The Samsung You Know and the Samsung I Learned Inside, by Jo Seung-pyo

Silicon Valley is home to Apple and Google, two of the companies that shaped the way people talk about the technology business.

For a Korean reader, it is striking that a company based here also became a major participant in that business.

Samsung Electronics and Apple became closely associated with the global smartphone market. The companies are rooted in different markets, and their rivalry looks different depending on whether you are looking at phones or the businesses as a whole.

Samsung’s place in South Korea

Samsung Electronics has such a presence in South Korea that people have sometimes used the phrase “Republic of Samsung.” Its size gives what happens inside the company consequences well beyond its own employees.

Accounts written by people who worked at Amazon or Google are relatively easy to find. In Korea, books written from inside Samsung are less common.

Jo Seung-pyo wrote this one while working at Samsung Electronics. The publisher presents it as an early account by a serving employee, and its particular strength is the view of daily work it makes possible.

Advice from someone who joined before you

The book reads like advice from a colleague who has already found their footing. Much of it concerns the things someone just beginning an office job would have to learn.

Finding a company where you would fit

Jo encourages applicants to ask what kind of company would suit them. A reputation can tell you why people want to work somewhere without telling you what it would be like to work there yourself.

One place to start, he suggests, is with the company motto and its description of the people it wants to hire.

In practice, those statements can sound remarkably alike. Most large companies say they want people who are diligent, creative, and willing to take initiative. The wording alone can make it hard to tell one workplace from another.

What happened after joining Samsung?

Jo describes the hiring aptitude test then known as the SSAT, the interviews, and the training new employees went through if they joined.

His account includes residential training and a festival at a Samsung facility in Gangwon Province for employees who had been with the company for about a year. The program combined team competition with coordinated performances that had attracted attention online.

Getting used to the work

Jo stresses learning to handle routine tasks promptly. He also recommends keeping people up to date while work is in progress, especially when others are relying on it to do their part.

What the company offered employees

The book can sound like a company brochure in the section that introduces employee benefits. That passage is revealing in its own way, especially about what Samsung wanted recruits to know.

One arrangement at the time allowed employees to start between 9 a.m. and 1 p.m. and leave after the scheduled working day, including a lunch break.

Jo also describes a number of smaller arrangements meant to make everyday work more manageable.

The result is a period account of joining Samsung and learning how the company worked. That is the part I would look to first if I wanted to understand what a new employee was asked to do.

Book details

The Samsung You Know and the Samsung I Learned Inside

Author

Jo Seung-pyo

Published

October 16, 2013

ISBN13

9791195026340

View the book on YES24

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