Key Takeaways
- Lotte Department Store does not hire directly — applications go through the Lotte Group common recruitment portal at recruit.lotte.co.kr and are routed to the Lotte Shopping affiliate by compcd.
- The full pipeline is 입사지원 → 서류전형 → L-TAB (인적성검사) → 면접전형 (One-Day ONE-STOP with 역량/임원/PT/GD and foreign language) → 건강검진 → 최종합격.
- The jagisogaeseo (self-introduction essay) is the single most important document — it must tie to Lotte's four core values (도전, 열정, 존중, 정직) and to the specific affiliate with concrete evidence.
- L-TAB is Lotte's proprietary aptitude test covering job-fit and organization-fit diagnostics — plan four to eight weeks of preparation using published workbooks.
- Korean new-grad (대졸) gongchae still drives most hiring, though susi-chaeyong has expanded substantially for DT and specialist roles since 2021.
- The interview day is a marathon — expect four to six hours cycling through multiple interview types in a single sitting at headquarters or a designated center.
- Competitive context matters: the company is in an active defensive fight against Shinsegae Gangnam and Hyundai's The Hyundai Seoul, and candidates who can discuss the Myeongdong renovation, Dong-Busan outlet, and Hanoi Lotte Mall West Lake expansion specifically stand out.
- Non-Korean applicants need TOPIK 5 or 6 level Korean for HQ roles and should expect E-7 visa sponsorship only for specialized hires, not general-track gongchae.
- The portal is Korean-language primary — all application data, essays, and L-TAB instructions are in Korean, and interviews default to Korean unless the posting explicitly states otherwise.
About Lotte Department Store
Application Process
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1
Apply through the Lotte Group common recruitment portal at recruit
Apply through the Lotte Group common recruitment portal at recruit.lotte.co.kr — there is no standalone Lotte Department Store careers site. The portal routes applications to a specific affiliate via a compcd (company code) parameter attached to each 채용공고 (recruitment posting). Lotte Shopping postings — which include Lotte Department Store openings — appear alongside postings from Lotte Mart, Lotte Hi-Mart, Lotte Cinema, Lotte Chemical, Lotte Hotel and dozens of other group companies, so you must filter by affiliate rather than apply generically.
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2
Understand the two hiring tracks
Understand the two hiring tracks. Korean chaebol recruitment splits into 공채 (gongchae) — the semi-annual grand recruitment drive that mass-hires new university graduates on a common timeline across affiliates — and 수시채용 (susi-chaeyong) — ad-hoc postings that run year-round for experienced hires, specific roles, interns, and increasingly for new grads in specialized tracks like DT. Lotte has shifted meaningfully toward susi-chaeyong since 2021, but gongchae-style cohort hiring still drives the bulk of new-grad intake at Lotte Department Store, particularly for 영업관리 (store operations) and MD tracks.
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Create an account on recruit
Create an account on recruit.lotte.co.kr and complete the 입사지원서 (ipsa jiwonseo, application form). This replaces what Western applicants think of as a resume. The form is standardized across the group and includes fields for 학력 (education), 경력 (work experience), 어학 (languages, typically TOEIC/TOEIC Speaking/OPIc scores with exact dates of acquisition), 자격증 (certifications), 수상경력 (awards), 대외활동 (extracurriculars), and a photo. Korean applicants are expected to attach a 증명사진 — a formal passport-style photo taken at a professional studio.
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4
Write the 자기소개서 (jagisogaeseo, self-introduction essay)
Write the 자기소개서 (jagisogaeseo, self-introduction essay). This is the single most important document in a Korean chaebol application. Lotte typically poses four to five essay prompts of 500 to 1,000 characters each covering growth background, motivation to join Lotte, a story of achieving a goal with others, a story of resolving conflict or failure, and a forward-looking vision tied to the specific affiliate. Every essay must link back to Lotte's core values (도전, 열정, 존중, 정직 — Challenge, Passion, Respect, Honesty) and to concrete evidence. Generic essays are filtered at document screening.
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5
Pass the 서류전형 (document screening)
Pass the 서류전형 (document screening). For high-volume gongchae postings the pass rate at this stage is typically five to fifteen percent. Screeners review the application form, the jagisogaeseo essays, and 자격 요건 (qualification requirements) such as GPA thresholds (Lotte does not publish hard cutoffs but competitive candidates typically hold 3.5+/4.5 in major subjects), English proficiency (TOEIC 800+ is the practical floor for HQ roles), and relevant internships or retail experience.
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Sit the 인적성검사 L-TAB (LOTTE Talent Assessment Battery)
Sit the 인적성검사 L-TAB (LOTTE Talent Assessment Battery). This is Lotte's proprietary aptitude test, administered online (since 2020) under remote proctoring. It has two components: the 직무적합진단 (job-fit diagnostic) testing verbal reasoning, numerical reasoning, spatial reasoning, and problem solving under time pressure, and the 조직적합진단 (organization-fit diagnostic) measuring personality, values, and cultural alignment. Korean test prep publishers (해커스, 에듀윌, 위포트, 시대고시) print annual L-TAB workbooks; Korean applicants typically study for four to eight weeks.
