[Guide to the Market Economy] Fair Competition over Qualifications

Blindly piling up the “specs” companies don’t want won’t help

Just as baseball has the “indifference steal” that nobody cares about

Baseball has an interesting situation called an “indifference steal.” A runner steals a base, but the opposing pitcher or catcher makes no attempt to stop him. It is, quite literally, a situation in which no one cares about the steal, and it usually happens late in a game when the score gap between the two teams is already large. Since stopping the steal would not change the outcome of the game, they simply let it go. A steal in this kind of situation can be seen as unsportsmanlike because it gives the impression that the player is ignoring the opposing team and merely padding his own statistics.

Hits that contribute more to winning matter

An “indifference steal” is looked down on not only by the opposing team but even by the umpire. If the official scorer rules it an indifference steal, then even if the player successfully steals the base, it is not added to his stolen-base record.

Baseball is a sport of records. For batters, important statistics include batting average, home runs, and RBIs; for pitchers, earned run average, strikeouts, and number of wins are key records. In baseball, these records are often called “stats,” short for “statistics.” For players, stats matter if they want to compete for individual awards at the end of the season or gain the upper hand in salary negotiations with their club for the next season.

How should we assess the qualities of new employees?

There are also “stats for the sake of stats.” Consider batting average, which rises when a player gets a hit. Can a hit in a nail-biting situation, when the game is about to be decided by one or two runs, really be worth the same as a hit when the score gap is already huge and the outcome has effectively been decided? The latter would be an empty hit.

A player with a high batting average but many empty hits does not receive as much love from fans as his average might suggest. A player with a somewhat lower batting average but who delivers in clutch situations may be a better player for both the team and the fans. For example, Lee Seung-yeop is not popular simply because he hit many home runs. He is regarded as a great and popular player because he performed strongly in important games such as the Olympics and the Korean Series. In other words, stats certainly matter, but they are not everything.

If baseball players have stats, then young people preparing for employment have “specs.” It is short for “specification.” Like a baseball player’s stats, specs come in many forms: GPA, language test scores, various certificates, volunteer work, internship experience, and more. Building up strong specs can give applicants an advantage in recruitment exams. Because of this, the amount of money and time young people pour into building good specs, along with the stress that comes with it, is enormous.

Considering how much they invest in becoming new employees, Korean companies ought to have the best entry-level workers in the world. The problem is that this competition over specs is not actually leading to better-qualified new hires.

Why is this happening? The problem is that self-improvement is not self-improvement in the true sense; it remains merely a tool for getting a job. Language scores, where job seekers invest the most time and money, are a good example. It is taken for granted that they attend private academies to raise those scores, and many even go abroad for language training. The cost of such training is tremendous. But language test scores do not guarantee improved job performance. What is more, some people even prepare for certificates they do not need simply to gain extra points in document screening.

Specs that create value

This wasteful competition for employment is the result of young people becoming obsessed only with “where” they will work, without thinking about “what” they will do and “why” they will do it. Self-development in the true sense is an absolute struggle against one’s own limits, not a relative struggle against others. If the goal is simply to get into a secure workplace, without any thought about what kind of work one will do or what value one will create in the world, then proper self-development cannot possibly happen.

The reason the “indifference steal” is shunned is that it creates no value in the form of a better game. Any attempt to make only one’s personal record look better, without creating any value at all, is bound to be ignored. Why is it that, despite having so many new hires with impressive specs, companies still cannot expand hiring any further? From a company’s point of view, wouldn’t it feel like managing a team full of .300 hitters who cannot perform at all in decisive moments? Young people of this country, it is time to stop the “indifference steal.”

■ Please remember

This wasteful competition for employment is the result of young people becoming obsessed only with “where” they will work, without thinking about “what” they will do and “why” they will do it. Self-development in the true sense is an absolute struggle against one’s own limits, not a relative struggle against others. If the goal is simply to get into a secure workplace, without any thought about what kind of work one will do or what value one will create in the world, then proper self-development cannot possibly happen.

Sung-no Choi, President, Center for Free Enterprise (CFE)

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Original title: [시장경제 길라잡이] 올바른 스펙 경쟁

Author: Sung-no Choi

Date: 2019-02-25

Source: https://www.cfe.org/bbs/bbsDetail.php?cid=column&pn=14&idx=11454