Serious unemployment of young people: who can solve it?

   University career centers in the country first pointed to the government. For the question 'who should solve the unemployment problem of young people in the first place?' on a survey of three items, unemployment, employment, and employment training, conducted by an employment consulting company, 48% of the respondents answered, "the government should solve it." For the question 'what should be changed by company,' 52% answered hiring only from specific universities because most companies have very selective campus recruiting under the justification of securing distinguished talent. As a result, many university graduates do not even have chance to apply. The most frequent employment training program is interview classes because since many companies take interviews seriously and induce presentation style interviews it is necessary to prepare for various cases through active practice.

Since the equation of employment rate equaling admission rate is set by publicizing the employment rate of each university, universities are competitively going into the employment support system for graduates as well as current students. Each university is trying its utmost by expanding the employment support centers to strengthen student employment capability, launching employment support teams, and introducing special programs for employment.

Among them, Korea University, which pursues 'employment in quality over quantity,' has already been operating a stable employment program for effective career choice and successful career placement for a long time. Mr. Ahn Sung Sik of the Korea University Employment Support Team explained, "Preparing for interviews and having many employment programs oriented toward specialized and job related programs distinguish our employment program from others," and "we have many programs that have been operated for a long time since the quality of them are excellent and students' satisfaction rate is high." It means they have many employment programs, which have financial support and competitive power.



 

#Training Program


"We strive for employment quality, not employment quantity," KU Employment Support Team Director Shin Jung said. Although KU belongs to the top class in the employment rate survey of universities in the country, it pledges to raise the competitive power of student employment more than just raising the employment rate. Director Shin also shared his worries saying, "The publicizing of the employment rate of universities to promote the competitive power of them could destroy the basic classes."

Employment Support Team Director Shin Jung emphasized, "The strength of KU's employment program is that most experts invited to various programs are KU alums," and said, "We help our students meet the KU graduates working in various fields in society."

Moreover, the employment special lecture series, which has been continually expanded and operated since 2000, is focused on meeting senior graduates in specialized fields such as finance, media, advertisement, distribution and consulting. The employment special lecture series, which is held in an open lecture style more than 50 times a year under the subject of 'employment related skill training and special field employment strategy,' is divided into employment related information including ▲talent that industry wants ▲status and prospects of foreign based companies and ▲overseas internship information, employment skills related lectures, including ▲resume building ▲interview clinic ▲image making, and ▲mock interview, and meeting senior graduates.

The 'English Cafe,' which is a preparation program for employment in foreign based companies and interviews in English, was opened in 2003 and is one of the most popular programs among students. In this program, which is a 6-week program offered twice a semester, students can learn various employment skills such as English interview, resume building and self introduction letter writing in English, and English presentation from specialized instructors.



 

#Consulting Program


The 'career seminar,' which was introduced for the first time this year, is not a lecture but a small seminar, which continues with an hour-long lecture and question and answer session. It is mainly divided into job-related series and foreign-based company series, and a total of five seminars, with one seminar a day, are offered so students can participate intensively. While the trend of hiring by enterprises is done by job oriented, the officials from enterprises complain that college students have very limited understanding of that. To solve this problem, the job related series is offered with detailed information of each job and feedback, and the subjects of the series are strategy/planning, personnel/human resource development, marketing, sales, and PR/publicizing.

Mr. Ahn Sung Sik of the Employment Support Team said about the foreign based companies series, "In case of foreign based companies, which have different hiring standards than Korean companies, more preparation is needed," and "we plan to run programa that invite personnel officers from popular foreign based companies and alums, so students can take their lectures and receive feedbacks from them."

Outside consulting and group consulting are also considered as KU competitive employment programs. This program, which has personnel officers of companies as outside consultants, is an employment consulting program offered once a week and offers individual or group consulting program based on the demands of students, and it is quite popular among students since students from lower classes to upper classes can consult with current personnel officers of companies.

The 'career mentorship program,' which officializes KU's unique strong relationship between seniors and juniors, is a group mentoring program based on specific jobs, and it runs for a specific period of time with alumni working in specialized fields acting as mentors and students who want to work in that field become mentees. Director Shin Jung said, "We plan to have more various training opportunities so the mentors can participate more actively and effectively," and "we try to develop the whole system to make it possible to have a 1:1 mentoring system even after the program is finished."

Other than that, KU propels the 'Externship' program as a part of the employment expanding project by the Ministry of Labor. It is a certification program to prepare the steps of employment from career search to employment. Students who finish the 4 steps: (1) career search, (2) group externship, (3) individual externship, and (4) employment preparation, will get the certificate.



 

#Academic-industrial cooperation program


The 'LG Electronics R&D Center,' which is jointly operated by Korea University and LG Electronics, is an academic-industrial cooperation 'tailored master's system' program that LG Electronics induced and operated for the first time at Korea University. LG Electronics chooses students through paper screening and interviews graduate school applicants referred by the university, and supports them with full tuition and living expenses.

Currently around 30 masters' program students and 5~6 faculty are engaged in R&D, and LG Electronics supports related expenses as well as necessary facilities for research. Moreover, LG Electronics researchers deliver lectures on cutting edge technical trends to graduate students and undergrads as well as R&D center researchers through the LG special lecture series on every Wednesday and convey field knowledge to them.



 

■Mr. Lee Hun Soo who joined the 'YNCC' sales team

"We have seven petrochemical companies in Korea, and Yeocheon NCC is number one in sales among them. It is an excellent company as being the permanent number one in Asia as well."

The pride of Mr. Lee Hun Soo (KU College of Business Class of 2006) about his company, who joined the petrochemical company's 'YNCC' sales team, reaches to the skies. It could be due to the fact that he was offered a job there during a severe economic and employment slump; however his pride came voluntarily.' Although he was accepted by several well-known companies, he considered the substance of the company, not just name value. In a similar fashion, his employment strategy was carried out according to his plan from the preparation to the final choice. Then, what is the secret for his success? He said in one sentence, "I just worked on fundamentals." "Fundamentals are important. No matter what, it should be done based on fundamentals, and then it cannot collapse. If you have the fundamentals in employment preparation, you'll have confidence and get various chances."

The fundamentals that Mr. Lee is talking about are not just GPA or TOEIC scores. It includes all the skills that a college student should have. Mr. Lee explains that if you do various activities on top of that, you can build a firm structure based on it. The opportunities that enabled him to have the best experiences such as going to a US college as an exchange student for a year, working on an international internship in Hong Kong, and working as a volunteer English interpreter for various international conventions, were possible because he had worked on fundamentals.

His real employment preparation began when he became a senior. At first, he entered a public competition. He won a prize at the public competition with the subject on 'Blue Ocean,' and that helped him in interviews. The place he got the most help from was the Employment Supporting Team on campus. It helped him to fill his missing 2%. He, who checked every single employment-related special lecture and employment recruiting event, was positive in making questionnaires and asking staffers in charge of companies that he was interested in.

Mr. Lee said, "Employment recruiting was a good opportunity to check companies precisely and objectively," and "I could have much information for the company I am now working for." Specially, the mock interview helped him a great deal since he could experience various types of interviews such as 1:1 interview, group interview, discussion interview, and presentation interview and staffers gave him feedback right away.

Mr. Lee made an 'employment calendar' during his preparation on one wall and recorded employment lecture dates, the recruiting period of each company, and interview dates. He made it easy to see at a glance.

Lastly Mr. Lee Hun Soo added to his juniors advising, "Try to find a role model," and "if you followed the role model of seniors you would like to copy, then you will know exactly what you need to do."