[K-Women Talk] The Secret Behind How Average Specs Achieved Their First Job Win

Strategy for Finding 'Less Competitive Companies'
Exploring Diverse Information Sources
School Job Boards, Public Institutions, and Industry Maps as Key Resources

A, who was a bit uncertain, succeeded in getting a job. His school, grades, and experience were all rather plain with nothing particularly special. He applied to a total of 50 companies. Out of those, he received interview invitations from only 2 places and ultimately got hired by a small but strong company listed on KOSDAQ.

It is said that smaller companies prefer well-trained talents who can be immediately useful on the field, so what was the secret behind A’s success despite having no certifications or job experience? And where did he find the job postings for those 50 companies he applied to?

Looking at cases like A’s, where people with ‘average specs’ scored their first job win, there is an unexpected commonality. They chose to apply to ‘less competitive places.’ Another way to say ‘less competitive places’ is ‘less well-known places.’ How could they apply to ‘less well-known places’ without being experienced industry insiders? Let’s dig into the sources of information that made this turnaround possible.

The most important source is the school employment website. Most universities operate employment websites separately from their main homepage. It is truly a ‘treasure trove of employment information.’ It is packed with valuable information such as employment reviews from alumni, schedules for company recruitment briefings, real-time job postings, and monthly hiring calendars. Besides the ‘general job postings’ publicly available on portals, you can also find ‘special job postings’ targeting students of your own university.

Employment reviews written exclusively for fellow students at the same university are especially filled with genuine know-how and high-level information, so they are highly recommended reading. In A’s case, he logged into the school employment website every single day to avoid missing any precious information. Based on the site’s information, he attended recruitment briefings and job fairs, where he heard vivid stories about the field from HR managers and university alumni. He was able to hear hard-to-find details such as ‘when a posting is expected to appear’ and ‘what kind of talent is preferred,’ which enabled him to apply even to unfamiliar companies.

If your goal is a public institution, you should get familiar with JOB-ALIO. JOB-ALIO is a public institution recruitment information service operated by the Ministry of Economy and Finance. As of last year, you can check all job postings from the 327 public institutions in Korea here. The variety of institutions posting jobs is so broad that you might wonder, ‘Was there such a public institution?’ The postings are updated daily. By clicking on your desired job type and work location, you can get a customized service that finds public institutions suitable for you. You can also view closed postings, allowing you to infer ‘roughly when postings appear and which job types are frequently recruited.’

Employment portals are also important sources of information. By entering your basic information and desired industry, you receive ‘alerts’ whenever related postings appear, so signing up for employment portals is essential. However, you should be aware that ‘there is so much information that it can be hard to find the core, and sometimes inaccurate information is produced.’ To offset this drawback, I would like to highlight ‘best successful application stories’ as key content. These ‘best successful application stories’ with high views and many ‘likes’ vividly share the actual job preparation process as if you were watching it firsthand, making them more valuable than any other information.

I also recommend the book called “Listed Companies Industry Map”. It classifies about 2,400 companies listed domestically into 25 industries, then further divides them into 89 sectors, and presents them in a mind map format. You can see at a glance which companies belong to a particular industry, from large corporations to mid-sized and small companies. Although it is a book for investors, it is also useful for job seekers.

If you have someone around who is struggling with job preparation or is an uncertain university student, try saying this to them: “What’s new on the school employment website today?”

Lee Sook-eun, Publisher of Employment Backbone · CEO of Lee’s Bookstore