 5, 2012 at 4:08am

Hi.. I'm Ruby and currently studying in Vienna.I would like to find an internship in South Korea starting next fall/winter semester. Do you happen to know any website that is helpful? I tried the Kopra you have mentioned, but it doesn't have any new updates.

Your help would be really great help for me.

Thank you.

Cheers,

Ruby

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