Korea JoongAng Daily hosts 2024 Global HR Seminar on international student hiring strategies

K-campus

Published: 28 Jun. 2024, 15:43 Updated: 28 Jun. 2024, 16:13

Korea JoongAng Daily hosts 2024 Global HR Seminar on international student hiring strategies

Lee Jae-hyung, a director of the Ministry of Justice's Korea Immigration Service, talks during the 2024 Global HR Seminar on Thursday. [PARK SANG-MOON]

The Korea JoongAng Daily held the 2024 Global HR Seminar on Thursday, inviting HR professionals to discuss why and how companies should hire international students.

Lee Jae-hyung, director of the visa and residence division of the Ministry of Justice's Korea Immigration Service, Hirediversity CEO Sim Hwa-young, CJ CheilJedang HR Manager Park Hee-soo and Korea JoongAng Daily Digital Team Lead Kim Jee-hee attended as speakers for the event held at the JoongAng Ilbo building in Mapo District, western Seoul.

Around 50 HR professionals from companies interested in hiring foreign talent were present at the event.

K-campus, a service run by the Korea JoongAng Daily that provides information for international students in Korea, has been holding networking events for international job seekers since March last year. This is the first time the service held an event for HR employees interested in hiring international students.

At Thursday's event, Lee presented visa policies relevant to international students and foreign employees, also mentioning possible changes the Justice Ministry is planning to implement to make hiring international students easier.

"We can utilize our universities, a key part of the excellent educational infrastructure we have, to help international students with potential adapt to our society, learn the language and become valuable contributors to our community," said Lee. "Our policies aim to encourage international students to focus on their studies when they are at school, while expanding employment support for students who have diligently completed their studies as long as it does not compromise local job opportunities."

Hirediversity CEO Sim touched on struggles companies can face when hiring international students, explaining the process of applying for work permits and visas.

The company, founded in 2020, partners with universities to help international students apply for residence cards and change their visa status.

"When hiring international students, there needs to be an additional step where companies talk about what visas the applicants are currently holding," said Sim. "The time spent applying for a visa status change is also different for each immigration office and the international student, and it can be difficult to accurately predict how long that will take."

From left: Lee Jae-hyung, a director of the Ministry of Justice's Korea Immigration Service, Hirediversity CEO Sim Hwa-young, CJ CheilJedang HR Manager Park Hee-soo and Korea JoongAng Daily Digital Team Lead Kim Jee-hee answer questions from attendees during the 2024 Global HR Seminar on Thursday. [PARK SANG-MOON]

Companies such as CJ CheilJedang and Korea JoongAng Daily shared their experiences hiring international students.

One opportunity CJ CheilJedang offers is the CJ Young Professional program, an internship open to international students in universities abroad. The internship garnered around 5,000 applicants this year, with 18 currently working as interns. The Global Frontier Internship is another internship, open to international students in Korea and Korean students abroad.

Hiring a lot of foreign talent, CJ CheilJedang's Park stressed the need to focus on the onboarding process.

"For foreigners, it can be their first time living in a country abroad, and we think that companies need to offer support for them to easily settle down," said Park. "We offer one-on-one assistance, but we don't think this is excessive."

"If companies don't do so, it's hard for us to make them want to continue to work here, and we especially need to do that for entry-level employees who don't have past work experience."

Korea JoongAng Daily's Kim also discussed the newspaper's experience in hiring students as interns, emphasizing companies can enhance their competitiveness by hiring international talent.

Operating K-campus, Kim had met various international students who brought fresh perspectives through the student reporter program. Some of the participants were hired as interns at the company.

"There were students who created articles on topics we hadn't thought of, or struggles they faced as international students," said Kim. "We were very satisfied with the content they created, and it was also a good experience for us."

BY LEE TAE-HEE [lee.taehee2@joongang.co.kr]