Korean Job Discussion Forums

[I_Am_Wrong]

My co-worker's younger brother has an interview with Samsung this Friday. Apparently, they have a new interview process that involves a group and individual interview in English with two native speakers. She's asked me to help him because he's a little weak in English. He has good listening skills but little experience in speaking so we went through some of the more typical English interview questions and possible ways to answer them.

Does anyone know anymore about these interviews, the process, or what they're likely to ask?

[Wangja]

I did a series of these (or rtaher, was the native speaker assisting). In my case, we had 200 graduates to see in one day, coming before two of us in groups of three. Thus, I had 2 minutes maximum to assess whether their command of English was adequate or not.

I tackled it like this: if they could not answer my basic greeting in 20 seconds, I moved on to the next. There was no time to try and help them understand. If they had some command (and it ranged from virtually zero to virtually native-speakin) then the conversation became progressively harder, although there was no pre-set format.

Those with the highest written test (TOEFL or whataver) did not necessarily do best in this "spoken test". Indeed, one of the few to get an "A" had the lowest score for writing. Conversely, one of the higest scores could not aswer the basic greeting so got a "U".

If it's not a rat-race like that, then it could be more like a "ono-on-one", of whcih I have done many. These were not from the technical point of view, merely a comprehension test. The subjects covered were however specific to the job ranging from previous projects to family and social life in those countries.

Apart from that, it;s hard to say what might come up, and it could depend on age of the person, the specific job etc. Generally, however, cover the greetings and follow-ups and the farewells. For the middle bit, assuming technical questions have been handled in the Korean parts, cover basics such as family, friends, interests, books recently read, sport and an overview of current events. It does not matter if he does not know the answer to a question as long as he understood the question. It's not a test of knowledge, it's a simple test of English in basic conversation.

[I_Am_Wrong]

thanks.

[ajuma]

One question that is often asked at interviews by native speakers is: What are your strengths and weaknesses. Strengths are easy...weaknesses are hard!! Have him come up with something that he has trouble with, but understands that he does and what he's doing to correct it. I helped a student who came across as a very anti-social person, but in reality, he was very friendly. I had him talk about this and how he understood the problem and was working hard to correct it. He got the job....one of 10 out of 500 applicants!!!