September 1, 2025
SEOUL – Wearing a glittering stage outfit, a woman jumps high, swings her arms, and shouts to the camera, “Start!”
On her cue, hundreds of people in dozens of rows raise their cards together, kicking off a giant mass game that first forms a red running figure, then spells out the word “goal” in English. The assembled crowd also moves in perfect sync, forming a giant star.
The giant cheering squad in the video wasn’t made up of professional performers but of new hires who joined Samsung Electronics in 2006. The performance was part of Samsung Group’s 2006 summer retreat, which brought together new recruits from all of its subsidiaries to nurture teamwork and foster the “Samsung spirit.”
Nearly two decades later, the footage has sparked a fresh buzz online, racking up more than 8 million views on YouTube as of Aug. 21. For those who experienced corporate life during that era, it evoked a sense of nostalgia.
“I was right there in that crowd. I miss those days when I was more ambitious and innocent,” one user commented. Another wrote, “I was 26 years old back then, now 43. That was one of the happiest and most memorable times of my life at the company.”
Surprisingly, the decades-old video has also struck a chord with some younger Koreans, many of whom are unfamiliar with, or even resistant to, the old corporate culture of Korea that emphasized group conformity and pressured employees to bond through company-wide talent shows.
One user commented, ”I’ve never worked at a company, but if I ever get the chance, I’d love to join a talent show. Just having colleagues like that makes me jealous.”
As part of onboarding, many major companies here run two- to three-day training programs for new employees, where they stay together at a training center, attend company-related lectures and build rapport with senior colleagues.
These programs often feature dinner events where senior and junior staff share drinks, while new hires take turns introducing themselves and team up to sing or dance.
Cha, a 24-year-old job seeker in Seoul, practiced singing at a coin karaoke booth before a three-day group interview for a media company last summer just in case he was asked to perform during a dinner gathering.
“There are companies that hold dinner gatherings as part of the interview process to see whether applicants can get along well with their coworkers. For someone like me who’s desperate to join a company, things like talent shows or job orientation sessions feel like they could fill the sense of belonging I’m missing right now,” he told The Korea Herald.
He added that many other university students around him, particularly those who took online classes during the COVID-19 pandemic, have grown frustrated at being left without a sense of belonging after repeated failures in the job market.
The number of employed individuals aged 25-29 decreased by 98,000 in the first quarter of 2025 compared to the same period last year — the largest drop since the third quarter of 2013.
“Sometimes I watch YouTube channels run by big companies’ PR teams that feature new hires training together. I know collectivist culture has its drawbacks, but at this point, I just want to feel part of a group.”
For some entry-level employees who struggle to build relationships, group bonding events that include talent shows feel like a “shortcut” to getting closer to colleagues, said Kim Jin-young, 33, who has been working in the HR department of a luxury hotel in Seoul for two years.
“In large companies, it’s hard to get to know people outside your own team. For introverted newcomers in particular, such events can be a great icebreaker,” he said.
“As long as the performances don’t go overboard, they can create fun memories and give people something to talk about. In Korea’s corporate culture, where relationships matter, I think it’s a tradition that doesn’t hurt,” Kim added.
But not everyone romanticizes this particular part of Korean corporate culture.
The tradition of new-hire talent shows, in particular, is widely criticized by office workers, especially those in their 20s and 30s.
The backlash intensified after Hallym University Sacred Heart Hospital sparked nationwide outrage in 2017 for allegedly forcing new nurses to wear revealing outfits and dance suggestively during a talent show.
Following the incident, many companies sought to cut back on such events, but the culture has been slow to fade.
Last December, a female office worker who introduced herself as a new hire posted anonymously on an online community, asking for advice on what to prepare for a talent show during her company’s year-end party.
“Our year-end party has a talent show for new employees, and participation is mandatory. I’ve only been here a month, but I’m so stressed that I’m even thinking about quitting. I can’t sing or dance. What should I do?” she wrote.
In April this year, a post on Blind, a workplace discussion app, fueled another controversy with claims that new hires at Gimhae Urban Development Corp. were expected to put on a talent show at a company sports event.
“Department heads said participation was voluntary, but in the conservative culture of public corporations, many younger employees inevitably felt pressured, and many ended up joining even though they didn’t really want to,” wrote a Blind user who appeared to be an employee of the corporation.
In response, a GUDC official said in an interview with local media that the corporation never forced employees to take part and only encouraged voluntary participation.
Kwon Soon-won, a professor of business administration at Sookmyung Women’s University, said having new hires entertain others at company events — whether in a talent show or something else — stems from a male-dominated corporate culture, shaped by South Korea’s mandatory military duty for men.
Many corporate leaders carried over the military’s emphasis on hierarchy, discipline and obedience into the workplace, fostering a perception of the office as a space governed by order and authority, she explained.
“In organizations that prioritized collective discipline over individual expression, the talent show functioned as a symbolic rite of passage for enforcing discipline,” she said.
“With the ‘fourth industrial revolution’ reshaping corporate culture, the old military-style training no longer suits the fast-changing market or maximizes employee potential. Corporate training and onboarding should shift toward fostering interest in one’s job skills and career, and creating a culture that respects autonomy.”