4 Malaysian Dongwha employees introduce how they got jobs
.jpg?w=728)
Dongwha Enterprise is Korea’s leading building materials manufacturer and a global provider of wood panels, such as particle board and medium-density fiberboard (MDF).
By setting up a production base in Australia in 1996, the company started its overseas moves earlier than its rivals and set up a series of production sites in Vietnam, Malaysia, New Zealand and Australia.
Of notice was the growth of its corporation in Malaysia. As Dongwha Malaysia’s presence grows, Dongwha Enterprise questioned: “How can we recruit more talented people best for our Malaysia branch?”
The company came up with rather simple answer ― offer more job opportunities to Malaysian students in Korea. Since 2008, Dongwha has been actively recruiting Malaysian students in Korea, enabling 38 to get jobs.
The following four people are Malaysian Dongwha employees who entered the company this way. They sat down for an interview about their office life, job-seeking stories and advice for international students looking for work at a Korean company.
Q. Please describe your job.
A:
Sharina Binti Zainordin (Sharina): I am a Human Resources (HR) team manager at Dongwha Malaysia. I am in charge of all human resource-related work at Dongwha Malaysia’s three plants of Merbok, Kulim and Nilai. I believe a “good workplace” has to be a place where you feel pleased on your way to your job in the morning. As the manager of the HR team, I’m paying efforts to make Dongwha Malaysia a workplace where employees can work pleasantly.
Yeoh Lee Hong
Sharina Binti Zainordin
Zulzaeri Bin Zainol Rashid
Zulzaeri Bin Zainol Rashid (Zulzaeri):
I’m an Engineering Planning team manager at Dongwha Malaysia’s Merbok plant. My team is in charge of projects for expanding facilities in all the company’s plants in Malaysia and provides technical support for production lines. Of note is that I worked at a Dongwha MDF plant in Asan, South Chungcheong Province, from September 2014 to this March. I feel great when I share my experiences and knowhow earned at the Asan plant with my colleagues in Malaysia.
Mohd Nasrik Bin Misbah (Nasrik):
I’m a Middle East sales team senior associate at Dongwha Dubai. My job is selling quality board products to more than 70 companies in 11 Middle Eastern countries ― Kuwait, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Oman, Jordan, Yemen, Sudan, Syria and Lebanon. I feel a huge responsibility in my job because my team is at the very frontier of Dongwha Dubai’s sales in the region.
Yeoh Lee Hong (Yeoh):
I’m a senior associate at Dongwha Malaysia’s Chemical Plant Resin team. My job is R&D on chemicals, especially resin. In the process of manufacturing MDFs, not only raw wood materials but also chemicals such as resin are important. It is because the quality of a product can vary depending on which resin the manufacturer uses during the process. I feel deeply rewarded when a resin I worked on in the lab is used for producing an actual MDF.
Q. What are the impressions that you have picked up after working for your company?
Sharina:
What I felt was that the company was running under the motto of “cherishing the value of people and pursuing happiness along with customers.” Under the motto, the company has created an environment helping employees work pleasantly. Such an environment allowed employees to work in a family-like atmosphere.
Zulzaeri: I
am impressed that there are so many opportunities open for employees. Dongwha annually produces 1.38 cubic meters of MDFs, which is the largest volume in Asia, and is a leader in the industry. This allows the company’s employees to access accumulated knowhow on MDF production and cutting-edge technology in the industry. Also, there are chances for employees to gain overseas working experiences just like I did in Korea.
Nasrik:
I agree with Zulzaeri. The company’s overseas network helps its employees to cooperate with their peers around the world. Dongwha has facilities in nine countries including Australia, Malaysia, New Zealand and Vietnam that provide employees with broader experiences. Also, it is a great pleasure to meet your fellow workers at the One Dongwha Camp event, in which we gather and communicate with each other.
Yeoh:
For me, the most important thing in my office life is to work with good colleagues. With that belief, I think I’m lucky to work with the people at Dongwha Malaysia. Since my job is about R&D, I oftentimes visit the three plants and work at unfamiliar places. In the early days of my work, it was quite difficult to work at such places with unfamiliar people, but they were always nice to me, teaching me about new things and treating me as if I was an important member of the team.
Q: Please offer some advice to Malaysian or other international students in Korea seeking jobs at Korean companies.
If you want a job at a Korean company, training experience at a Korean company could be a lot of help. The training period will tell you whether life at a Korean company suits you, as well as letting you know about the company and what kind of job you want. In my case, I did an internship program at Dongwha and decided to apply for a job at the company after learning that I liked the way people at the company work and its business culture which prioritizes individual employee’s progress.
The internship program also taught me what kind of job fits me. I majored in electronics & computer engineering at Hanyang University in Korea, which has nothing to do with human resources. But during the internship program, I found I’m good at HR work and was assigned to the job during the recruiting process and now I work as an HR team manager.
Zulzaeri:
I hope those who seek jobs at Korean companies have more time to study what kind of businesses the companies they will apply to are in and what kind of job they want to apply for. Also, I want to underscore that you should have a basic command of Korean at least, even if applying for a global-but-Korea-based company like Dongwha. I’m not saying you should be perfectly fluent in using Korean. What I say is you have to develop your speaking ability so that you can freely communicate with your fellow Korean employees.
Nasrik: I
also want to stress that you have to understand more about what kind of job you are applying for. In the sales department, employees mostly work through email with their clients. This means that if you study and train more on writing business emails, which focuses on delivering your communication to the recipient precisely, it will be a huge help when you are working as a sales employee. In other words, if you have strengths in that, you can score higher points when you apply for a job in sales. Adding to this, if you can tell interviewers what kind of products the company sells, you can be highly evaluated.