How important is Korean?

More than you might think, it is very important for getting a job. I heard this from a friend of mine who is looking for a job in Korea and he's almost successful (very close to getting a final offer) and he wanted to share it with me. So he went to the recent annual global talent fair and landed in several interviews and he's already had a couple of offers and there's one company he really wants to go to and he's almost got an offer there too. He told me that his Korean level seemed to be the most interesting to the interviewers. His TOPIK level is 5 and that worked as a signal for most interviewers that his Korean will be decent enough, but I know that his Korean is really fluent and that was where the interviewers were much more interested in him. So it seems that there are very few workplaces where they work on the basis of English. Even if there are native English speakers in the workplace, many of them would still communicate based on both Korean and English. The interviewers also asked a lot of questions about learning skills. Again, the level of Korean seemed to be important because they seemed to think that even if your major is not that relevant or you are not skilled enough, if your Korean is okay, then they can somehow teach you. I know that a lot of people are already aware of this fact and want to improve their TOPIK level, but it's not just TOPIK level, you will also be judged on how fluent your Korean is in interviews. So you cannot just have a good TOPIK level and not be fluent enough. Sometimes it is better to have a decent TOPIK level, say 4-5, and be fluent, than to have a TOPIK level of 5-6 and not be fluent enough.