The competition for jobs at Samsung companies in the second half of this year is expected to be the fiercest ever.

The number of job seekers who applied for Samsung Group and its subsidiaries reached an all-time high during the regular recruiting session in the second half of this year, company officials said Tuesday.

“We have some 100,000 applicants for 5,500 job vacancies although the exact number has not yet been calculated. (Because of the record-high number) we are having hard time securing sites for the Samsung Aptitude Test,” the Samsung official said. 

The number of applicants rose by 25 percent from the 80,000 who applied for 4,500 vacancies in the first half.

Samsung officials said an increasing number of graduates from colleges in provincial areas have applied since the company announced last year it would hire 35 percent of new employees from colleges there.

Its competition rate and recruitment screening process are slated to be announced Wednesday.

To get the chance for a job interview, all applicants must take the Samsung Aptitude Test, or SSAT, which includes languages, mathematics, inference and general knowledge tests. Candidates whose English language skills and grade point average are below the B level are not qualified to take the exam.

For the job interview, Samsung made some changes from this year. Traditional group discussion interviews were discarded while the time duration doubled for the presentation and executive interview. Samsung will put more emphasis on evaluating job competence and personality, the official said.

As the competition gets fiercer, universities are rolling up their sleeves to prepare their students. Seoul National University offered mock SSAT for students on Tuesday and Sogang University provided lectures to prepare for company entrance exams including the SSAT. Some other universities including Incheon University, Hanbat University and Sunchon University are running “Samsung entrance classes” for their students.

By Shin Ji-hye (shinjh@heraldcorp.com)