Youth unemployment has already come to the fore as a major issue in our society. Various neologisms have been introduced in every university town and the anxieties of the ‘twenties’ are expressed continuously. Despite their beautiful youth, the twenties stay up all night to write stacks of resumes. When we see our friends who have become successful, we cry because of looking infinitely shabby by comparison. However, we try to smile brightly as this is the reality of the twenties. To help undergraduate job-seekers successfully land jobs, Yeungnam University organized lectures, inviting corporate recruiters.
-Kim Jongu, Head of LG Electronics Recruitment Team
LG Electronics is a company of leading technological innovation in the field of home appliances, electronics, and mobile communication devices. There are almost 83,000 executives and employees working for the company. In 2014, its sales reached 59 trillion won.
Kim Jongu, head of the LG Electronics Recruitment Team, delivered expert tips and necessary information to the audience.
LG selects employees, who face up to challenges, think creatively through teamwork and possess outstanding skills. “You need to have professionalism in your skills, too. If you major in Chinese, you have to be armed with expertise. An extensive experience is also required. You should try everything and do as much as you can. But since recruiters do understand that opportunities are limited for the students to gain experience, do not worry too much about it,” he stressed.
Target Recruiting
When companies precede open recruitment, they focus mostly on the majors of the applicants. If their majors are not suitable for the companies, they do not consider the applicants as successful. On top of this, meticulous work on the job is what matters most. Today, we sell products in foreign markets. If we do not know what foreigners prefer, we simply fail to sell our products. Therefore, we pick out applicants who are well-rounded in a variety of fields like grasping the consumer characteristics in the U.S. backed up by their marketing research and linguistic skills.
Personality and Aptitude Tests
In personality evaluation, recruiters can tell who is lying. A trend has recently been set which is called “Avatar Education”. It means a person who is an introvert needs to keep repeating for a month that “I am a passionate person, not a passive person”. To perform well on an aptitude test, you need to prepare for it meticulously. There is also a job test, but since liberal arts consist of many areas, and in a job interview, it specifically checks up on how much an applicant understands his or her major and duties.
Preparing for Interviews and Self-Introduction
You should review the following: 1) If I am an employer of the company, will I hire me? 2) Do I have a personalized strategy? The first question is an essential one that you must consider. For the second question, you should know what your abilities are. In other words, your capability is what you have. Inadvertently showing rudeness, being late or making mistakes in your self-introduction would get you nowhere at an interview. The recruiters are looking for your strengths, durability of studying hard, and of course, your personality and attitude. Since your answers are important, you should think before you answer, such as which vocabulary to use after pondering about whether I am suitable for this company or not. If you are asked a question, you need to understand the intention of that question and answer it honestly after thinking for one or two seconds. It is good to answer with concrete examples. Your GPA and school are not important. Instead, the company would ask, “What did you do besides studying?” When you fill out a resume, self-introduction should be considered as the most important factor. If you lie, it will be detected during the interview and you will be blacklisted. Do not forget to include your experiences in detail to fit the requirements of the recruiter.
Specifications
We do not receive TOEIC scores from the College of Engineering, but from the College of Liberal Arts. Students should prepare before becoming a senior because they have to submit their resumes during that period. Your specifications should satisfy the minimum criteria when the companies evaluate your resume. Usually, the minimum score of TOEIC is 700. Some students ask, “What is the advantage of having a score of 900 over 700?” However, the scores do not matter at all. It is same, but the scores of 695 and 700 have a very big difference. Also, it is good to participate in the exhibition of the company’s contest. So, it is necessary that you should meet the qualifications.
Finding year-round recruitment programs
There are many year-round recruitment programs, yet many students often fail to find them and miss the opportunity to apply. As many companies do not guarantee a retirement age, employees tend to quit their jobs at just about any time of the year, which means companies might be hiring people anytime. There are always good opportunities for job-seekers. Always keep tabs on such programs.
Favorite Questions in Interviews
1. The College of Engineering: What was something that you did enthusiastically when you were a student? What were your duties and responsibilities? How did you come up with a solution when there was a problem?
2. The College of Liberal Arts: Have you ever had any experience that changed the way you thought? Why did it change and in what situation were you in then?
Nowadays, society requires sustainability and it is standardized. However, society will change as you create the design. This is difficult when you approach in a traditional way. It would be easy if you approach it in a new way.
-Jeong Jae-hyeon, Assistant Manager of HR Team, SL Corporation
SL is a motor parts company. The company especially offers headlights. About seventy percent of cars on the road have SL headlights. It makes one of the six best headlights in the world. The company also has a variety of patented technologies. SL’s annual gross sales amounted to four trillion won. Currently, SL has 10,000 employees worldwide.
Recruitment
SL recruits approximately 150-200 applicants at a time. Computers quantify basic qualifications of the applicants such as academic credits and TOEIC scores. Half of the applications are rejected after the first round of screening. After that, executives of the company review cover letters of the applicants. The number of candidates applying for the nation’s conglomerates is ten times larger than that applying for small and medium enterprises(SMEs).
Being Cautious when Applying for Jobs
These days, applicants prepare more than thirty resumes on average, but typically do not know why they want to apply or whether they will like the work or not. This occurs because applicants just fill out their resumes for application. Once you have started something, it is hard to switch to other things. Therefore, you should have some experience related to the job that you are applying for. The best way is to do internships which will provide experience, help you to recognize your aptitude, give some understanding of the business world and allow the company you intern with to learn something about you.
“Personality” interview for a job
Executives want to know if applicants are well versed in their majors. However, in today’s society, there is also the “personality interview.” SL is also focusing on personality interviews and does a camp interview for two days. During the camp interview, executives screen applicants’ teamwork and learning capabilities. But that does not mean you do not prepare for answers relevant to your major. You must also prepare for questions about humanities such as “If you fill a bus with golf balls, how many balls do you need?” or “Criticize Neo-Marxism.” Companies are not looking for correct answers, but they want to know the applicants’ abilities to answer the questions.
Do not copy and paste
Some people copy and paste their entire cover letters, except for corporate names. If your information is not relevant to business of a company, it would assume that you just copied and pasted the cover letter of your friend’s. Some applicants even neglect to change the name of a company. These people are on a blacklist and they cannot reapply. Therefore, you should choose three or four companies which are relevant to each other, rather than choosing a lot of companies. Then, you get to the core information of the company you choose.
Make minimum qualifications & English is a requirement.
Minimum qualifications for SL are TOEIC scores above 900 and GPA of 3.5 or higher. Midsize businesses or conglomerates focus on going global and expanding their presence abroad. Therefore, it is good to study abroad, which means studying English is a key notion. Also, if you can speak second languages, that would be the best.
Importance of Internship and storytelling at an interview
You should experience many things in order to tell your stories at a job interview. Thus, we highly recommend you do internships. SL hired about seventy percent of the applicants who interned in the company. An Internship is an important part of gaining employment.
Get certified carefully
You should earn certificates in various areas for the company. For example, if a person, who aims to work in the company, has certificates related only to financing, he may not be successful because the company thinks that the person is not interested in its company as a whole and that he is the person who has been interested only in a financial company. So the company thinks that he will change his job later on. However, if you have SAP or ERP, you can receive additional points.
Do not confine yourself. Think big, dream bigger to manifest your life. Nothing is impossible if you believe you can do it.
