Creativity that cannot be measured by interviewers

“How many people do you think use Facebook in San Francisco?” A Google interviewer asked this question, and many interviewers in Korea make similar inquiries. Asking this type of question at job interviews is apparently a trend. This leads to yet another question over whether ingenuity can be measured by such a question rather than impressing readers about companies. Many creative people are not good at speaking, as seen by talented musicians who often act awkward on TV entertainment shows. This indicates that the ability to answer tactfully is not necessarily related to creativity.

Seemingly tactful answers can hardly come from thinking outside the box. Creative and challenging ideas might seem trivial and best ignored at first. When Korean hip-hop pioneer Seo Tae-ji and Boys debuted in the 1990s, pop music critics lambasted the group’s music. Their criticism seemed natural at that time. Experts usually think within the framework of the times and thus hardly recognize brilliance transcending the age. From this perspective, the existence of tests to measure creativity and the spirit of challenge is ironic. Astute people can get high scores while geniuses who are not good at public speaking can fail. So academic achievement tests and the Test of English for International Communication, or TOEIC, seem to be better and fairer ways to select students for college entrance than the complex system of college entrance or tough interviews.

How sad to see young Koreans struggling to catch up with this trend. College students incorporate sentences like those in commercial ads in their cover letters to get an internship at The Dong-A Ilbo. Older people often get confused while reading such letters, though such a writing style is said to be a trend. But at the same time, a creative person will probably not accept all trends without critical thought.

The theme of challenge has become a hot sales item. Books about the spirit of challenge occupy a section of a large book store. Books about experiences in travel, volunteer activities or meeting certain people might not be really about challenge but about overcoming nominal obstacles to get a better evaluation. This might have gone too far. The large number of young people studying for civil service exams is rather pitiful, but so is if they have been encouraged to take on the "challenge" of joining the public sector.

“Gotta be different because you are young.” “Must challenge because you are young.” “Gotta get hurt because you are young.” So many catchphrases try to define youth. Yet will these “real” challenges, characteristics or pains be recognized in the world? Hardly. No one should doubt his or her creativity just because of previous failures in exams or interviews or never having been abroad. Even in this era of lightweights, two things are certain. First, those who try to evaluate young people with these light criteria will disappear before their young interviewees. Second, everyone must eventually prove who they are not with witty answers but with work performance.

Industrial News Desk Reporter Jang Kang-myeong (tesomiom@donga.com)