Banks That Increased Rolling Recruitment, Will They Expand 'Gongchae Gate' Next Year? (Comprehensive)

NongHyup Bank to Hire 450 Employees in First Half of Next Year
Bank Recruitment Market Expected to Ease After Being Tight

[Asia Economy Reporter Jin-ho Kim] The tightly blocked bank recruitment market is expected to breathe new life due to digital transformation and the impact of COVID-19. NH Nonghyup Bank has become the first among major commercial banks to confirm a large-scale open recruitment for next year, drawing attention to whether other banks, which have recently increased only irregular hiring, will once again open the 'public recruitment gate.' However, since Nonghyup Bank has a 'special characteristic' different from other commercial banks, some cautious opinions suggest that the trend of recruitment expansion should be observed a bit longer.

According to the financial sector on the 13th, Nonghyup Bank will announce the '2022 First Half Grade 6 New Employee Early Recruitment' on the 14th of this month. The plan is to complete the placement at frontline branches by mid-March after written exams in mid-January and interviews in February. (Refer to our exclusive report on the 12th [Exclusive] Nonghyup Bank to hire 450 people in the first half of next year... the largest scale ever)

The recruitment will be conducted on a scale of 450 people, including 420 general positions and 30 IT positions. This is comparable to the annual recruitment number of 470 this year and is the largest number since Nonghyup Bank was launched in 2012. For the general field, candidates will be selected by metropolitan city and province units, focusing on those with marketing capabilities. To strengthen corporate finance (RM) and asset management (WM) competitiveness, these skills will be intensively verified and significantly preferred. In the IT field, holders of digital certificates and graduates of the Samsung Youth Software Academy (SSAFY) will be given preference, and programming skills will be verified through an online coding test. All recruitment will be conducted in a blind manner.

In particular, this is considered a 'record-breaking recruitment' even across the entire banking sector. Nonghyup Bank will hire nearly half of the total number of new employees (about 1,000) recruited by the five major commercial banks this year, just in the first half of next year.

With Nonghyup Bank opening the door with large-scale recruitment, the bank recruitment market, which has been stagnant in recent years, is also expected to gain some momentum. There is anticipation that a considerable scale of recruitment may proceed next year, especially among some commercial banks that did not conduct public recruitment in the second half of this year.

The financial authorities' continuous pressure on banks to create 'youth jobs' is also mentioned as a possible influence. In fact, major policy banks such as the Korea Credit Guarantee Fund, KDB Industrial Bank, and Korea Eximbank have significantly increased their recruitment scale this year compared to previous years. A financial sector official said, "Despite the COVID-19 situation, since the banks achieved record-high performance last year and this year, the importance of the public role of commercial banks in recruitment and other areas is expected to be emphasized."

However, unlike Nonghyup Bank, it is predicted that major commercial banks will find it difficult to return to large-scale public recruitment as in previous years. It is pointed out that the situation is different from Nonghyup Bank, which cannot easily reduce its size considering financial accessibility in rural areas.

In particular, the speed of branch consolidation and closure is very fast, and internally, the demand for personnel related to digital transformation is much greater than that of Nonghyup Bank, so such large-scale recruitment is practically impossible. A commercial bank official said, "Due to the impact of digitalization, the trend is shifting from public recruitment to irregular recruitment," adding, "In the case of Nonghyup Bank, large-scale public recruitment is still conducted because of the special nature of its wide face-to-face channels."

Meanwhile, while banks continue to deliberate on recruitment methods, internet banks and fintech industries are aggressively recruiting talent. They are actively securing excellent talent by offering 1.5 times the existing salary and extravagant conditions such as incentives worth several hundred million won. Another financial sector official predicted, "Considering the gradual expansion of digital finance, the demand from financial companies for these sectors is likely to increase further in the future."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.