Simple Steps presents an interview series introducing inspiring women’s communities and companies that solve difficult problems in the name of solidarity. The first community is WeConnect, a career platform for women. We interviewed the three founding members of WeConnect, CEO Kim Mijin, Director Noh Yujin, and Manager Ahn Sooyoun.

Yujin, Mijin, and Sooyoun from the right

Q: What is the issue WeConnect focuses on, and how are you trying to solve it?

Yujin: Since 2018, WeConnect started with the question, “What do professional women need to return to workplaces after marriage and/or maternity leave?” There can be different ways to help these women return to the workforce. We could provide job training or help them start a business. What we focused on instead was the lack of opportunities where professional women can use their expertise from previous work experience and work in a more flexible environment. For example, flexible or shortened work hours, and part-time jobs are very much needed for women to meet their childcare needs. As a recruiting platform, WeConnect connects professional women with startups, social ventures, or impact investing firms that provide such flexible working environments.

Our mission is to become a career platform for women who want to continue working. At first, our primary target was women who took a career break, but we grew further and were able to match more than 100-200 cases because we didn’t limit our cases to women who took maternity leave. We found out many other reasons in a woman’s lifespan that made her take a break. We have been creating a variety of programs based on our findings and our partners’ interests. For example, many partners wonder how they could remain relevant in the workforce after 40, so we had a webinar titled “How to Continue Working After 40” by Shin Hyesook, CEO of MediVision, who made life-changing career decisions after 40. Ultimately, job matching is the most important service we offer. Our main strategy is to find and create many interesting job opportunities, actively promote them, and find the right talents.

Q: Can you elaborate on the characteristics of your partners?

Yujin: There are mainly three types. The first type has five to eight years of professional experience, who takes some time off because she wants to raise her children. As I described earlier, they were initially our main target. Many of them have experience in marketing, business management, product management, administration, finance, or accounting who wish to return to work and continue with their careers after having a one to two-year break. The second group is mostly over 40 years old. Many of them want to explore career opportunities in the startup scene and expand their expertise that they have gained in big corporations. The third group is mostly young, single women in their 20s and 30s. Their main concern is that there are relatively limited career opportunities in the current economy, where they can build their career and expertise. These are typically young professionals with less than three years of experience focused on their growth and think that startups could be a good option where they can continue to grow. I found this group especially inspired by insights and mentorship from other women in the community—those who have “been there, done that.” Every member is in different situations, but as we encourage each other and come together as a community, we feel that we are not so different after all.

Q: You mentioned that WeConnect has been sourcing talent to startups. How about other organizations? Does WeConnect plan to connect partners with big enterprises as well?

Mijin: Big corporations are typically slow to adapt. However, I see attempts to increase the number of female executives among big corporations in Korea. ESG(Environmental Social Governance) has become an important topic in Korea, although the emphasis is still more on the first two and less on governance. That was why we focused on startups and small organizations because they can and are willing to change quickly. However, the Covid-19 pandemic definitely changed people’s perception about remote work, and companies whose prime targets are women in their 30s and 40s have made some changes in their corporate culture. Because of the low birth rate in Korea, I believe that there will be big changes within 10 years. We will face a shortage in the workforce, which will influence the policies.

Sooyoun: There are many career matching programs that local governments or cities provide, but they are limited. They often match jobs irrelevant to a candidate's previous experience, and many are only short-term projects that do not provide continuous employment. This makes it hard for job seekers to find a good opportunity through those programs. As the government is working on this, I hope their programs improve and benefit both employers and job seekers in the long term.

2018 Year-end Party with WeConnect Partners

Q: Do you have had any memorable moments in the last four years?

