`Spec` discrimination

A professor at a Seoul-based university submitted more than 1,900 fake job applications to companies to study discrimination in the hiring process. He ultimately brought on a police probe on suspicion of interference in work. A team led by the professor used false ID numbers and photos, making 16 types of dummy job applications with fabricated academic backgrounds, scores of the Test of English for International Communication, gender and military experience. The team submitted the applications to 121 companies that hired in the second half of this year. In a police interrogation, the professor said, "It was part of research to measure the degree of `spec` discrimination in the recruitment process of large companies."

Spec is an abbreviation for the word "specification," which originally referred to an explicit set of requirements to be satisfied by a piece of machinery or other equipment. Today, spec can mean qualifications for being hired. College students consider TOEIC score, overseas study history, certificates, volunteer activities and internship experience the "five specs." They believe these are crucial in being hired along with grades. According to one job site, successful applicants at Korea`s major companies had an average TOEIC score of 852 (the maximum score is 990), a grade-point average of 3.7, experience of studying abroad at least once, 1.8 certificates, 1.1 cases of internship experience, 0.9 times of performing community service, and one award.

The professor sought to find out what specs large companies lay importance on in their recruitment process. For example, he wanted to verify how much a TOEIC score influences candidate selection through career papers when the schools and gender of the applicants are the same. This means that spec discrimination is prevalent in companies. Presidential candidates have also blasted such discrimination. Park Geun-hye, the ruling Saenuri Party`s standard-bearer, said, "I will build a youth job recruitment center where spec discrimination doesn`t exist." The main opposition Democratic United Party `s candidate Moon Jae-in proposed building a society "where people can make their dreams come true without being discriminated by specs." Independent runner Ahn Cheol-soo said, "A spec-oriented society is an unfair society." All three candidates, however, have not provided clear solutions to the problem.

Merely criticizing spec-oriented recruitment might not be the solution. A human resources staff member at a large company said, "College grades, foreign language ability and internship and overseas study experience are objective criteria for assessing candidates. Show-off specs are filtered through interviews." Job consultants said young people just want to work at large companies instead of thinking of what they really want to do, which has turned specs into mere tools to be accepted at large companies. Disputes over specs will be eased only when job seekers change their perceptions.

Editorial Writer Park Yong (parky@donga.com)