[K-Women Talk] Lose One Year, Wander for Five: Three Commandments for Freshmen

At the Starting Line of Finding a 'Career' After Graduation
Discovering Aptitude Through Academic Subjects, Clubs, and Internships

The college entrance exam journey of my niece, who had been running solely toward the CSAT by discarding piles of workbooks and textbooks, has come to an end. My sister, exhausted from providing psychological support and rides for my niece, is now searching for a place to live for a month to relieve her accumulated depression. Having safely completed the first stage of life, what kind of college life should my niece lead? And how should my sister, who has been running a three-legged race with her niece, view her from now on? I want to offer practical advice from the perspective of employment, which will come in 4 to 5 years.

It may sound obvious, but employment is about finding the ‘job’ or ‘role’ that my niece will have for life. The process of discovering work that fits her temperament and aptitude must come first. As statistics show, the number one reason for quitting within the first year of employment is ‘the job didn’t suit my aptitude.’ Skipping this step can lead to repeated resignations. There are countless cases of people quitting bank jobs because they couldn’t handle meticulous tasks down to the last won, or MDs who resigned because negotiating prices with suppliers was too difficult.

How should a twenty-year-old niece find her job? The hint is surprisingly simple. One way is to discover it within classes, through academic subjects. Take the Department of Business Administration as an example. Each course offered?accounting, logistics, human resources, finance, marketing?is related to a career path. She should take all classes evenly and find the subjects where she performs well and feels drawn to. Following that path will lead to a job that fits her temperament and aptitude. As seen in cases where students who liked accounting took advanced courses and secured rare positions in major corporations’ accounting departments, academic subjects are the most important clues to a job.

The second way is to find it outside of classes, through activities such as clubs and part-time jobs. Clubs can be hobby-oriented like bands, dance, travel, or academic-oriented like volunteering, startups, programming. It’s good to do both hobby and academic types. For employment, academic clubs are definitely advantageous because they allow one to build prior knowledge of the job and discover personal tendencies through teamwork activities.

Part-time jobs provide early social experience and broaden background knowledge of jobs. Working at a logistics center offers indirect experience of logistics jobs, convenience stores for sales management, and H&B stores for marketing roles. If she wants a different experience, tough jobs like construction site work or daily manufacturing labor are also recommended. Whatever she does, if she regards it as ‘time to explore industries’ regardless of hourly wage, it will be valuable.

Companies want to hire ‘talent who can contribute to the field starting tomorrow.’ Regular positions prefer those who have interned, and internships require part-time or club experience. Let’s work backward based on this standard. To get a job at the end of senior year, she must intern in junior year; to get an internship, she needs job-related club and part-time experience in sophomore year, along with basic specs like language and computer skills. Ultimately, freshman year is the most precious time to explore herself inside and outside of classes and narrow down her options.

Now, one step remains. Even within the same job, preparation differs depending on whether it’s a public enterprise, private company, or professional occupation, so she must decide on a major path. Public enterprises suit those who value work-life balance and stability; private companies suit those who enjoy competition and rewards based on performance; professional occupations suit those who can patiently endure a three-year preparation period.

Parents’ roles are also important. While respecting their child’s independence, they must actively participate in career concerns. The three elements mentioned earlier?elective subjects, clubs, and part-time jobs?need to be checked. Furthermore, if parents can discover what kind of ‘work DNA’ their child has, that would be perfect. If they can apply the skills they used to find CSAT academies, this task should be a piece of cake.

Lee Sook-eun, Publisher of Employment Backbone

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