▲ A photograph with colleagues after completing the internship at SoftBank

Meet a Dongkuk alumnus with great aspirations of venturing into the vast world. In an interview, Kim Da-hyun (Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, class of 2015), who was offered a job with a large overseas company, tells us how she decided to find a job overseas and landed an opportunity to work as an engineer at SoftBank, a leading Japanese company with a global presence.

Q Could you give us a brief introduction of yourself?
My name is Kim Da-hyun, and I majored in Industrial and Systems Engineering and Convergence Software. I love traveling and watching movies on Netflix. I am going to work at SoftBank as an engineer. Currently, I’m enjoying my free time, which is never guaranteed in the future.

Q What motivated you to seek employment outside Korea?
As I have always enjoyed traveling abroad, I thought about doing some kind of work outside Korea. I believe that the exchange student program directly motivated me. As I was taking classes in Japan, my desire to live in Japan grew. So I decided to find a job overseas because I think it is best to get a job where I can utilize my major as opposed to gaining temporary work experience through a working holiday.

Q Why did you decide to study in Japan as an exchange student?
When I was in high school, I had a chance to visit Japan for two weeks through a homestay program sponsored by the City of Seoul. I kept in touch with a Japanese friend I had met at that time. Later, we even visited each other in our home countries. When I became a college student, I found out about the exchange student program and thought, “Why not go to Japan?” That was the main reason.

Q Did you experience any difficulties because of the language?
It was early in the spring semester of my freshman year when I made the decision to join the exchange student program. During that summer, I began to prepare for it by attending a private language school to study Japanese. Being an exchange student naturally improved my Japanese skills because I had no option but to speak in Japanese as there were hardly any Korean students. Besides, I was able to handle difficulties rather quickly due to my easy-going nature, which enabled me to make friends in the process of expanding my horizons as I experienced a variety of things. While preparing for my job search, I studied business Japanese and additionally studied Japanese on the phone. During my senior year in college, I went to Japan to work as an intern. There, I began to watch at least 30 minutes of Japanese news each morning, and practiced writing resumes, which gradually helped improve my Japanese.

Q What did you do in preparation for landing a job overseas?
I attended recruitment fairs at the career center on campus and job fairs in Japan. Even though hiring managers from Nissan and Amazon were present at the recruitment fairs, I did not apply for any jobs because I had just begun to prepare for my future career. However, I remember an opportunity to submit a job application immediately after the presentation. In addition, there is an initial settlement support service provided by the government once the employment is confirmed. I hope you will take advantage of these services.

Q Please tell us about SoftBank.
Comparable to telecom providers SKT, KT, LGU+ in Korea, Japan has SoftBank, Docomo, and AU as the three major mobile phone companies. Focusing on mobile communication business, SoftBank is conducting various business projects including Big Data and AI. A simple payment service called “PayPay” is among the most popular services in Japan, and is also well known in Korea because of the CEO, Son Jung-ui!

Q What are your responsibilities at the company?
Specific job responsibilities have not yet been assigned. Unlike Korea, Japanese companies hire people without specific jobs in mind. However, SoftBank recruits employees for two different fields: general office jobs (sales, planning, etc.) and engineering jobs (system, network, etc.). I passed the test for an engineering job, so I will learn about my department and job responsibilities at the end of the new employee training. I will be working as either an AI engineer, Big Data engineer, or a systems engineer based on my top three listed preferences.

Q Please tell us a little about the recruitment process in Japan.
The recruitment process in Japan is quite different from that in Korea. In general, companies in Japan conduct an annual open recruitment. They usually prepare for the open recruitment in March and start accepting applications in April. After screening all applicants, the recruitment process concludes by September, and the new employee initiation ceremony is held at the beginning of October. Then, new employees commence their jobs in April the following year. However, I was recruited through the early recruitment program for interns, instead of the regular recruitment process. After completing my internship in September 2018, I submitted my application in October. Then, I was notified of acceptance in December. That is how I got to work with the new recruits for 2020.

Q What is the secret of your success?
I don’t have any secrets, but I believe that my endeavoring personality matches the type of employee sought by SoftBank. Receiving a favorable evaluation on the internship also gave me a huge advantage. What SoftBank valued most were likely my communication skills and work ethics, and my lack of fear to take risks to tackle challenges. Sometimes I hear people say that it is easy to land a job in the midst of recruitment war. To some degree, it seems that the threshold for employment is lower in Japan than in Korea. During the job interview, I got the impression that they had a higher regard for the applicant’s potential, personality, and capability than specifications. Still, when I think of the new employees hired with me, I cannot say that specifications are not important. As for expats, it may be even more challenging because foreigners must be fluent in Japanese.

Q What type of talents do you think SoftBank is looking for?
In my view, SoftBank seeks individuals who always strive for betterment and adjust to new changes quickly. These five tenets are important to SoftBank: Speed, Excellence, Ambition, Commitment, and Retrospection. I think that the interviewing committee took those things into consideration. Interviewers always asked me “What inspired you to look for employment in Japan?"

Q What would you like to achieve in your career?
I hope to live a full life, with no regrets when I look back on my life five years later. To do so, I intend to accomplish small achievements one after another, focusing on what I can at the moment. Won’t I accomplish something if I keep working hard? In other words, my goal is to make an achievement that is recognized by the company.

Q What is your ultimate goal?
At present, it is not easy for me to give a clear answer. I have always set goals and strived toward achieving them. I still have many aspirations. On the one hand, I hope to work in the U.S. branch or the Chinese branch after gaining some experience and work skills. On the other hand, I hope to become an executive at the company and return to Korea with valuable experience. As I am just beginning my job as a new recruit, I will need some time to think about what I really want to do in the future.

Q Can you share some advice with the Dongkuk alumni who want to work overseas?
You may get lonely if you are independently preparing for a job interview with no support. I felt the same way. I believe you should never lose confidence, and keep striving toward the goal. You will eventually have a satisfying result if you keep working on your cover letter, personality test, aptitude test, and job interview. Even if you fail, continue to endeavor toward your goal without feeling discouraged. I root for all those who are preparing to land a job overseas!