The Korea Times close
National
  • Politics
  • Foreign Affairs
  • Multicultural Community
  • Defense
  • Environment & Animals
  • Law & Crime
  • Society
  • Health & Science
Business
  • Tech
  • Bio
  • Companies
Finance
  • Companies
  • Economy
  • Markets
  • Cryptocurrency
Opinion
  • Editorial
  • Columns
  • Thoughts of the Times
  • Cartoon
  • Today in History
  • Blogs
  • Tribune Service
  • Blondie & Garfield
  • Letter to President
  • Letter to the Editor
Lifestyle
  • Travel & Food
  • Trends
  • People & Events
  • Books
  • Around Town
  • Fortune Telling
Entertainment
& Arts
  • K-pop
  • Films
  • Shows & Dramas
  • Music
  • Theater & Others
Sports
World
  • SCMP
  • Asia
Video
  • Culture
  • People
  • News
Photos
  • Photo News
  • Darkroom
  • The Korea Times
  • search
  • Site Map
  • E-paper
  • Subscribe
  • Register
  • LogIn
search close
  • The Korea Times
  • search
  • Site Map
  • E-paper
  • Subscribe
  • Register
  • LogIn
search close
National
  • Politics
  • Foreign Affairs
  • Multicultural Community
  • Defense
  • Environment & Animals
  • Law & Crime
  • Society
  • Health & Science
Tue, July 5, 2022 | 07:10
Politics
Background-blind recruitment opens new opportunity for jobseekers
Posted : 2017-12-19 10:08
Updated : 2017-12-19 10:21
Print Preview
Font Size Up
Font Size Down
By Kim Pan-suk, Minister of Personnel Management

Professors Marianne Bertrand of the University of Chicago and Sendhil Mullainathan of MIT conducted a survey on the potential discrimination that may occur during the recruitment process.

The two professors sent out the same resumes to many job posts, using a name frequently used by African-Americans for half of the resumes and a name widely used by white Americans for the other half.

The results showed white names receive 50 percent more callbacks for interviews. Callbacks are also more responsive to resume quality for white-sounding names than for African-American ones. This result clearly demonstrates how name-background information that can cause prejudice has an impact on one's judgment.

In order to acquire talented and capable human resources, a public agency or a private company needs to evaluate an individual's ability to carry out a task without knowing their background information such as the name of their university or school, region of birth or the applicant's photo.

This method of recruitment is called background-blind recruitment. The former Civil Service Commission, which is now the Ministry of Personnel Management, removed education background information from the application form for the open recruitment of government officials in 2005 and introduced the method of having a "Behavioral Event Interview" for the first time.

This is a way to assess an individual's ability to undertake a task by reviewing the interviewee's behaviors in the course of solving a task. The introduction of a "background-blind recruitment system" led to the adoption of "structured interviews," where interviewees are asked pre-determined questions and are evaluated through a specific method and standard in order to ensure the validity and reliability of each interview.

In these interviews, interviewers ask job-specific questions or give a policy-driven task for the interviewee to accomplish with the purpose of assessing the overall abilities of the interviewee without knowing any of their background information.

The interview is also an important element in the recruitment of government officials. The purpose of interviews is not to assess the level of eloquence of a person, but to evaluate the person's capacity to carry out tasks such as critical thinking skills, ability to analyze a situation, communication skills and so forth.

Various methods such as group discussions, individual presentations, experiential interviews and situational interviews are utilized. Evaluation is not completed with one question: several follow-up questions are asked based on how the interview situation unfolds, naturally revealing the interviewee's ability to deal with spontaneous or complex situations.
In open recruitment for Grade-5 government officials, six interviewers interview and evaluate one interviewee for four hours. Under these circumstances, it is close to impossible to fool well-trained and experienced interviewers just with good speaking skills.

There is a misconception that blind recruitments will keep the interviewer in the "dark," but this is far from true. Rather, background-blind recruitment is a way to keep everyone in the "light" by assessing an individual's critical ability to take on a given task using a verified and reliable method without being swayed by background information that may only cause prejudice and nothing more.

Having this in mind, the Korean government is planning to develop an Interviewer Training Program at the National Human Resources Development Institute (NHI) in an effort to expand the pool of expert interviewers.

The Canadian government has recently introduced a "name-blind recruitment" as a trial for recruiting government officials as part of its efforts to hire talented personnel in various areas without being prejudiced by one's name to provide high-quality public service.

Lately, the Fourth Industrial Revolution is casting numerous challenges on our societies. The importance of creativity and convergence is growing evermore and efforts to find competent human resources for each sector of society are getting more competitive than ever in an "era of war for talent."

Utilizing the background-blind recruitment method focusing on a person's job competency without factoring in background information will provide a new window of opportunity to the young generation who are longing for equal opportunity, fair process and just results.


Emailchojh@ktimes.com Article ListMore articles by this reporter
 
LG
  • Typhoon Aere forecast to bring extended heatwave
  • [ANALYSIS] Korean exporters start rethinking 'China strategy'
  • Banks favor 'MZ generation' celebrities for marketing in digital era
  • 'Korea, Japan should restore visa waiver program'
  • [INTERVIEW] 'Repatriation puts fear in eyes of all North Koreans,' rights expert says
  • Pakistan unveils Buddhist heritage in documentary
  • KT drama 'Extraordinary Attorney Woo' popular on Netflix
  • Georgian wine ready to captivate Korean market
  • 'Global firms look to Korea for inspiration and trends': Kantar CCO
  • Photo of Yoon staring at blank computer screen raises eyebrows
  • Moon Geun-young to make directorial film debut at BIFAN Moon Geun-young to make directorial film debut at BIFAN
  • Lee Jung-hyun returns to big screen after becoming a mom Lee Jung-hyun returns to big screen after becoming a mom
  • BLACKPINK's 'Ddu-du Ddu-du' sets YouTube views record for K-pop group BLACKPINK's 'Ddu-du Ddu-du' sets YouTube views record for K-pop group
  • [INTERVIEW] How Frank Wildhorn became most popular musical composer in Korea [INTERVIEW] How Frank Wildhorn became most popular musical composer in Korea
  • Maroon 5's world tour image with Rising Sun design causes stir Maroon 5's world tour image with Rising Sun design causes stir
DARKROOM
  • Afghanistan earthquake killed more than 1,000

    Afghanistan earthquake killed more than 1,000

  • Divided America reacts to overturn of Roe vs. Wade

    Divided America reacts to overturn of Roe vs. Wade

  • Namaste: Yogis to celebrate International Yoga Day

    Namaste: Yogis to celebrate International Yoga Day

  • Poor hit harder by economic crisis

    Poor hit harder by economic crisis

  • Roland Garros 2022

    Roland Garros 2022

The Korea Times
CEO & Publisher : Oh Young-jin
Digital News Email : webmaster@koreatimes.co.kr
Tel : 02-724-2114
Online newspaper registration No : 서울,아52844
Date of registration : 2020.02.05
Masthead : The Korea Times
Copyright © koreatimes.co.kr. All rights reserved.
  • About Us
  • Introduction
  • History
  • Location
  • Media Kit
  • Contact Us
  • Products & Service
  • Subscribe
  • E-paper
  • Mobile Service
  • RSS Service
  • Content Sales
  • Policy
  • Privacy Statement
  • Terms of Service
  • 고충처리인
  • Youth Protection Policy
  • Code of Ethics
  • Copyright Policy
  • Family Site
  • Hankook Ilbo
  • Dongwha Group