Many years ago, I turned up at an office to find the manager I had come to see, going through a pile of papers.

As we talked, he continued this task, muttering occasionally, "Yes" or "No," in English, as if by way of explanation. He put the yes sheets to one side and chucked the others into a waste bin by his desk.

"What are you doing?" I finally asked.

"Job applications," he said. "I get loads of them all the time."

"Who are they, then?" I asked, nodding in the direction of the bin. I was quite surprised at the speed of his assessment, mindful that the photo on each sheet of paper was of a person schooled for years in preparation for this professional moment of decision.

"They're from Jeolla-do," he said.

"Why don't you want them?"

"We don't want them," he said, turning my question into a statement as if it were a self-evident truth.

That episode, as you may guess from both the mass of paper and the target of prejudice, occurred before you, dear reader, were born, when your columnist had hair, and bigots roamed the Earth in suits and office slippers and sat at grey metal desks shuffling low-quality paper.

A new generation has since taken over. Actually, two generations. Thanks to democracy, more laws around hiring, and the presidency of Kim Dae-jung, a Jeolla native, the waters of that old bias have retreated, leaving its advocates exposed on moral low ground.

But have we really progressed? Politicians may pass laws that protect victims. Or the victim group itself may remove the reasons for people to mistrust them. In the Jeolla case, for example, the real problem was that the elite in Korea, who were from the southeast and Seoul, feared they would all be thrown out if anyone from Jeolla ever took power. In the end, that didn't happen and the caricature of people from the southwest as troublemakers and undesirable spouses faded.

But prejudice is a shape-shifter. Its energy comes from a deep place where insecurities and assumptions of superiority govern our outlook. It's even harder to change when it is cemented into culture, religious and ideological frameworks.

For example, if we look at that bias against those job applications and the ease with which it was possible to reject half of them with barely a glance, we find an underlying problem that is more acute in Korea than in other advanced countries. That is the difficulty in assessing value.

The question of value – i.e., what can this candidate bring to our company? – can be taught in the corporate context, but it is also a matter of the external business culture within which the company competes and how individuals making decisions view themselves as well as others.

We see here a feature of the old Confucianism that once prevailed in Korea and which, despite the predominance of Christianity, has to some extent colored the Korean churches rather than been chased out. That is that your value as an individual comes not from your existence as a unique child of God, but from your relations with others, and specifically from your position in society.

This position, like a military rank, is indicated by external markers, like credentials and physical attributes. Sometimes, people resort to downright superstition to judge you, asking your blood type or reading your face.

Such external markers may bear no relation to your inner qualities, your ambitions, or your ability to contribute to a company or organization. But the chances are that a potential employer does not even think, let alone know how to look beyond them to assess your actual value.

Thus, the bigoted "candidate chucker" is alive and well. It's just that he is throwing out your application because you didn't have enough plastic surgery or didn't go to one of three universities.

It is no wonder that people are made in this society to feel like losers. They have no experience of being appreciated or valued. It's no wonder that so many give up and that the ambitious doctor their CVs. The discovery of how to recognize value and real potential in people in Korea is a revolution waiting to happen.

Michael Breen (mike.breen@insightcomms.com) is the author of "The New Koreans."