Invest KOREA

Held since 2006, and now Korea's biggest and oldest job fair for foreign-invested companies
136 global companies including Tesla and Nestlé participated this year, a 50% increase from 2016.
High-quality jobs offered by 31 Fortune 500 companies and 71 manufacturing firms

Hosted by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy and the Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency (KOTRA), the 12th annual Job Fair for Foreign-Invested Companies, the largest of its kind in Korea, was held for two days starting October 12 at the COEX convention and exhibition center in Samseong-dong, Seoul.

The job fair has been held since 2006 to provide Korean job seekers with quality jobs at foreign-invested companies, and offer foreign-invested companies an opportunity to recruit highly competent human resources.

The opening ceremony was attended by representatives of the Presidential Committee on Job Creation, as well as the Federation of Korean Trade Unions and the chambers of commerce of foreign countries, including the U.K., Japan, and Australia.

A total of 136 companies, including 31 Fortune 500 companies such as 3M (U.S.) and Siemens (Germany), participated in this year's event, which was a 50 percent increase from the 92 companies that participated in 2016. It is estimated that over 14,000 job seekers visited the fair during the two days to take advantage of the greater opportunities.

The companies showed great interest in recruiting highly competent human resources in Industry 4.0 fields and promising service sectors. Of the participating companies, 50 (37%) were Industry 4.0 leaders such as ABB (Switzerland), GlaxoSmithKline (U.K.) and Tesla (U.S.), while 32 (24%), including Costco (U.S.) and Adeco (Switzerland) were companies in promising service sectors. Global firms popular with oung job seekers such as Schneider Electric (France) and Nestlé (Switzerland) also participated in the fair.

In addition to the opportunities to talk to HR managers at each company's booth, the fair featured a wide variety of programs including recruitment presentations made by different companies, special lectures on how to find a good job, and consulting for job interviews and applications.

An HR manager at one company said "It is important that job seekers discard their preconceptions about having a disadvantage for being inexperienced or lacking language skills, and rather focus on appealing with confidence that they are the right persons for the company."

KOTRA president & CEO Kim Jaehong noted, "Foreign-invested companies account for 6 percent of all employment in Korea, and are making a significant contribution to the Korean economy by creating high-quality jobs for the highly educated," adding, "This year's fair will hopefully help more highly competent job seekers find employment at global companies in Korea."

Source: Invest Korea (Oct. 13, 2017)