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Complete the 면접전형 (interview round)
Complete the 면접전형 (interview round) — the One-Day ONE-STOP session. Lotte collapses what other companies run as multiple interview days into a single grueling day at headquarters or a designated center. The same candidate cycles through: 역량면접 (competency interview with HR and line managers), 임원면접 (executive interview, typically with department heads or executives), PT면접 (presentation interview — you are given a case or topic, prep time, and must present a structured solution to a panel), GD면접 (group discussion — a leaderless group of candidates debates an assigned topic), and often 외국어 평가 (foreign language assessment, usually English, sometimes Vietnamese/Chinese for regional roles).
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8
Pass 건강검진 (health screening) at a designated hospital
Pass 건강검진 (health screening) at a designated hospital. This is standard for Korean new-hire processes and checks for basic health status, drug use, and communicable disease. It is pass/fail in practice but rarely eliminates candidates.
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Receive 최종합격 (final acceptance) and attend 그룹 입문교육 (group onboarding)
Receive 최종합격 (final acceptance) and attend 그룹 입문교육 (group onboarding) — a multi-week training program run by the Lotte Human Resources Development Institute that covers group history, affiliate business models, service mindset, and — for retail-track hires — hands-on store rotation at department store floors before permanent assignment.
Resume Tips for Lotte Department Store
Submit through the Lotte portal's application form, not a PDF resume
Submit through the Lotte portal's application form, not a PDF resume. Fields, character limits, and required attachments are fixed. A beautifully designed Western-style resume will not help you because screeners never see it in that format — they see the normalized data the portal outputs.
Translate your experience into the Lotte common application schema
Translate your experience into the Lotte common application schema. Every role needs a start date, end date, company name, position, and a 1,000-character description field emphasizing concrete achievements. For retail experience, quantify: transaction volume handled, category sales growth, VIP customer retention, store-level KPI movement.
Anchor every jagisogaeseo essay to Lotte's four core values (도전, 열정, 존중, 정직) and
Anchor every jagisogaeseo essay to Lotte's four core values (도전, 열정, 존중, 정직) and — critically — to the specific affiliate you are applying to. An essay written for Lotte Chemical will not pass screening for Lotte Department Store. Name the specific store, the specific category, the specific initiative (Myeongdong flagship renovation, Avenuel luxury strategy, Dong-Busan outlet expansion, Hanoi West Lake).
Lead with retail-specific experience if you have it
Lead with retail-specific experience if you have it. Part-time floor staff at any department store, luxury boutique, or duty-free chain (Shilla, Shinsegae Duty Free, Lotte Duty Free) carries real weight for operations tracks. MD track candidates should highlight buying, category management, or brand-side experience.
Include exact test scores with dates
Include exact test scores with dates. TOEIC 900 (acquired within the last 24 months), OPIc IH or AL, HSK 5 or 6 for China/overseas tracks, TOPIK for non-Korean applicants. Lotte's portal has dropdown fields for these; scores older than two years are flagged and may be disregarded.
For DT (Digital Transformation) postings — the fastest-growing Lotte hiring cate
For DT (Digital Transformation) postings — the fastest-growing Lotte hiring category — submit a separate technical portfolio or GitHub link in the 첨부파일 (attachment) field. Retail DT roles at Lotte specifically look for data engineering, recommendation systems, omnichannel commerce, and loyalty program architecture experience.
Attach a professional 증명사진 (certified ID photo)
Attach a professional 증명사진 (certified ID photo). This is non-negotiable in Korean hiring. Photos must be taken at a proper studio with a plain background, professional retouching, and business attire. Selfies or casual photos cause immediate screening failure for appearance-sensitive roles including all floor-facing department store positions.
Be honest about career gaps and explain them in the 경력기술서 (experience statement)
Be honest about career gaps and explain them in the 경력기술서 (experience statement) or relevant essay. Korean HR treats unexplained gaps as a red flag but accepts clear explanations (graduate study, military service, caregiving, preparation for a specific career pivot).
If applying from outside Korea, include your Korean proficiency level explicitly
If applying from outside Korea, include your Korean proficiency level explicitly (TOPIK 5 or 6 is the practical floor for HQ office roles) and state your visa status clearly. Lotte will sponsor E-7 visas for specialist hires but defaults to hiring Korean nationals for general-track gongchae.
