After detours through tech, journalism and modeling, the heroine of the Netflix hit emerges as a rising actress
Few actors ever portray a profession they actually worked in before finding fame, but Jin Ki-joo breaks the standard mold.
International audiences currently know her as Im Ha-rim in the viral series “Teach You a Lesson,” where she plays a fearless former special operative turned government inspector tackling troubled students head-on.
Yet, long before stepping in front of the camera, the 37-year-old actress had already lived several distinct professional lives.
Her resume eschews the traditional industry trajectory in favor of a series of major occupational pivots. She went from being a tech consultant at Samsung SDS, to a broadcast journalist, a supermodel and, ultimately, a sought-after leading lady anchoring major Korean television projects.
“What seemed like a series of completely unrelated events ended up helping me in unexpected ways,” Jin noted during a 2018 interview with SBS. “They were all different pieces, but when you put them together, they completed the puzzle that is my life.”
As a child, Jin dreamed of following her father’s footsteps into the newsroom.
“My father is a journalist, and I always admired what he did,” she recalled during a June appearance on the popular talk show “You Quiz on the Block.” She noted that she would often hear about major events from him days before they hit the airwaves, inspiring an early fascination with the media landscape.
Ironically, her academic path initially took her in a completely different direction. She enrolled at Chung-Ang University as a computer engineering major, a choice driven largely by standard exam scores rather than a genuine passion for technology.
“I’m still terrible with computers,” she said on “You Quiz on the Block,” admitting that she chose the major simply because it matched her grades.
After graduation, Jin parlayed that degree into a corporate role at Samsung SDS, the IT services and digital logistics affiliate of the tech giant. Much like her choice of major, landing the position felt like following a rigid formula rather than a creative calling.
“I thought the only careers available to me were ones where you submit an application, take an exam, and receive an acceptance notice,” she explained to SBS.
At first, life at Samsung was rewarding; working as an IT consultant, Jin had even served as an in-house model. Yet as the years passed, a sense of professional stagnation began to set in, leading to a crucial intervention from an unexpected source: her mother.
“Apparently my expression was getting darker and darker every day,” Jin recalled. “One day my mother told me, ‘If going to work and coming home is making you this miserable, then do what you really want to do.'”
Emboldened by that shifting perspective, Jin resigned from Samsung after a three-year tenure at age 26 to pursue the media career she had envisioned as a child.
Her efforts paid off when she secured a reporting position at G1 Broadcasting Company, a local television network based in Gangwon Province. For a brief period, the career shift felt like a validation of her true calling.
However, the relentless reality of a local newsroom quickly proved far more physically demanding than she had anticipated. As a trainee reporter, her days devolved into an exhausting cycle of overnight shifts, police station beats, and emergency room checks to cover breaking news before filing stories late into the night.
“The only personal time I had was when I washed my hair,” she recalled on “You Quiz.” “I’d be bent over washing it and vomit because I was so exhausted.”
The experience ultimately convinced Jin that her path was elsewhere in the media landscape.
Unlike her yearslong journey away from Samsung, this transition happened quickly. After only three months in broadcasting, she informed a senior colleague over drinks that she was going to pursue acting.
The abrupt departure caused significant friction at home, particularly with her father, who viewed the sudden shift from a stable journalism career to the volatility of entertainment with extreme skepticism.
“When I told my father I was quitting journalism, he told me to leave the house,” Jin recalled.
“My father was strongly opposed to it. He was really scary back then. … He even said, ‘You’re not my daughter anymore,'” she said.
Despite the pushback from her family, Jin was driven by a conviction gained on the job: her time behind the camera had run its course, and the stage was next.
Pivoting to entertainment
Her transition into the entertainment industry officially began months later on a very different kind of stage: the 2014 SBS Supermodel Contest. Standing 170 centimeters tall and possessing an on-screen charisma, Jin placed third out of approximately 2,600 contestants, and she leveraged the pageant platform to secure acting representation.
Her formal acting debut came in the 2015 series “Twenty Again,” which kicked off a steady climb through the television ranks with roles in “Moon Lovers: Scarlet Heart Ryeo,” “Come and Hug Me” and “Homemade Love Story.”
Jin’s critical breakthrough arrived via the big screen in director Lim Soon-rye’s acclaimed feature “Little Forest,” where she performed alongside Korean film staples Kim Tae-ri and Ryu Jun-yeol. The indie hit earned her widespread critical praise and secured her a best new actress trophy at the Chunsa Film Art Awards.
The cinematic momentum translated into high-profile prestige television projects. In 2024, she joined the ensemble cast of Disney+’s tentpole political drama “Uncle Samsik,” sharing the screen with industry heavyweights Song Kang-ho and Byun Yo-han, before expanding her mainstream appeal opposite Seo Kang-joon in the action-comedy “Undercover High School.”
Her trajectory culminated in 2026 with “Teach You a Lesson,” a project where her multi-faceted background informed her performance. Her grounded portrayal of Im Ha-rim has struck a chord with audiences, with the series securing the No. 1 spot on Netflix’s weekly list of most-watched non-English TV series for two consecutive weeks since its debut.
Looking ahead to 2027, Jin is poised to maintain her momentum, having signed on to headline an upcoming KBS romantic comedy alongside Kim Sung-cheol.
If her resume suggests a life defined by reinvention, Jin says she sees it differently, viewing it instead as a series of choices that eventually led her to where she belongs.
“(After becoming an actress), I stopped thinking about doing anything else,” she said on “You Quiz.”
“I think changing jobs is only possible when you’re willing to let go. There’s no guarantee the next place will be better than where you are now. The real question is whether you’d still do it even if it meant losing what you already have.”
