The Lotte Executive I Brought Up in a Job Interview

By the last semester of university, I could no longer put off applying for jobs. I sent applications to one company after another. Most replies told me I had gone no further. I had studied the humanities, but it was hard to tell how much my degree, the job market or my own applications had to do with the result.

Every so often I made it through. Lotte Department Store was one of the companies that invited me to interview.

Preparing for an interview at the library

Some students prepared in groups and took turns giving one another mock interviews. I wanted a way to get to know the companies I was applying to.

After hearing from Lotte I went to the library and borrowed four or five books about the group. One was the memoir of Lee Jong-gyu, who had gone from an entry-level job to running several Lotte companies.

Lee Jong-gyu’s way into Lotte

Lee graduated from Masan Commercial High School and went to work without first going to university. He went on to lead businesses including Lotte Samkang, Busan Lotte Hotel and Lotte Ham.

He writes about how hard he worked in a voice that moves along quickly. I did not need long to finish the book.

What I kept noticing was his good humor. He writes about years that asked a great deal of him and still finds something to laugh at or be glad about.

One recollection felt familiar to me.

• With little money and only a high-school diploma, Lee says he learned to save and became accustomed to putting in extra effort.

I had moved to Seoul for university and was almost always short of money. I learned to keep costs down. Once I was earning a salary, that habit let me save more of it than I might have expected.

I recognized what he said about entering the military, too. In basic training I could count on three meals and on receiving the things I needed for the day. That gave me a sort of peace I had not expected.

Three things a business has to get right

Lee reduces management to three ordinary things a business ought to get right.

• Buy properly.
• Make properly.
• Sell properly.

The repetition makes the idea easy to carry away. Each verb puts the responsibility back on a thing somebody in the company actually does.

Lee also puts people at the center of the work. Experience can help people see what is coming. You still need someone willing to decide when the future looks uncertain and look at the parts of the operation other people miss.

He returns to human dignity as well. I was glad to have read that alongside the passages about running a business.

A company can feel distant when all you know is an application form. A memoir gives you a chance to hear how one person who made decisions there thought about his work.

The interview

Three applicants went into the executive interview together and faced three interviewers. It was a kind of room I had never been in before.

I was tense enough to stumble over simple questions. Over the years I found ways to manage that feeling better. On the day, I mostly knew that it was getting in the way of what I had come to say.

Then an interviewer asked if there was anyone I particularly respected.

• I told him I admired Lee Jong-gyu, who had run several Lotte companies.
• His tone changed. “How do you know him?”
• I said I had once done subcontracted work at Lotte Department Store and wanted to learn more about it. I had found Lee’s book at the library.

The room felt less sharp-edged after that. I cannot say what the interviewers made of the answer. I remember the relief of having something to talk about that I had come across for myself.

I did not get the job. At the time the news stung. After a few more final interviews I was hired by a public-sector organization, and I had a little more experience of what to do when a room like that made me nervous.

I left that job too, eventually. Now I make things to read.

What stayed with me after the interview

The book does what its title promises. You come away with a sense of the effort Lee put into his days and the pleasure he managed to take in some of them. I am glad a job application gave me a reason to read it.

Book details

I Gave Everything to Each Day: From Masan Commercial High School to a Lotte CEO

Author

Lee Jong-gyu

Published

February 20, 2008

ISBN-13

9788992822114

View on YES24

We may earn a commission if you buy through the affiliate link in this article.