The Era of “We Only Hire Newcomers with Experience”

Statistically, the domestic employment market shows a short-term stable trend.

This is an indicator showing the employment situation of the overall economically active population, superficially giving the impression that the employment market is robust.

During the same period, the employment rate for people in their 20s declined by 2.7 percentage points, from approximately 50% to 47%.

This signifies a drastic reduction in the proportion of young people in overall recruitment. Unlike other age groups, only the employment indicators for young people are worsening.

AI primarily replaces simple, repetitive tasks, many of which were common in entry-level youth hires.

In contrast, core age groups between 30 and 59 years old show relatively stable employment.

Currently, among the top four conglomerates, only Samsung maintains an open recruitment system.

As of 2025, the proportion of rolling recruitment in large corporate hiring has significantly increased to over 60%. This indicates a shift from an era of open recruitment focused on new graduates to rolling recruitment centered on experienced professionals.

This poses a significant challenge for new job seekers.

As it becomes harder to get into a desired workplace right away, a career plan that involves progressively building experience has emerged as a realistic alternative.

When talent is needed for a specific role, rolling recruitment is considered the most preferred hiring method, accounting for 47% of hires.

In contrast, open recruitment has fallen to third place among corporate hiring methods.

Companies tend to prefer experienced professionals, judging them to be more efficient than new hires for the same cost. According to a job portal survey, 74% of companies prioritize hiring experienced professionals.

Amid this preference, new hires at the top 500 companies have decreased by over 15% in the last two years.

At that time, the cohort culture was sometimes linked to a hierarchical system that signified an elite career path within the company.

New employees underwent long-term residential training or participated in mass games to internalize corporate culture. However, the number of companies maintaining a large-scale open recruitment cohort culture has decreased to less than 30%.

In the past, people who frequently changed jobs were seen as unable to settle in one place, and the concept of a lifelong job was strong. Many companies also had a policy of strictly prohibiting re-employment of former employees.

However, with the spread of rolling recruitment, the perception of job changes has greatly shifted. Now, changing jobs is considered an important means of actively managing and developing one's career.

According to a survey by the Korea Employers Federation, 69.5% of workers in their 20s to 40s are considering changing jobs. They aim to increase their salary and advance their careers through job changes.

Managing one's career through job changes, much like in the United States, has become the new normal in today's recruitment market.

During the era of large-scale open recruitment, the need for headhunting was not significant. However, with the shift to continuous recruitment of small numbers of individuals, it became difficult to find suitable talent through job postings alone.

Consequently, companies began actively utilizing headhunting services to increase recruitment efficiency. Especially for experienced hires, there is an increasing trend of combining job postings with headhunting.

In the past, headhunting was mainly used for recruiting high-level executives, such as C-level positions. However, with companies conducting rolling recruitment, the hiring of managers has become the most frequent, accounting for 58% of all headhunting targets.

This indicates that recruitment is becoming generalized, much like accounting, taxation, and IT outsourcing. According to data from the recruitment specialist company Rememver, mid-level professionals with 5-8 years of experience are becoming the primary target.

Companies are now living in an era of recruitment outsourcing, securing necessary talent through external specialized agencies.

This is a recruitment platform suitable for the era of rolling recruitment, providing efficient meeting opportunities for both talent and companies.

Rememver allows individuals to directly set the scope of their profile's visibility. Specifically, users can block HR personnel from their current company from viewing their profile.

This feature prevents profile exposure to specific companies or affiliated parties. It reduces the burden on workers considering a job change by allowing them to register their experience and receive scout offers without worrying about their current employer finding out.

This is a result of actively responding to the trend of rolling recruitment centered on experienced professionals.

Rememver acquired headhunting firms such as Briscan and Unique Sochi, now owning 6 subsidiaries and 600 headhunters.

This increases companies' recruitment efficiency.

Additionally, Rememver leverages its rich talent pool and AI technology to supply suitable talent faster and more accurately than traditional headhunting methods. This matches talent with better career opportunities.

Rememver does not charge individual members any fees, opting for a model that charges companies hiring talent. It focuses on matching individuals with good career opportunities.

Individual members are encouraged to update their careers whenever they complete projects or important tasks. This allows an individual's engagement and accumulated achievements to prove their value in the market.

Rememver aims to create a world where talented individuals are recognized by the market regardless of the size of their affiliated company (whether small or large). It strives to be a competence-oriented recruitment platform.

To achieve this, it believes that the most important thing for individuals is to focus on their current work and produce outstanding results.