Differential Scoring by Applicants' Alma Mater
Inconsistent Criteria in Document and Interview Screening
'Institutional Warning' from Financial Services Commission, Disciplinary Action for Staff
[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Min-young] The Financial Security Institute conducted inappropriate procedures during the open recruitment process for new employees by assigning different scores based on the applicants' alma mater, according to the Financial Services Commission's audit results.
According to the comprehensive audit report of the Financial Security Institute released by the Financial Services Commission on the 25th, the Institute discriminated against applicants based on their alma mater when hiring new employees in 2015.
During the document screening evaluation process, applicants in the general planning field and information security & computer science field were divided into three grades (Ga, Na, Da) for domestic universities and two grades (Ga, Da) for foreign universities, with differential scoring applied.
The evaluation criteria were inconsistent. Although 26 applicants who met the disqualification criteria for the self-introduction letter during the document screening should have been eliminated, all were passed. Among them, one applicant was even passed through the first interview, conducting the screening process contrary to the evaluation standards.
During the self-introduction letter review, the comprehensive grade evaluation was highly inappropriate, as even if an applicant received a ‘Low’ rating in just one individual evaluation item, their overall grade was rated as ‘Low,’ resulting in 18 applicants being rejected, according to the Financial Services Commission.
Additionally, in the 2016 document screening evaluation, eight applicants in the ‘Big Data Analysis and Evaluation’ field and sixteen applicants in the ‘Big Data System Operation’ field received high overall scores but were still rejected.
The final number of successful candidates also differed from the original recruitment plan. During the second interview process, contrary to the recruitment plan, one fewer candidate than initially planned was accepted in the ‘Big Data Analysis and Evaluation’ field (originally 2), while one additional candidate was accepted in the ‘Information Security & Computer Science’ field (originally 8).
The Financial Services Commission pointed out that “the number of hires was arbitrarily changed without reasonable cause or basis.”
The Commission imposed a disciplinary action of institutional caution on the Security Institute, stating, “It is necessary to thoroughly manage recruitment tasks according to personnel management regulations to enhance fairness in future recruitment processes.”
The recruitment officers were also disciplined. Team Leader A, who improperly managed recruitment by differentiating scores by school during the 2015 recruitment and arbitrarily changed the number of successful candidates contrary to the 2016 recruitment plan, received a ‘Demand for Accountability’ disciplinary action. Mr. B, the head of the department responsible for the 2016 new recruitment, was given a ‘Notification of Personnel Data’ measure to ensure this matter is used as personnel data in the future. Mr. C, the department head responsible during the 2015 recruitment, received a ‘Warning’ disciplinary action.
The Financial Security Institute is a nonprofit organization under the Financial Services Commission, established on April 10, 2015, by integrating the Information Sharing and Analysis Center of the Korea Financial Telecommunications & Clearings Institute and Koscom, and the Financial Security Research Institute. It is subject to regular audits by the Financial Services Commission under civil law, and this audit was conducted for the first time in over three years since May 2016.
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