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Permalink Reply by Wally Nes on November 11, 2011 at 9:01am

First off, this site might be useful.
With the way internships are set up in the French University system I imagine there's a few threads on there relevant to your position.

 

From what I understand doing the tourist visa should be no problem if there is no pay involved (which I think there isn't)
Then there is the C4 visa. 90 days where you're allowed to work. Your employer will have to provide a contract and a letter of employment recommendation. They will not have to pay anything, which may be the big obstacle. You will have to pay and I recommend googling C4 in Korea to get a complete picture of what else it requires.
Lastly there is the work-holiday visa for EU citizens under 29 (as a student I'm assuming this fits) which will get you a year worth of living and legal working here.

 

The D4 visa under which French VIE are hired as "interns" is quite complicated to get and except for the very large French companies (BNP Pariba, Total etc) most people who try to get it for this purpose fail.

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Permalink Reply by Morgane Gourvennec on November 14, 2011 at 7:20am

I learned from the embassy that the work-holiday visa is not accepted for internships. Therefore I will probably ask for a C4 visa.

 

Thank you soo much for your help!!! :))

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Permalink Reply by Valentin JANIAUT on November 14, 2011 at 3:15pm

Hello Morgane,

 

Having done internship in Korea, and having help few of my friends with that, there is plenty of solutions, although it is quite hard to be sure it is always really legal.

 

• Tourist Visa: Not legal, even if you are not paid, since you will be doing business in Korea. Although, if you are working for a small company, the chance to get caught is quite small. Be careful that you might get trouble later to go back to Korea if something goes wrong. I would not advise you to do it. Especially, it will be annoying to go to Japan in the middle of your internship.
• Working-Holiday Visa: A good solution. The embassy told you bullshit if they said it is not accepted for internships. Actually, internships does not really exist for foreigner in Korea and company should make a contract for you. So you will be working like a normal employee (and subject for the same tax...). So the WH Visa work and you won't have much trouble. Although from previous experience, Korean want you to visit their country and not work ... But the WH agreement visa let you work with not much restriction (except some business and naturally as long you respect Korean law).
• D4 Visa (VIE Visa): A bit complex, but it might work if you are paid in Europe and working for a European company.
• D2 Visa (Student visa): A bit complex, you need to find a university in Korea which can endorse you for the internship. It is quite common to do it with a partner university of your school in France. Since internship can be somehow consider as studies, you might apply. In this case, you should not have a contract and the company need to stay in contact with the university in Korea. My school usually do that for internship in Korea.
• C4 Visa: Might work, but unlike the previous visa, I have no example of someone who would have done that before. If I remember well, it is only a 90 days visa, so you might get trouble to renew it.

I hope that can help.

 

PS: May I ask you more details about your internship, since I try to create a kind of network to help people to find internship in Korea.

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Permalink Reply by Philipp Grunwald on November 14, 2011 at 9:22pm

Oh dear, it is always the same. First off, can't be true. There sure is an option, while admittely my German friend interned here on a Tourist visa as well. ... You should talk to the English Immigration hotline (number: 1345) first of all. Maybe you can go on a H-1 working holiday visa.

But then again you say in your answer that the embassy / immigration (!!) doesn't hand out a H-1 visa for that, to which my answer just is: A big "LOL". Obviously then they should know and be obliged to advise you how to get you the proper visa!

 

As your internship company should be able (and hopefully willing!) - but probably not obliged - to give you a certificate about your employment status, you could start to work on your visa issue with this (and only this) paper!

 

After all you can do a Visa-run, but it is expensive (300.000 KRW per person at least), complicated and scary. But if you need to do this in the future, ask me! 

Please keep us updated on your progress!! I know I still didn't answer your e-mail / question about AIESEC, but as I see now and can tell you from experience, the young foreign people are all in the same trouble, which are most challenging for us. An acquaintance of mine lives in Bucheon (not sure of what and what she's doing there) because she got no internship and I also constantly have to adjust my plans to what is possible...

