Companies prioritize sense of responsibility over skills when hiring staff: study

Two-thirds of South Korea's top 100 companies are looking for talented employees with a spirit of challenge and sense of responsibility, mainly because of growing corporate demand for executives and staff who can overcome crises amid rising business uncertainty.

The Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry on Monday released its analysis of human resource capacity at the top 100 domestic companies in sales as of the first quarter of last year.

The top three requirements of staff demanded by employers were a sense of responsibility (67 companies), spirit of challenge (66), and communication and cooperation (64).

Creativity (54), principles and reliability (53), professionalism (45), passion (44), global capacity (26), implementation ability (23) and social contribution (14) were also among the 10 traits of human resources sought by companies.

Every five years, the KCCI surveys human resources of the nation's top 100 companies. In the 2018 study, sense of responsibility ranked fifth.

"Companies strive for a horizontal organization, fair compensation and abolition of irrational practices to meet the demands of the younger generation, who are emerging as their core workforce. But employers expect Generation Z to possess a corresponding sense of responsibility to the organization and work," the KCCI said.

Write to Jeong-Soo Hwang at hjs@hankyung.com