Open recruitment ended, but the hiring calendar returned

Lotte ended its group-wide open recruitment system in 2021 and shifted to hiring when individual affiliates needed people. That gave business units more flexibility over roles and timing.

In 2024, however, Lotte standardized part of the calendar again. Its “predictable on-demand hiring” aligns entry-level recruiting around March, June, September and December. It is not a return to one annual intake: the schedule is shared, while participating affiliates, roles and headcount can still change.

Flexibility for employers can create a monitoring cost for candidates

On-demand recruiting is rational for employers because they can open roles when vacancies or new business needs arise. Candidates, however, may need to repeatedly check career sites so they do not miss a short recruiting window.

When Lotte introduced the system in 2024, it cited a 2022 Incruit survey of 488 entry-level job seekers in their 20s and 30s: 86% said unpredictable job-posting timing made job preparation inconvenient, and 88.1% said predictable on-demand hiring would help. The sample should not be generalized to the entire labor market, but it illustrates the candidate-side cost of timing uncertainty.

The 3-6-9-12 model separates WHEN from WHAT

The system does not require every affiliate to hire the same roles or the same number of people each quarter. What becomes predictable is when candidates should look.

In simple terms, WHEN is standardized into recurring recruiting windows, while WHAT remains flexible according to business demand. Timing and workforce demand are treated as separate layers rather than as one all-or-nothing choice between open recruitment and on-demand hiring.

In 2026 the calendar stayed the same while the job mix changed

In March 2026, 15 affiliates recruited across more than 30 areas including merchandising, sales, marketing and corporate support, with planned hiring in the triple digits.

The September 2026 round again involved 15 affiliates but covered about 50 job areas including sales, marketing, R&D and AI. The recurring calendar remained stable while the mix of talent demand reflected current business priorities.

Flexible hiring does not require unpredictable hiring

Companies adopt on-demand recruiting to respond to changing business needs. But that does not mean every recruiting start date must be random. Recurring entry-level or volume hiring can use planned windows while genuinely urgent or scarce roles remain always-on.

Predictable windows can also help employers prepare recruiting marketing, campus engagement, interview capacity, onboarding and mentoring. Lotte explicitly cited more systematic preparation for training and mentoring as one benefit when the model was introduced in 2024.

For search strategy, the question is what belongs on the calendar and what requires direct search

Not every position fits a quarterly window. Specialized technical roles, executives and scarce experienced hires may need immediate sourcing whenever the requirement appears.

Recurring graduate and volume roles, by contrast, can benefit from predictable market-facing windows. The practical design problem is therefore not simply open recruitment versus on-demand hiring, but which talent demand should be aggregated into a calendar and which should be handled through immediate search.

BANSEOG VIEW

Recruiting can be both flexible and predictable

Lotte’s model is better read as a separation of layers than as a return to old-style open recruitment: the timing layer is standardized while affiliate, role and headcount demand stays flexible.

For employers, the useful question is what should be predictable and what should remain responsive. Recurring demand can be calendared; scarce and urgent demand can be supplemented with direct search.

SOURCES

Primary sources and references

Based on public information available as of Sept. 5, 2026. The September triple-digit figure is a hiring plan, not a verified number of final hires. The 86% and 88.1% figures come from a 2022 Incruit survey of 488 entry-level job seekers in their 20s and 30s cited by Lotte in 2024 and should not be generalized to the entire labor market. Public sources do not establish the internal reasons or performance impact behind each recruiting design choice.