[K-Women Talk]To Avoid a "Meaningless Master's Degree," Get Familiar with Job Postings

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A friend’s son holds a master’s degree in biotechnology. After completing his degree in February this year, he entered the job market but has yet to secure employment, causing considerable anxiety. The major conglomerates he desired to join primarily recruited for “process development” roles, but unfortunately, his master’s research was in “basic research.” Facing the risk of his master’s degree becoming “meaningless,” what strategy should he pursue?

Statistics show that about 110,000 people earned master’s or doctoral degrees in 2025. Of these, 80% were master’s degree holders, whose employment rate as of 2024 stands at 80.2%. This means that 2 out of every 110 master’s graduates are unemployed, and since the number of degree holders continues to rise each year, the situation could become even more severe.

For humanities majors, it has long been proven that a master’s degree can act as “overqualification,” putting candidates at a disadvantage in the job market. Savvy job seekers in the humanities now tend not to pursue graduate school without a clear goal. Nonetheless, there are sectors within the humanities job market that favor master’s degrees, such as research firms, counseling psychology, museum curators, and international organizations, which require a high level of expertise and thus prefer master’s graduates. However, it is rare to find large corporations in these fields, and the number of available positions is limited, making it difficult to expect favorable treatment.

The first step for science and engineering master’s graduates to secure a job is “choosing the right lab.” Whether or not a lab conducts research needed by industry is more important than the lab’s reputation. In Korea, where manufacturing is strong, there is higher demand for process development necessary for mass production rather than basic research. Therefore, aspiring master’s students must conduct a “demand survey” before choosing a lab.

How can one identify labs with high corporate demand? Experts advise prospective students to review “corporate job postings” before making a decision. Especially, job postings from top companies in each industry include very detailed job descriptions, allowing candidates to understand what skills and research areas are required. Take this year’s Samsung Electronics job postings as an example. The memory, foundry, and semiconductor research divisions all recruited for roles in process design, process technology, and equipment technology. Since there is high demand for process and equipment specialists, these should serve as key criteria when selecting a graduate laboratory.

The same applies to other industrial sectors such as mechanical engineering, chemistry, pharmaceuticals & biotechnology, and energy. There is strong demand for anticancer drugs or drug formulation, but if one is conducting research in an untapped area such as Alzheimer’s disease, the field of available employers becomes significantly narrower. Similarly, choosing to study hydrogen energy instead of autonomous driving or electric vehicles may lead to greater difficulty in finding a job. Will demand change in a few years? Regrettably, industrial landscapes do not shift so easily.

Carefully reviewing a lab’s list of publications or the career paths of alumni posted on its website is also important to assess “industrial relevance.” If your degree field does not match corporate demand, what should you do? There are basically two options. First, act as if you have no advanced degree and approach job hunting as a fourth-year undergraduate would. Acquire new certifications and technical skills that companies value, and gain hands-on experience through bootcamps or similar programs. A mindset of “resetting both your degree and major” is essential.

The second option is to target startups that have adopted your research field as their “future growth engine.” While established companies focus on hiring talent for “current business needs,” startups concentrate on “next-generation technologies.” Startups that precisely match your research area may actually be struggling to recruit the talent they need.

Sookeun Lee, Publisher of The Framework of Employment

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