Second Team, "We support talent recruitment with service expansion and AI Interviewer"

- Korea University operates an entrepreneurship support institution, known as the 'Crimson Startup Support Foundation.' We introduce promising startup companies affiliated with Korea University that are growing alongside the Crimson Startup Support Foundation and dreaming of change and innovation.

Second Team is running a foreign developer recruitment platform 'Supercoder', that selects talented developers with its own verification system and recommends them for other companies. It currently has a global developer pool of 110,000 people from 115 countries, with more than 400 corporate companies. Revenue is growing rapidly.

Second Team is preparing to expand the service of the Supercoder. They plan to expand the service area so that we can hire foreign developers not only in Korea but overseas, and expand the category of target jobs such as developing, marketing, and sales. They also develop an 'AI Interviewer' function that increases the efficiency and accuracy of human resource verification using AI technology. Second Team's goal is to make it easier for recruiters around the world to find proven foreign developer.

Jae Woong Choi, CEO of Second Team explained about Supercoder and Second Team.

Jae Woong Choi, CEO of Second Team / source=IT DongA

Q: Please introduce yourself and Second Team.

I started as a system engineer/consultant at Oracle and was in charge of infrastructure consulting for Korean manufacturers such as Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics. Since then, I've been in charge of product services for a healthcare company in Switzerland and have run a blockchain startup related to STO in Singapore. Then I started a Second Team in 2021.

Second Team is developing and operating a foreign developer recruitment platform 'Supercoder'. Advanced technologies have made it possible to work remotely and AI has broken down language barriers, making it easier to hire global talented workers. So we launched Supercoder to solve the shortage of developers that companies face through global developer.

Q: What is the story about Supercoder?

Supercoder is a global developer recruitment platform. Supercoder makes it easier for companies wishing to hire developers to find the global talented developers for them.

The biggest feature of Supercoder is the global talent pool. Currently, there are about 110,000 developers in 115 countries around the world who have joined the Supercoder, which is increasing five times every year. It also selects talented developers through its own verification system and connects developers suitable for companies with matching systems.

Thanks to this, 42.5% of the companies that hired global developers as Supercoder carried out additional hiring. Service satisfaction is quite high. And revenue is continuously increasing. Since its launch in 2021, it has achieved cumulative revenue of 7.3 billion won and recorded 3.3 billion won last year.

Supercoder / source=Second Team

Q: I heard you are preparing for the expansion of the Supercoder. Please explain in detail.

We are preparing for expansion on two fronts. The first is the expansion of the service area. Until now, we have mainly connected foreign developers to companies in Korea. From now on, we would like to support the recruitment of global developers not only in Korea but also abroad.

The second is job expansion. Previously, we focused on 'developers', but we plan to expand our scope to various jobs such as marketing and sales. We will help Korean companies find proven global talent in various jobs more easily when they start their business in overseas markets.

Regional and job expansion services are currently in the process of upgrading and optimizing the platform and will be launched within the first half of this year. First of all, we would like to apply it to the Indian market. We thought that the Supercoder is competitive enough because there is a lot of global talent in India and the UI or UX of the local recruitment platform are not optimized. We believe it will be easy to enter the market as our members are in India. After that, it will gradually expand to global markets such as Vietnam.

Q: I also wonder AI Interviewer that is currently being developed.

Along with the service expansion, we are also preparing an 'AI interviewer'. Until now, when verifying talent, our members interviewed in person and collected and reviewed various data. We spent a lot of time, effort, and money. AI interviewer is a solution that increases career and job verification efficiency and accuracy by automating the human resource verification process and applying consistent evaluation criteria.

The AI interviewer analyzes job postings of companies and applicants' resumes and then conducts interviews with optimal questions to the applicant. In addition to the questions that the company wants, it also judges what needs to be further identified in the applicant's answers and asks questions on its own. This allows recruiters to fully understand the information they want about applicants and makes it easier to find the right talent for the company.

AI Interviewer / source=Second Team

In March, we plan to release the MVP(Minimum Functional Product) version of the AI interviewer, upgrade it, and learn data before launching the full version within the year.

Q: Second Team is currently supported by Korea University's initial startup program. What kind of support is there?

We got a lot of help in carrying out the business. We developed a mobile app through commercialization funding and carried out digital marketing such as online advertising. We also secured customer and human resources through mentoring and networking events. In addition, through the program, we received the Minister of SMEs and Startups Award at the '21st Seoul Entrepreneurship Meeting Place' organized by the Ministry of SMEs and Startups. Thanks to it, we were able to introduce the Second Team to more people.

Q: What are your future plan and final goals?

Our goal is to easily connect competent global talent to companies and companies that need talent through the Supercoder. To this end, we will constantly consider providing various functions related to human resource recruitment such as signing a global employment contract. We will also actively utilize AI technology and strive to grow into a leading company in the global job market through continuous regional and job expansion.

by Man-hyuk Han (mh@itdonga.com)