Recruiters tend not to hire jobseekers who give the impression they might quit the job soon even if they have good qualifications, a poll suggests.

In the survey of personnel officers in 406 companies released Monday by the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry, 80 percent said they would not hire applicants who might give up the job quickly, even if they are highly qualified. This tendency is more pronounced in small and medium-sized firms, where about 83.1 percent gave that answer, compared to 74.5 percent in big firms.
 
But workers at small and medium-sized businesses tend to quit more frequently than in big companies, according to the survey. In 2009, around 13.9 percent of new staff with big companies quit within a year, but the figure was 39.6 percent for SMEs.

Companies said they have various measures in place to prevent newcomers from quitting early. They included a mentoring system (41.4 percent), a raise in starting salaries and improvement in employee benefits (33.7 percent), training and education (32.8 percent), and camp training and employee get-togethers (19.2 percent).

A KCCI official said, "Businesses prefer people who have the personality and aptitude work in the same company for a long time to those with good qualifications, because when new recruits quit it means a loss of time and money."