Kim Ji-su, a new teller at Woori Bank, greets a customer at the lender’s branch in downtown Seoul, Wednesday. The 19-year-old high school senior unveiled her wish to serve cash-strapped self-employed people like her father.
/ Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul |
By Kim Jae-won
A high school diploma doesn’t do much to help its holder land a job in a society where “education inflation” is so prevalent that it seems just about everybody goes to college.
Two side effects have ensued. Highly-educated people opt to stay unemployed to hunt for better positions, while well-trained high school graduates are passed over for decent jobs.
A social engineering of sorts is under way, with the government encouraging banks and other firms to hire high school graduates. It remains to be seen whether this endeavor, being pushed as part of President Lee Myung-bak’s new social contract that calls for a “fair society,” will outlive the administration that has one year left in office.
One of the beneficiaries is a 19-year-old called Kim Ji-su, a newly hired teller at Woori Bank’s headquarters’ branch in downtown Seoul. Employed before she graduates next month, Kim is full of hope and conviction.
“I want to help ordinary people, especially the self-employed who suffer from a lack of sufficient funds. I want to be on their side,” Kim said
The senior at Kyungbok Business High School in Seoul said that her father is a small merchant who only needed a little help to be successful, but rarely got it.
“I grew up watching my dad, who is a vending machine retailer, struggle with money shortages.”
Kim is one of Woori’s 85 new employees from vocational high schools hired in September last year.
Woori’s domestic rivals, Kookmin Bank, the Industrial Bank of Korea and Korea Development Bank, have also recruited seniors from vocational high schools on two-year contracts.
Kim and others like her are reviving the old hiring tradition in the financial sector. High school graduates were a key element at Korean lenders before the Asian financial crisis hit the nation in the late 1990s.
Banks were the first destination for elite students from commercial vocational high schools before the economic turmoil but the number has shrunk as more and more college students have replaced them.
Asked whether she envies her friends who are supposed to attend colleges from March, her response was clear.
“They spend 20 million won ($18,000) a year while I make 20 million won. I think it will be me who will be smiling in five years time.”
She said, however, she has not given up on studying further and plans to take night or audio classes if given the chance to do so while keeping her job.
Kim is coping with the challenges her job is posing such as unexpected demands by customers, adding she is learning how to overcome them.
“One day an older male customer insisted on being able to use our services, even though he did not bring his ID card. I was embarrassed at first, but resolved the matter by proving his identity through other means.”
Kim said having the right balance of dreams and reality is the key to finding a good job. “It is important to get a job you like to do but you should consider other realistic factors, too.”
Han Seoung-chul, a Woori official who taught Kim at the lender’s training center, said that the next three years will be a critical time to decide on her career path.
“If she can show that she is able to compete with her college graduate colleagues for the next three years, she may have a promising future. So, it is the most important time for her to learn about the banking business.”
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