By Kim Se-jeong
Imagine that you find an opportunity for a job overseas after long unemployment. At the job interview, you feel humiliated by the interviewers’ absurd requests, but stay quiet because you want the job. At the end of the interview, you learn that it was a fake without any promise of a job, and that it was recorded for a TV show.
This happened to 15 university students in Anseong, Gyeonggi Province last month. The fake job advertisement and interviews were organized by a cable television channel, Campus TV, which wanted to produce a reality show to commemorate its scheduled official opening in December.
The scandal erupted last month as Campus TV put out a job advertisement at Dong-Ah Institute of Media and Arts. The TV station stated that it was looking for enthusiastic applicants for positions at a sheep farm in New Zealand. It lured students by promising that the winners would travel for free, earn money and make new friends.
The only condition was that their job interviews would be filmed for a TV broadcast.
Interviewers, who were actually actors, made demanding, silly requests of the interviewees. For example, the applicants were asked to crawl like sheep or imitate the sounds of sheep.
It wasn’t until after the interview was over that staff told the applicants the whole scheme was a fake and there weren’t any jobs. Some applicants burst into tears in disappointment, according to people who were there.
The TV station’s dishonesty enraged the students, who complained that it took advantage of their desperation.
Following the row, the TV station apologized to the public.
“We express our apology for what we did. We regret that our senseless decision discouraged many students who were looking to reach their dreams through us,” it said in a letter of apology posted on its website.
According to the letter, staffers of the program also met with the students to apologize, and discarded all the video recordings in their presence. Campus TV also promised it will organize a new tour project for them.
The scandal offers a glimpse into the desperation of jobseekers in an increasingly tougher job market. Korea’s unemployment rate among people in their 20s was 9.6 percent on average from January to September.
“Although the TV station discarded the files and promised to offer free trips to the participants, these young people somehow need compensation for what the company did to their souls,” posted an Internet user.