Watching the office landscape shift while I was still trying to figure out my next move

Watching the research centers lose their luster

I remember sitting in a coffee shop in Yeouido a few years ago, thinking that becoming a financial analyst was the ultimate goal. Back then, it felt like the gold standard for anyone wanting to be considered a ‘compass’ of the capital markets. But lately, I’ve been talking to people still in that world, and the sentiment has shifted completely. The compensation just isn’t growing at the pace people expected, and the prestige feels thinner than it used to. It is kind of strange to see so many people jumping ship from brokerages now. When I hear fresh graduates still aspiring to land a spot in a top-tier research center, I honestly wonder if they know how much the day-to-day grind has changed compared to what we saw on the news five or ten years ago.

The Big Tech obsession and where it leaves the rest of us

Everyone seems to be looking toward Big Tech, and why wouldn’t they? The numbers get thrown around like 86% employment rates for those programs, which sounds amazing on paper. I spent a whole afternoon looking into how Google and other major players are integrating things like A2A—where AI agents basically talk to each other to handle tasks—and it really hits you how quickly the actual skills required are evolving. I tried to apply for a few roles in that space, but the barrier to entry feels like a moving target. It is not just about having the degree anymore; you have to understand this weird, automated infrastructure that even the senior engineers seem to be constantly troubleshooting.

Digital burnout and the pressure of the 2030 generation

There is this underlying exhaustion everywhere. I read about these new academic initiatives, like the one at Kongju National University focused on brain science and healing travel, and it makes sense. People my age, the 2030 demographic, are dealing with this intense digital disconnection despite being more connected than ever. You can’t go a day without using Google or some other massive platform, and it feels like we are just feeding the machines that are slowly making our traditional roles obsolete. I remember applying for a role last year where the interview process felt more like a test of how well I could use their internal proprietary tools rather than my actual professional judgment. It left me feeling pretty hollow by the time I walked out.

The lingering fear of a clean record

I even caught myself worrying about the smallest things, like whether a minor legal misunderstanding from a few years ago—like that one time a friend got a warning over a copyright issue with a PDF file—would somehow show up in a background check for a big company. It sounds paranoid, I know, but when you are looking for a job in a massive organization, you start thinking about every single digital footprint you have ever left. Is a fine going to ruin my chances? Does the company even care about things that happened years ago? It is an annoying thing to carry around in the back of your mind while you are trying to act composed during an interview. I still haven’t found a solid answer on how much those old, minor things actually stick, and honestly, I am not sure I want to dig deep enough to find out.