The 4 Detailed Steps Kim Sejeong Took Before Auditioning For K-Pop Companies That Ensured Her Success

Kim Sejeong finally made a comeback as a singer after over two years. She promoted her new track on Lee Mujin’s Service whiel also talking about herself during the interview portion.

One of the topics they discussed extensively was on the steps she took prior to auditioning to be an idol that made her confident she’d succeed.

Lee Mujin: First, in order to be a singer, I heard you studied all 20 agencies…?

Kim Sejeong: Yes. I was determined and prepared for a month.

Her methodology in order to find the best company for her—and pass the audition—was as follows.

1. Step 1: Research

First up, Sejeong paid close attention to the research portion of her plan. She studied the K-Pop industry as a whole and wrote her ideas down so she could examine them properly.

‘What are the available companies?’ I started with that.

— Kim Sejeong

Like most idol aspirants, she first started with the top agencies around. Fans are well aware that she auditioned for SM Entertainment, for instance. She also made sure to not close any doors and narrowed down a list of smaller companies with good reputations.

So I opened up my notebook and wrote down three famous agencies: ‘This one, this one, and this…’ I wrote them down from small to medium-sized agencies.

— Kim Sejeong

2. Step 2: Scheduling

After she had a list of the 20 companies she wanted to audition for, she meticulously noted down the important details about their auditions. This ensured that she would not miss a single one.

Then I went back to the first page. [I asked myself] ‘When, when, when is the audition? What are the auditions being held right now and what are the regular auditions?’ I wrote every detail down.

— Kim Sejeong

3. Step 3: Strengths

Sejeong focused most of her energy on figuring out how she could stand out during the auditions themselves. Her main strength was her voice, and though she’s best as singing slow songs, she knew that she’d have to prove that she can fit in a girl group as well.

My strength is ballad! But since I’ll have to do a girl group, I need to prepare a song with rhythm, right?

— Kim Sejeong

She separated her choices based on things like tempo and country of origin. Of course, she also wrote a shortlist of the tracks that make her shine the most.

The Korean fast and slow songs, foreign fast and slow songs, I divided it like that. The songs I’m great at, the next best songs I’m great at, and a preliminary song! I broke it down into these three categories.

— Kim Sejeong

4. Final Song Preparation

Sejeong’s idea of a “basic” preparation was being ready to sing as many as twelve songs. And she didn’t stop there—she also jotted down and practiced extra tracks that could bring out her best.

For basic, twelve songs! And then, ‘Additional songs I can do, let’s find the ones that fit me well!” So I wrote them down.

— Kim Sejeong

Audition

Finally, after approaching the audition process meticulously, it was time for her to actually attend the auditions. She once again shared the story of how she thought she was at FNC Entertainment—the company that houses the likes of FT Island, AOA, CN Blue, and more—but actually went to Jellyfish Entertainment, the company she ended up staying in, instead.

‘Now let’s go to the audition! What auditions can I do now?’ There was a page with a list of open audition. [I thought] ‘Okay, let’s do this one!’ so I did. They gave flyers. When I read it, it was a different place than I knew. I knew about ‘FNC Entertainment’ and went there. When I arrived there, there was ‘Jellyfish Entertainment.’ At the time, there were many high-profile vocalists at Jellyfish Entertainment. We had SG Wannabe, Park Hyo Shin, Seo In-guk…we had many high-profile vocalists in the company so that made me want to audition for the company.

— Kim Sejeong

Fortunately, Sejeong passed the audition in her first try. This did not surprise her at all, saying that it was a result of her hard work.

But I got accepted at the first go-around. But no surprises there, because I worked so hard for it. I

— Kim Sejeong

The song she ended up auditioning with was a surprising one to many.

I practiced the songs of the singer who has really unique vocal tones [like] Ali and Lee Eun Mi. Among those, the song I felt most confident about was ‘Let It Go.’

— Kim Sejeong

Check out the full video below to learn more about her.