KAIST College of Business (KCB) has not only accomplished a 100 percent employment rate but has also enabled numerous successful career changes despite the persisting recession.

KCB has maintained this remarkable record for the last several years. While the employment rate as of May was 97 percent in 2017, 95 percent in 2018, and 94 percent in 2019, however, all graduates attained employment after May.

It is notable that the recent employment is not just confined to domestic corporations. Yoon Young-jin (TMBA '14), for example, has started his career at N3N North American HQ and Chang Kyu-hyuk (PMBA '15) has become a technical program manager at the Google headquarters.

In addition, more than 80 percent of KCB graduates have transferred to industries different from their past work experience. This conversion rate has been steadily maintained above the 80 percent range. It was 84%, 81%, 82%, and 85% from 2016 to 2019 respectively.

Career change here refers to an employee restarting his or her work in a different industry and in a different job category. The high conversion rate, therefore, infers that MBA students are choosing KCB in order to “change” their careers, not merely improve working conditions.

Along those who are changing their careers, Yang Hyung-woo (TMBA '14) transferred from the overseas sales division at LG International Corp to the e-Commerce division at 3M Korea. Likewise, Song Chi-yool (TMBA '14) was a former R&D researcher at LG Display, however, he has recently moved to Nike Portland headquarters as a Data Analytics Manager.

Song Chi-yool had studied physics at Inha University before working as an R&D researcher at LG Display. When Song was dealing with production and development data for curved OLED TVs, he desired to learn more about consumer and market analysis and enrolled at KCB TMBA course. He then successfully transferred to Nike Korea as Marketplace Intelligence Analyst, and has recently become Data Analytics Manager at Nike Headquarters in Portland.

From demand forecasting to supply chain management, sales data analysis, and to inventory management, a Data Analytics Manager analyzes data covering the overall value chain and finally publishes reports. In retrospect, Song received big support from diverse courses specializing in analytics, including econometrics, price policies, and high-tech marketing.

Yang Hyung-woo transferred from the overseas sales division at LG International Corp to 3M Korea, after studying at KAIST College of Business. Yang is currently the leader in digital marketing lead in the e-Commerce division at 3M Korea. Based upon data analysis, his job is to generate online demand, and construct and optimize the digital customer experience in order to deliver the company’s messages most effectively.

Yang said, “I still get help from the lessons learned at the College in practice. After two years of studying for my MBA, now I can accept the latest knowledge more quickly and solve problems more logically. Besides the successful career change and such improvements, the MBA course has also given me strong alumni networks and made my perspective wider.”

KAIST College of Business has its ongoing plans to progressively offer students a variety of employment support programs through the Career Development Center, and by giving corporate members an opportunity to directly recruit new talent.

Kim Young-bae, Dean of KAIST College of Business, commented, “The College strives to foster talent to lead the 4th Industrial Revolution, through a multidisciplinary approach combining technology and management. The students will exercise their competences in any field of industry, no matter what they did in their previous jobs.”