When you write an application for a Korean company for the first time, you find yourself hesitating. You submit your résumé, and they say, "Please submit a self-introduction letter too," and the title of the first box is 'Growth Process'. As a Korean teacher, I get asked this question by my students a lot. So I'll explain it to you in a letter. ## A résumé is fact, and a self-introduction is a story On a résumé, you only write things that can be verified, like your school, work experience, and certifications. But for a long time, Korean companies hired people who were about to graduate all at once. Since everyone had no work experience, it was hard to tell them apart from their résumés alone. So they started asking for a separate piece of writing about "what kind of person you are." That piece of writing is the self-introduction letter, or 'jasoseo' for short. ## Why start writing from childhood, of all things? Korean companies have long thought of their employees as family members who will be together for a long time. So they were as curious about a person's character as about their skill at work. They believed a person's character shows in how they grew up. The "upbringing" section came from that thinking. That doesn't mean you should brag about your family. ## What You Can Use Right Away These days, many companies drop the upbringing section and ask "why you applied for this job" instead. So first, check the questions and the character limit in the job posting. If they ask you to write about your upbringing, keep the part about where you were born short. It's best to pick just one experience that connects to the job you're applying for now and describe it in detail. For example, something like "I helped foreign customers place their orders at my part-time job at a café." If Korean is still hard for you, show your finished writing to a Korean friend or a teacher once. Take it slow, I'm cheering for you.