[K-Women Talk] CES Through the Eyes of a Headhunter: The Rise of Fusion Talents

[Asia Economy] At the beginning of the year, I attended the "World's Largest Electronics and IT Exhibition CES 2023." Even from the perspective of a headhunter who is not an IT expert, it was a field study sufficient to feel the global technological changes.

The exhibition, composed of various themes such as mobility, digital health, green tech, Web 3.0, and the metaverse (extended virtual world), is characterized by many media as showing the "Big Blur" phenomenon, where the boundaries between industries rapidly dissolve through technological convergence. Samsung Electronics has been conducting bold talent recruitment that crosses industry boundaries for several years, with the recent hiring of a Mercedes-Benz car designer being a representative example. Additionally, reports indicated that from February this year, the experience requirement for career recruitment would be lowered from 4 years to 2 years, which can be seen as a strong intention to actively attract external talent.

American management consultant Jim Collins said, "The most important asset of a company is not people, but the right people." So, who are the current right people? Among the seven 2023 executive personnel keywords announced recently by Unico Search, the keyword ‘Fusion,’ which is the promotion criterion for convergent talents likely to become CEOs, provides an answer. In the past, companies preferred ‘I-shaped talents,’ experts in one field. But now, beyond ‘T-shaped’ talents who have cross-boundary perspectives and multi-potential, ‘F (Fusion)-shaped’ talents are preferred. A similar term is ‘PolyMath,’ referring to people who know a lot about various fields or have encyclopedic knowledge. A representative figure is Leonardo da Vinci.

In fact, even before the COVID-19 pandemic, Korea’s recruitment market was undergoing changes from demographic or economic perspectives due to entering an advanced aging society. Changes in criteria such as gender, age, and educational background are typical examples. However, unlike before, 2023 anticipates an unprecedented global economic recession in the endemic (periodic infectious disease) era. From the perspective of companies that must survive, interest and policies regarding talent cannot but be the number one theme of ‘Sustainability.’ The author’s experience at CES was a firm confirmation that the speed of technological convergence and innovation is accelerating. Then, how can companies keep up with or lead the speed of the ‘Big Blur,’ the destruction of boundaries between industries?

Among recent changes in corporate HR organizations, an interesting fact is that traditional HR teams focused on talent development are transforming into talent acquisition teams. If securing manpower is to achieve business goals, and business goals are rapidly changing, external recruitment rather than internal development is inevitably the appropriate strategy. The gradual disappearance of the new graduate recruitment culture and the trend of continuously hiring skilled experienced workers can also be attributed to this change in HR policies.

Now, it is no exaggeration to say that every company is an IT company. In the past, the impact of technological changes was limited to IT-related companies, but in the digital transformation (DX) era, it is clear that the ripple effect of technological changes will expand to the entire industry. The ‘technological innovation’ witnessed at CES is astonishing and thrilling, but the trend of ‘HR policy innovation’ approaching members accustomed to organizational stability can be both surprising and unsettling, which inevitably brings a bittersweet feeling.

Moon Seon-kyung, Executive Director, Unico Search