At ShinHyup Recruitment Interview, Female Applicant's Appearance Evaluated... Human Rights Commission Calls It "Gender Discrimination"

[Asia Economy Reporter Seongpil Cho] The National Human Rights Commission has ruled that evaluating a female applicant's appearance during a job interview and asking her to dance or sing constitutes gender discrimination.

On the 11th, the Human Rights Commission stated that questions unrelated to the job are discriminatory acts regardless of the interviewers' intentions, and recommended that the President of the National Credit Union Federation of Korea revise hiring guidelines and establish measures to prevent recurrence. The Commission said, "Spending considerable time on questions related to appearance, singing, and dancing rather than job-related questions stems from a gender-discriminatory culture, practice, or perception that expects and assigns women the role of creating a pleasant atmosphere."

Earlier, in February last year, the Commission received a complaint from a female applicant, Ms. A, who participated in the final interview at a regional credit union, stating that interviewers evaluated her appearance with questions such as "How tall are you?" and "You are pretty because you are from OO," which were unrelated to the job. Ms. A also testified that the interviewers forced her to sing and dance.

At the time, the interviewers explained, "We asked Ms. A to sing and dance to see her confidence." They also claimed, "We asked about height and weight because they were not listed on the resume," and "We did not force singing and dancing but asked if she could sing to gauge her confidence, and suggested that accompanying it with rhythmic movements would be good."

However, the Human Rights Commission rejected the interviewers' claims, stating, "From the interviewee's perspective, refusing such requests could be perceived as leading to disadvantages." This judgment was based on the Act on Equal Employment and Support for Work-Family Reconciliation. Article 7 of the Act stipulates that when recruiting or hiring female workers, physical conditions such as appearance, height, and weight that are not necessary for job performance, marital status, and other conditions prescribed by the Ministry of Employment and Labor must not be presented or requested.