 

At Wally (or rather Korean Immigration): Do you know why there is such an absurd visa type that encourages this unfair treatment and exploitation of the manpower of interns?! I could really get angry if I read this! In Germany most companies are obliged meanwhile to pay an intern! And this doesn't mean "lunch and transport", but something more than that, an actual salary.

 

Good luck and I'll amend my post concerning this at a later point in time!

 

Cheers,

 

Philipp

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Permalink Reply by Wally Nes on November 15, 2011 at 8:34am

Regarding the work-holiday visa I also doubt that it doesn't apply.

You can just get it without any serious explanations or paperwork, and I know people that have used it to come here to party while maintaining income as a pizza delivery boy. Surely as an intern in non-pizza related industry you'll be valued higher than that.

 

Regarding the exploitation of interns. The power of the free market. In the case of France you have to have an internship every year of your studies. If you don't get a placement you'll have to re-do your entire year. You have no leverage.

Companies do this because they can.
1/3 of minimum wage is the standard compensation I believe. My brother in law currently works full time in Prague for 300 euro/month under these conditions. Doesn't even get company housing.
It's not uncompensated work, but it might as well be.

I don't know if this applies to Korean companies (I doubt they're very familiar with the French system and what complete lack of leverage the intern has), and I don't know how much the visa plays a part in it, though I certainly had an easier time getting my internship visa in Japan than what it would take me to get one here as I understand the system.

Speaking of Japanese visa. Is there a Korean equivalent for a "Cultural activities" visa?
An internship in Korea means you learn a lot about Korea, its people and its culture and might therefore qualify you for one of those?

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Permalink Reply by Steven S. Bammel on November 15, 2011 at 11:47am

Philipp - Are you thinking Korean company's should be obligated to pay interns? There's already 100 foreign intern wannabees for every available position...  I think I just saw a horrible vision of every foreign intern position in Korea going "poof!" and then disappearing off the face of the job market...  

Please, let's be nice to the companies who are willing to hire foreign interns... :-)

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Permalink Reply by Tyler Joyner on November 15, 2011 at 3:18pm

Still, the point of an internship is to locate and develop potential future employees.  I guess you could argue that giving those companies a "free trial" by way of unpaid internships might encourage them to later hire a proven employee, but you could just as easily say that if the company isn't willing to go to the effort in the first place, how likely are they to hire the foreigner later?

 

I'd be interested to know how many of the companies that have those internships later hire foreigners and sponsor their visa.  And if they don't, I'd be interested to know what the differences are between a work holiday and an internship.

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Permalink Reply by Steven S. Bammel on November 15, 2011 at 3:25pm

Really? Is that what interships really are about? I'm not sure that internships in Korea are generally considered a first step to getting hired. I'm thinking it's more about the trade-off of free/cheap work for the company for experience that the intern couldn't get otherwise. I also suspect there's a "public service" element to it for companies also. Is that not how it works elsewhere?

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Permalink Reply by Tyler Joyner on November 15, 2011 at 3:37pm

Umm well to be honest my experience is all in Finance and in the US, but as far as I know, that's how it works, yes.

 

Because of the short amount of time involved in an internship (usually a summer), and also because the interns often lack a certification or license necessary to do a lot of the key work, the actual work that the companies get out of them is minimal.  What they do get is the ability to sort through several young future graduates per year, paying a minimal salary, and offer jobs to the best ones.  Depending on the company and the quality of their program, they will have the intern spend part of the time doing the work they can do, which is data entry and other grunt stuff, and part of the time just learning the business (shadowing people, listening to sales calls, etc. etc.)

 

From the student's perspective, they get valuable work experience, some kind of a salary, a resume builder, networking opportunities, and an idea of whether they would want to work for that company (or in that field) in the future.

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Permalink Reply by Valentin JANIAUT on November 17, 2011 at 8:58pm

A bit off the topic, but I think that might valuable information for people here. 

