HR startups outwit job posting sites for IT workers

The growing trend toward personalized hiring and the rising demand for technology developers are encouraging South Korea’s human resources tech startups and edtech platforms to expand into the recruitment services market.

Riding on the tech jobs boom, they are outwitting job posting sites such as Job Korea and Saramin with aggressive marketing and promotions, including cash rewards and free tips for job interviews.

An app called Remember that helps users organize new contacts by scanning business cards onto their phones has made its foray into the recruitment market.

Blind, an online community where people anonymously share their salaries and job interview experiences as well as company reviews, followed suit. Last month, both Remember and Blind registered as subscription-based employment agencies with the Ministry of Employment and Labor.

The rise of HR tech startups and coding education companies as recruitment agencies reflects a shift in the way South Korean companies hire employees from regular mass recruitment once or twice a year to filling vacancies on a frequent basis.

Also, the simplified hiring process amid talent shortages helps HR startups quickly take the place of conventional job portals where companies post job openings.

INTERVIEW TIPS, CASH GIFT

Job Planet, an online community to share companies' salaries and employee benefits, has been providing recruitment services since last month.

To promote the new business, the online portal offers tips to prepare for job interviews and salary negotiations to those applying for a job on the platform. Additionally, it pays 2 million won ($1,600) in cash to those who land a job via the portal.



Wanted, a headhunting platform, has introduced a referral-based recruiting service in South Korea. If the recommended candidate clinches the job, both the recommender and the new employee are granted a cash reward of 500,000 won. In turn, it takes 7% of the employee’s first-year salary as a fee.

Over the past three years, Wanted has paid out a total of 6.1 billion won in cash rewards, including last year's payment of 3.5 billion won.

Its parent company Wanted Lab Inc.’s operating profit tripled to 1.2 billion won on-year in the first quarter of this year and revenue almost doubled to 11 billion won.

Publy, a career advice platform with 190,000 subscribers, has recently launched Career.ly, venturing into the recruitment market to find a new growth source.

CODING EDUCATION COMPANIES

Coding education companies also joined the ranks of HR startups in building their presence in the job market, targeting software developers they have trained.

Elice Academy, which runs education programs on artificial intelligence and data analysis, launched Elice Works, a recruitment portal, in February of this year. Companies can make a job offer to registered members on the portal, while conducting coding tests and video interviews for the candidates.

Code States and TeamSpart are also evolving from software education companies into recruitment agencies, following in the footsteps of Grepp, an edtech startup.

UNSPECIFIED ROLES

As companies struggle to find the right employee for a certain position, Wadiz, South Korea’s largest crowdfunding platform, has shifted to opening jobs for unspecified roles and then creating positions matching the new employees’ qualifications.

“We are creating positions that fit for new employees, based on their work proposals,” said a Wadiz official.

Ably Corp., a popular women’s fashion platform, skipped the process of receiving appliants' resumes and letters of self-introduction from last month.

Instead, it gives out a questionnaire with a list of questions about the applicant’s personal information, work experience and qualifications, which reduces the time to hire a new employee to fewer than 10 days.

Write to Lan Heo and Joo-Wan Kim at why@hankyung.com
Yeonhee Kim edited this article.