Yujin: I’m most excited when I hear good news from our partners. Internal promotions of our partners make me happy too. I want to tell you the story of a member who joined us at a fairly early stage. She worked at an impact venture capital firm for two years and started her own marketing agency after that. What the CEO of the firm told her when she resigned was heartwarming. He wished her good luck and said that as an investing firm, the firm itself has a spirit of a startup and it is natural for its employees to quit to start their own company. At WeConnect, we would like to see that our partners consider the companies we match for them like a stepping stone, and not like a place where they will retire. We encourage them to start their own businesses and that we hope they can learn a lot from the companies that they work in. That said, I’m not so sure how our partner companies who recruit talents will take this. Should we cut out this part? (Haha)

Mijin: Life is long. We should try many things.

Q: Do the partners of WeConnect stand out in certain fields? As a career platform, how do you balance the demand of the partner organizations or the needs of the job market and a candidate’s expertise?

Yujin: As a career platform, it is important for us to find a balance between employers and job seekers. We needed to show the hiring companies that women can be a good fit for the company despite their career break. There may be some prejudice against women who took a long break from work—they may not be up to date with the trend and are not self-driven enough to work in a demanding work environment such as a startup, etc. We first needed to eliminate these stereotypes.

We didn’t intend to focus on certain job categories, but many of the women in our talent pool have already been involved in marketing, product management, business management, administration, accounting, and finance. Employers were having a hard time finding people in finance, accounting, and business management. When a startup grows into an organization of more than ten people, additional business management personnel are needed to take over the CEO's workload. Responsibility and moral standards are crucial in finance and accounting. Still, as most startups rely heavily on references for recruiting, those were the areas that were especially hard to find the right fit. That’s where WeConnect steps in.

Engineers are in high demand in the tech industry. In particular, it is virtually a war for talent for startups, who fiercely compete for seasoned developers. We can’t deny that there are few women developers in the scene. While we can’t solve the supply and demand mismatch of certain fields, finding the right talent in the tech industry is also becoming increasingly important for WeConnect.

Mijin: Occupational gender segregation is a real problem. Information technology is a powerful force that shapes our industry and society, and I think more women should pursue a career in IT. We are discussing how we can help more women to enter the tech industry, including computer sciences. I am concerned that women are being excluded from important decision-making.

Sooyoun: As a recruiting platform, we have to find job seekers and employers who agree with our mission, and it can be hard to balance the two sides. What is exciting is that women’s communities have grown a lot over the last four years. There are many excellent programs and organizations that focus on career development besides ours. I think we can grow and thrive together with other communities.

Q: Finding the right talent that fits the market trend is an important task, which must require many resources. Say somebody just donated one million dollars to WeConnect. How would you use the money?

Mijin: Melinda Gates has invested one billion dollars in advancing education for women, especially for women to enter the tech or media industry. These industries are vital to our society and typically overrepresented by men. I agree with her. I think more women should pursue a career in the up-and-coming fields of the 21st century, such as space engineering and computer sciences. I’d also like to support companies that have mandatory paternity leave. One million may not be enough! It would be nice if men could assume a more important role in caregiving. I would likely invest in a social system similar to that of Scandinavian countries, which supports women’s wishes to continue their careers.

Yujin: I’d also like to see more social support for full-time fathers. Flexible work hours and maternity leave so far are only for women. We need caregiving partners. This area desperately needs more investment.

Q. What’s WeConnect’s vision for the future?

Mijin: I’d like job seekers to use our platform as a place to explore and contemplate their future career paths. I’d also like employers to consider what talents and people they want in their organizations and not simply regard them as a cog in the wheel.

Yujin: I think I’ll be exploring career options even when I’m a senior. We must learn to adapt to the rapidly changing world, or we will fall behind. For example, part-time jobs such as cashiers are decreasing. The world needs more people who can build a career with a long-term vision, and I hope WeConnect can be a partner in their journey.

Mijin: Our vision is to help more startups to hire more women with flexible working conditions. We are also looking into ways to create job training in certain fields. I hope WeConnect can contribute to getting more women a seat at the table.

Interview date: July 13, 2021

Interviewed by: Teri Park, Hyekyung Lee, Bokyung Kim, and Doyeon Kim
Written by: Hyekyung Lee
Edited by: Jiyoon Yoo

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