Chapter 1 Introduction

Chapter 2 A Survey on the Hiring Practices of Large Enterprises in Korea

Chapter 3 A Survey on Young Generation’s Experience and Perception of the Job Market

Chapter 4 Supply of Recruitment on Demand: Turnover of Young College Graduates

Chapter 5 The Inertia and Changes in the Recruitment System of Korea’s Large Enterprises

Chapter 6 The Present and Future of Japan’s Open Recruitment System

Chapter 7 Policy Implications

Regular open recruitment has long been a recruitment method used by large and medium-sized companies in Korea. Taking conglomerates as an example, it involves conducting mass recruitment through standardized tests on a regular basis within a corporate group and allocating hired personnel to affiliated companies. At the opposite end of the spectrum of recruitment methods from regular open recruitment is recruitment on demand. At the departmental level, personnel are selected on an as-needed basis and immediately assigned to work.

There are significant differences between regular open recruitment and recruitment on demand in terms of the skills required, the mechanisms for skill formation, and the way the labor market works. Regular open recruitment is a way of selecting generalists and developing them as employees of the company. In the process, performance is rewarded and skills are formed through internal organizational competition. In the case of conglomerates, group recruitment has been conducive to the development of a peer culture, which in turn fosters a sense of belonging and loyalty, as well as cooperation among affiliates, as employees are trained and educated in an in-house training center and deployed to various affiliates. This recruitment method was suitable for periods of high growth and industrial expansion centered on conglomerate groups such as the chaebol in Korea and the keiretsu in Japan.

On the other hand, recruitment on demand is a method of selecting specialists and utilizing them as job experts. It's more about acquiring job skills, focusing on jobs and roles, rather than developing employees of the company. In the recruitment on demand market, competition, performance rewards and skill formation are driven by the labor market outside of the company. In other words, specialists can move freely from company to company to gain expertise and experience. One illustrative example is Silicon Valley in the United States.

In summary, regular open recruitment and recruitment on demand differ in terms of recruitment timing, the entity conducting recruitment, and objectives. It can be categorized as regular open recruitment or recruitment on demand depending on (1) whether the recruitment is done in batches at regular intervals or on an as-needed basis, (2) whether the recruitment is done company-wide or in the current department, and (3) whether the recruitment is for generalists or specialists. Of course, the differences between regular open recruitment and recruitment on demand are conceptually typified within the spectrum of recruitment methods, and in reality, they may appear in some modified or mixed forms. (For the full text of the English summary, please download the “Download 2 English_Abstract”.)