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| Thousands of Vietnamese college grads wait in line to enter the GSAT test center set up at the Vietnam National Convention Center in Hanoi, Saturday. / Courtesy of Samsung Electronics |
By Kim Hyun-bin
Thousands of local Vietnamese college graduates have gathered for a chance to work for Samsung Electronics, which has become the leading foreign company in the Southeast Asian country.
According to Samsung Group Vietnam branch, around 2,000 college graduates took the Global Samsung Aptitude Test (GSAT) at the Vietnam National Convention Center in Hanoi, Saturday.
Around 6,000 applicants applied for jobs with Samsung Electronics and Samsung Display factories in the region; the companies plan to employ hundreds of new workers through the evaluation process. Some 2,000 applicants passed the first stage ― the resume evaluation ― and have taken the GSAT.
Samsung says it will hold the interview procedures soon and announce final candidates who will work for the firm at a later date.
Samsung initiated the GSAT in Vietnam in 2011 to recruit local employees. The tech giant became the first to hold an open recruitment and still is the only company to do so.
Over the last decade, around 190,000 applicants have applied and among them 60,000 have taken the GSAT while 14,000 were recruited to the firm. There is no set number of hires, all depending on the applicants' tests and interview scores.
Samsung's starting salary in Vietnam is up to 15 percent higher than local firms.
Although there have been no new cases of COVID-19 in the country for the past two months, Samsung mandated that all test takers wear a mask and checked their temperatures, in addition to setting the tables 1.5 meters apart from each other.
Samsung has been a popular workplace for Vietnamese people due to its excellent company welfare policies. Samsung Electronics factories in Bac Ninh and Thai Nguyen province were on the country's list of top 30 companies to work for in 2017.
Samsung Electronics' Bac Ninh factory provides rest areas for pregnant women, beauty parlor, movie theater, yoga classes and a gymnasium.
It is a win-win situation for both Samsung and Vietnam, as Samsung is in favor of hiring Vietnamese workers and recently announced it would hire more technicians in the electronics and IT sector.
Vietnamese are also pleased about the increase in personnel hiring as COVID-19 has taken a toll in the country and the increase in recruitment from the global tech giant will reduce the country's youth unemployment rate.
"Due to COVID-19 impacting the world, Vietnam might become the only location where Samsung is able to hold large-scale open recruitment," a Samsung official said.
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