Seongnam City Makes Personality Test Mandatory for All-Day Care Facility Staff Recruitment

“Personality Test Required Before Entrusting Children”
Seongnam City Strengthens Recruitment Standards for Care Staff

Seongnam City in Gyeonggi Province (Mayor: Shin Sang-jin) announced on July 22 that it will make the 'Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI)' mandatory for the recruitment of new staff such as all-day care center teachers and kitchen staff, in order to enhance the reliability of child and youth care services.

School care center classroom in Seongnam area. Provided by Seongnam City

Seongnam City has established this policy and decided to implement it for new hires starting August 1.

This measure is an expansion of the personality testing system, following its application to newly hired childcare teachers at public daycare centers (a total of 108 centers) in April.

Accordingly, teachers and other staff seeking employment at a total of 87 facilities?including 33 Together Care Centers, 5 school care centers, 5 municipal community child centers operated by Seongnam City, and 44 private community child centers receiving city subsidies?must undergo the personality test before their interview.

The personality test consists of answering 526 questions and the results will be reflected in the interview process.

Currently, there are 419 staff members (87 center directors, 249 care teachers, and 83 kitchen staff) working at the 87 all-day care facilities, and 2,391 elementary, middle, and high school students are using these services.

Staff recruitment is conducted when vacancies occur at each facility.

A Seongnam City official stated, "Mandating this personality test will serve as an institutional measure to enhance trust in the character and professionalism of care teachers, who influence the emotional development of children and adolescents," adding, "We have expanded the facilities subject to this policy in order to create a care environment trusted by children, parents, and staff alike."

In the past three months, 170 childcare teachers (9.5%) have been hired through personality testing at Seongnam City's public daycare centers, which have 1,788 teachers and 6,392 children enrolled.

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