ATS System: Lotte Group Common Recruitment Portal (recruit.lotte.co.kr)
A custom in-house applicant tracking and application management system built and operated by Lotte Information Communication (LOTTE DATA Communication Company), the group's IT subsidiary. It is not a commercial ATS like Workday, Greenhouse, SuccessFactors, or Saramin. All Lotte Group affiliates — including Lotte Department Store, Lotte Mart, Lotte Hi-Mart, Lotte Chemical, Lotte Hotel, Lotte Chilsung, and roughly forty other companies — post and manage recruitment through this single portal. Each posting is tagged with a compcd (company code) that routes applications to the correct affiliate HR team. The portal handles the full lifecycle from posting to final acceptance: application intake, document screening workflows, L-TAB aptitude test scheduling and scoring, interview scheduling, and candidate communication. It supports Korean only in its primary interface, though a small English landing exists for overseas recruitment.
- Register a single account on recruit.lotte.co.kr and reuse it across every Lotte affiliate you apply to — your application form auto-populates and the system tracks your history across the group.
- Always verify the compcd on the posting URL matches the affiliate you think you are applying to. Lotte Department Store postings typically appear under Lotte Shopping's company code in the Shopping BU (business unit) section. A posting for Lotte Mart or Lotte Hi-Mart is not a Lotte Department Store posting even though both are Lotte Shopping subsidiaries.
- The portal's 인재DB등록 (talent DB registration) feature lets you submit a profile for future consideration outside of a specific posting. Experienced hires in MD, luxury brand management, and DT tracks report being contacted from this database when relevant roles open.
- Essay character counts are enforced by the portal — not soft limits. Write in a Korean word processor with character counting (typically excluding spaces, 공백제외) and paste in carefully. HTML, emojis, and rich formatting are stripped.
- L-TAB is administered online through a separate LOTTE-run platform linked from the portal, with remote webcam proctoring. Use a wired internet connection, a desktop with webcam, and a quiet well-lit room. Test windows are fixed (typically weekends during the gongchae season) and cannot be rescheduled individually.
- If you receive a 반환 요청 (return request) option after final decision, you can request your application materials back — a privacy right preserved in the portal under Korean personal information protection law.
Interview Culture
Lotte Department Store interviews sit squarely inside the formal Korean chaebol tradition, with a few Lotte-specific accents.
What Lotte Department Store Looks For
- Service mindset and 고객 중심 사고 (customer-centric thinking). Every Lotte Department Store role, even back-office MD and DT positions, is evaluated on whether the candidate instinctively thinks about the shopping customer — the weekday salarywoman buying cosmetics, the weekend family in the food hall, the VIP customer in the Avenuel suite.
- Alignment with Lotte's core values — 도전 (Challenge), 열정 (Passion), 존중 (Respect), 정직 (Honesty) — demonstrated through concrete past behavior rather than repeated as a slogan. Panelists can tell the difference.
- New-grad (대졸) candidates: GPA, school tier, TOEIC/OPIc scores, and the shape of extracurriculars (동아리 club leadership, 대외활동 external activities, internships at Lotte or competitor retailers). Lotte does not publicly advertise cutoffs but historically favors candidates from top-tier SKY (Seoul National, Korea, Yonsei) and next-tier universities for headquarters positions, though this has moderated as susi-chaeyong expands.
- Experienced hires: category-specific retail depth, especially luxury and premium brand relationships, buying experience, or specific digital commerce expertise (loyalty, CRM, recommendation, omnichannel fulfillment).
- Demonstrated understanding of the competitive landscape. Candidates who can speak precisely about why Shinsegae Gangnam has pulled ahead, what The Hyundai Seoul did right, and where Lotte can credibly win (heritage, store network scale, group ecosystem leverage, overseas expansion) separate themselves immediately in the executive interview.
- For DT track: technical depth in at least one of data engineering, machine learning/recommendation, backend services, or omnichannel commerce. Lotte's DT push is real but the organization is early in maturity, so candidates who can operate both hands-on and as communicators with non-technical retail leaders are disproportionately valued.
- Korean language fluency for headquarters and store-facing roles. Lotte is not a bilingual workplace at the ground level; internal meetings, documents, and store operations run in Korean. TOPIK 5 or 6 is the practical floor for non-Korean applicants targeting HQ roles.
- Long-horizon fit. Chaebol hiring assumes a career-length relationship; explicit job-hopping ambition or strong preferences for rapid rotation register negatively. If you are applying from outside Korea or from a different career track, prepare a coherent narrative for why Lotte Department Store is a multi-year commitment, not a stepping stone.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Lotte Department Store have its own careers website?
What is L-TAB and how should I prepare?
Do I need to speak Korean to work at Lotte Department Store?
What is the difference between gongchae (공채) and susi-chaeyong (수시채용)?
How important is the jagisogaeseo (자기소개서) essay?
What does the One-Day ONE-STOP interview actually involve?
Does Lotte Department Store hire non-Korean nationals?
Is the photo on my application really required?
How competitive is Lotte Department Store hiring?
What does Lotte Department Store actually want from new graduates?
Open Positions
Lotte Department Store currently has 9 open positions.
