Samsung Group begins large-scale recruitment

Samsung employees who oversee Samsung Group's recruitment exams hold a preliminary meeting with candidates who would take the Global Samsung Aptitude Test (GSAT), Samsung Group's recruitment exam, in this October 2021 file photo. Courtesy of Samsung Electronics

By Baek Byung-yeul

Samsung Group will begin accepting applications for new hires on Monday, marking the start of its large-scale recruitment for the second half of the year, the nation's largest conglomerate said Sunday.

The group said its 20 affiliates, including Samsung Electronics, Samsung Display, Samsung Electro-Mechanics, Samsung SDI, Samsung C&T, Samsung Biologics, Samsung Life Insurance and Samsung Securities, will be hiring new employees.

Applicants can apply through Samsung Careers, the group's recruitment website, by Sept. 18 and will go through a two-month process of staged tests and interviews through November.

Samsung has been conducting its open recruitment, letting applicants to take what it calls the Global Samsung Aptitude Test (GSAT). Since 2020, the group has been conducting this recruitment test online.

Samsung is the only one of Korea's four major conglomerates that still maintains this open recruitment system. Other conglomerates have been gradually abolishing open recruitment and hiring on an irregular basis, narrowing the door for young people seeking new jobs after graduating from university.

In 2022, the group announced an aggressive goal of hiring 80,000 new employees over the next five years, after achieving its 2018 goal to hire 40,000 people in three years.

Samsung Group, which was the first Korean company to introduce open recruitment system in 1957, said it is the only major Korean conglomerate to maintain the program, contributing to large scale job creation, providing fair employment opportunities and fostering young professionals.

Maintaining the program is in line with Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Jae-yong's statement that “Samsung will invest more and create better jobs,” and the group has continued to expand hiring even in difficult economic conditions, the group said.

In 2021, Chairman Lee said “As a businessman, I feel a heavy responsibility for not creating more jobs. Samsung will invest more in technologies that don't exist in the world and create better jobs.”

In line with this philosophy, the number of employees at Samsung Electronics, the crown jewel of the group, has steadily increased from 103,011 in December 2018 to 124,070 as of June this year.

In addition to this open recruitment system, Samsung has been working to build an organizational culture where the company and its employees grow together. To enhance its global competitiveness and promote a creative horizontal organizational culture, Samsung has reorganized the existing seniority-based system into a job role-based system.