Ok job if you shut down your brain (or don't have one) - Anonymous employee KOTRA Employee Review

2.0
Mar 20, 2015
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

- depending on where you work your starting salary can be industry average or a bit higher - work is not very demanding. (You are actually able to have a private life which is not usual for a Korean company) - you get to learn about very different industries

Cons

- company culture is very stiff. Feels sometimes almost military like. - every 2-3years a new manager/director arrives not knowing what to do and leaves again when he/she gets kind of a grip of things. And then the cycle starts again.. - If you're from HQ you maybe have a chance of a career if you cozy up to the 'right' people. If you're local staff forget it as you are a 'second rate employee that can be replaced in a second'. (can be a pro if you have no ambition for a career) - there is definitely a in-company irrational discrimination against local staff. The most astonishing is that it seems to be even more against Koreans than others local staff. - You see first hand how the tax payers money gets stupidly wasted but can't do anything about it - Lots of politics and the many many (mostly dated and unnecessary) rules..

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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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