 

I will try to explain the difference of view between Wally, Steven and Tyler. First of all, I need to explain exactly what is an internship in Europe. Unlike most of internship (as far as I know) in US, they are a real job experience. It is not just a summer job, but a real short-term contract, for 6 month of 1 year. Furthermore, in most of case, it is mandatory to do an internship at the end of your study in order to graduate. Basically, when you will do this internship, you will have exactly the same knowledge and  education than a new grad but you will get in the better case half of the salary.

 

Unlike US, more and more European company rely on cheap (the "average" monthly pay is about 600€ for people with 4 or 5 year of study) interns. It is not rare to see company running projects only with interns. That's explain Wally's concern, I also agree that the situation is pretty bad about this in Europe. 

 

Like US, European companies will also use internship as a good way to do recruitment. Even better than US, they can test a student for 6 months and then decided to throw him away of keep him. If you are in a gray area, they will usually ask one their supplier to hire you, in order to avoid any risk... Major leading European company seems to be completely coward and want to avoid any risk.

 

So why people would like to go to Korea (or other country actually, Korea does not matter specially) ? Well, first many people think that an experience in Asia is a must for their resume. Especially since many company are moving their production in Asia, they hope that will help to avoid a possible lay-off. (cf Peugeot recently, many engineers worry to loose job since they increase their operation in China).

 

Anyway, you will not get big money for an internship, if you work in Paris you may even loose big amount of money. It is for that students think that going to a not so expansive city like Seoul is also a not so bad experience. 

 

Last but not the least, most of the students looking for internship in Korea, are already in this country as exchange student and so think that they might get better condition (sic) working in Korea than in Europe.

 

To conclude, I'd like to say that I am sure that Korean company are interested in hiring foreign interns for long period, especially in the field of IT where a productive and interesting job can easily be done in 6 months. If they see interns as a valuable assets for their company, they are usually willing to pay them a very correct salary for an internship. (Most of the case I know who did internship in Korea got about 2M KRW per month, compare to the 600€ average in France with a more expansive cost of life, the choice is easy).

 

Sorry, it is not about the visa, but I hope that might help.

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Permalink Reply by Steven S. Bammel on November 18, 2011 at 11:13am

Very interesting insights, Valentin. It explains a lot that I didn't know. Thank you!

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Permalink Reply by Philipp Grunwald on November 23, 2011 at 5:21pm

Dear Mr. Bammel,

 

sorry but I don't see the connection, could you please elaborate? From what I know your "horror vision" doesn't happen in Germany and that is for the simple reason: Obligation to pay is not obligation to hire! So I am slightly confused of what you mean. Of course there is always more (unjustified) demand than supply for positions. But do you think just because companies should have to shell out a few hundred dollars per month, they'd scrap all intern positions? That would be very bad companies I think! Quite the opposite is indeed the case, isn't it? Companies often hire "interns" (that are factually not less capable or prepared than graduates that have just six months more "experience" - in sitting in a classroom or in front of their books...) to get their work than for a below-market (zero pay) rate! And mostly the bad companies do so the most frequent. This is the case in Germany and I heard it in Korea already too.

Normally an internship is indeed a win-win situation and companies sure don't lose a penny compared to what they have to pay their full-time, long-term employees! If they do than they have a big problem:

a). with their HR personnel and/or process, if we assume they hired the wrong interns

b). in their business and training / supervising processes, when they don't manage to leverage the "human capital" and time an (almost) "free" intern brings into the company!

 

My colleague worked within BASF and due to illness and whatnot he in the end had to replace two (or more?) regular employees! He indeed did so successfully and rightfully so received (almost) pay like one regular employee. Sure the company still saved substantial money and time (compared to an otherwise halted project!) over employing and paying a regular employee in this case.

 

So whichever company is not willing to let interns do internships with them, um I guess they don't have to wonder if the high-potentials prefer to work for their competitor(s) instead of them, as they are a "black-box" to prospective employees.

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