Not bad for a Intern Experience - Anonymous employee KOTRA Employee Review

3.0
Feb 21, 2017
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Working Hours 9 AM ~ 6 PM Interns get extra points after finishing the Internship. (5 months when they apply for a full time job in KOTRA.)

Cons

Boring and just Boring. Honestly Interns spend most of their time just sitting on a chair. Doing nothing. Pretty much a hierarchy (not as bad as other korean companies but still) Terrible food, and if you want to take public transportation is just very very very stressful.

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5.0
Jun 18, 2025
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Godd pay flexible hours and lots of incentives

Cons

Long work hours overall working in shifts

1.0
Apr 2, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Hard to think of any pro, I’d say you get paid Korean holidays but not all holidays are included (such as the Korean new year & Korean Thanksgiving).

Cons

* No W2 — you’re classified as a contractor, meaning you pay ~30% in self-employment taxes on top of everything else. No health insurance, no life insurance, no 401K. ZERO standard benefits. * Leadership is nonexistent in any meaningful sense. Managers are flown in from Korea with no English proficiency and no understanding of the local team. They freely use the corporate card for personal meals while being incredibly stingy with basic office necessities — no coffee, no water, no snacks. They also think they know everything when they don’t know any single thing and make the local team members do all the freaking work? *The workspace conditions are the worst I’ve experienced. There were recurring mice and cockroach infestations near desks and chairs, with no serious effort made to address it.

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