Men, Women Use Different Tactics for Job Hunting
By Kwon Mee-yoo
Staff Reporter
Kim Ji-won, a 25-year-old female job seeker, looks for job information mostly at a local job center and on the Internet.
``My uncle runs a small enterprise, so I may get a job if I ask for one. But I feel it's not the right way to land a job,'' she said.
According to a survey of 1,682 people by the Korea Employment Information Service (KEIS), females do not actively use social networks or personal connections in job hunting, while men more proactively use the networks of people they know. Instead of networking, females prefer getting jobs through job ads and other official hiring information.
Of those surveyed, 49.2 percent of female respondents answered they landed jobs through ads and other official routes without using social networks or personal connections at all, far higher than 37.4 percent for males. More than 56 percent of males used personal or social networks to get a job.
However, the most successful method for finding a position is social networking. Women, who preferred official ways to seek a job, also showed a higher chance of getting job through their networks.
``The research showed that women under-use social networks and personal connections in their pursuit of jobs,'' Park Jin-hee, a researcher of KEIS. ``In case they lack such networks, they can use various public job information centers and agencies.''
Park said such agencies not only provide information about jobs but also help job seekers build social networks, citing Canada's Industrial Adjust Service as a good example for providing human social networks to job hunters. The service holds regular meetings among job seekers, employers and union members along with career counseling.
``These kinds of programs help job hunters create and maintain social networks of people and eventually allow them to land a job,'' Park said.