By Oh Young-jin
Staff Reporter

The most preferred job of college seniors and graduates is a well-paying and stable job with a big company, but they dread the English part of the job interview, now an integral part in their hunt for good jobs.

``It was a heavy load to bear,'' a rookie at a chaebol subsidiary said during a telephone interview with The Korea Times yesterday, referring to preparations he made for an interview he had with a native speaker. The new recruit asked for his name and that of the company not to be revealed because of the sensitivity he felt as a rookie there.

``I talked to myself in the mirror practicing answers prepared to a set of questions I made up by checking the Internet on primers for job interviews.'' He said that he was disappointed at the level of questions he was asked during the interview, focusing mostly on general and personal affairs.

Another first-year recruit at a big company, who requested anonymity for sensitivity reasons, said that he underwent a computerized English interview. ``The applicant modulates the level of difficulty, which caught me between options ― playing safe or challenging myself,'' he recalled.

According to job portal saramin.co.kr, 34 percent of 1,372 job seekers cited English interviews as the most difficult part of their application. Nowadays, the recruitment process for big companies starts with background and academic achievement reviews, then moves to aptitude tests and finally ends with intensive interviews composed of presentations and conversations with native speakers.

In the order of difficulty, the respondents cited ``pressure interview'' in which a pressing issue is given to the applicant to assess their crisis-coping ability; the interview pitting an applicant against several interviewers; a group debate and presentations. However, not all of them feared English interviews especially for those with high foreign language proficiency.

Jun Sang-hoon, who joined S-Oil this year, was lucky because he spent his childhood years in a foreign country so it was not a burden.

``First, general and personal affairs were the focus of questioning during the interview, but then subjects moved to politics such as the Iraq war and Pax Americana, which required some thinking,'' Jun said. He said that one native English speaker and one Korean with an MBA from a foreign country tested him.

A new employee at a GS subsidiary said that she went to California for a language course but dropped out because the class was disappointing.

``I went backpacking instead, which better prepared me for the test,'' she said. ``I prepared myself for an English interview with a group of my friends who were also preparing for job tests.''

About 39 percent of young aspirants are seeking jobs in big companies. Coming behind, in order, were medium-sized but lucrative companies; SMEs; public enterprises and foreign-owned companies.

Their preference was greatly affected by pay scales, prospects and the stability of jobs.

foolsdie@koreatimes.co.kr