[SBA x IT Donga Joint Planning] The Seoul Metropolitan Government and the Seoul Business Agency (SBA) have established startup hubs (centers) in Chang-dong, Seongsu, and Dongjak, Seoul. They support startups through stage-specific programs from initial startup to growth phase. Promising startups with high growth potential that have shown remarkable activities by 2025 are introduced.

The collapse of trust between employers and job seekers is a chronic issue in the part-time job market. The domestic part-time platform market is dominated by a few companies. However, trust issues remain serious. Employers, in particular, endure time, financial, and emotional losses due to unauthorized resignations or absences of part-time employees.


To address this issue, HR tech startup Index Finger has introduced an AI-based employee (part-timer) recruitment intermediary platform, 'Jigeum Alba,' with a clear slogan: 'Eliminate stress from the recruitment experience.' To achieve this, Index Finger focuses on ensuring a 'minimum quality threshold for personnel.' The strategy emphasizes avoiding the worst candidates rather than selecting the best part-timers, differentiating itself from existing platforms.

Song Joon-seok, CEO of Index Finger, stated, “The domestic part-time job market is steadily growing, but it is in an oligopoly. As a startup, we believed we could provide the next generation of innovative models.” He added, “We saw that a strategy to reduce the damage experienced by employers could become a business area that induces sufficient willingness to pay.”

Avoiding Villains Rather Than Selecting Aces… Strategy of a Latecomer


The core differentiation of the part-time recruitment intermediary service Jigeum Alba is the 'guarantee of a minimum quality threshold for personnel.' CEO Song explained, “In the part-time job market, the desire to avoid the worst candidates is greater than the desire to find the best ones.” To enhance competitiveness as a latecomer, they lowered market entry barriers with a low-cost pricing system. The key is not just being 'cheap,' but being 'cheap yet reliable.'

Particularly, Jigeum Alba focuses on a method where employers actively search and select candidates to make offers, rather than passively waiting for applicants after posting a job. CEO Song emphasized, “The criteria for desirable or undesirable candidates vary greatly among employers.” For example, some may need diligent employees even if they are not quick, or prefer employees who can work long-term even if they occasionally break dishes, or those who are located nearby. He explained, “The method of directly proposing to preferred candidates minimizes time waste and promotes immediate matching, enhancing recruitment efficiency.”

AI Learning Multidimensional Data Including Resume Interaction Data


The competitiveness of Jigeum Alba lies in 'AI matching.' It goes beyond matching simple quantitative data like experience and age, learning multidimensional data such as the time an employer spends on a specific resume, viewing records of bookmarked candidates, and satisfaction after actual hiring, to suggest a minimum threshold of suitable candidates for each recruitment.

CEO Song stated, “Jigeum Alba AI automatically excludes unsuitable employees defined according to the specific circumstances of a store and its owner. Since a candidate suitable for one employer may be unsuitable for another, the minimum quality threshold for personnel must be individualized for each employer,” adding, “Refining such subtle differences with data is the role of AI.”

To achieve this, in-depth data collection from job seekers is conducted. They focus on securing accurate profile data by encouraging the registration of self-introductions, resumes, tenure, MBTI, and career certifications. CEO Song mentioned, “Based on data collection, we aim to continuously enhance AI recruitment assistance functions and ultimately move towards automatically recommending tailored candidates suitable for stores,” adding, “Currently, we are also implementing systems like career certification and reporting to add practical filtering effects.” For instance, the career certification system allows job seekers to request certification from past employers, contributing to increased reliability as it reflects evaluations of work attitude and qualifications.

In the future, Jigeum Alba plans to incorporate an 'AI recruitment assistant agent' based on a large language model (LLM). CEO Song stated, “Currently, Jigeum Alba AI plays a supportive role such as summarizing resumes and analyzing recruitment suitability, but in the future, employers will be able to convey requirements simply by conversing with AI without entering complex conditions. Then, AI will recommend the optimal candidates according to the store and employer's preferences, allowing recruitment to be completed with a single click.”

25,000 Cumulative Resumes… 43% Reposting Rate


Since Index Finger officially launched the Jigeum Alba service last year, the cumulative number of resumes within the app has exceeded 25,000. The number of registered users is approximately 30,000. A noteworthy achievement is the 43% rate of job posting reposts. CEO Song stated, “The high user retention rate, even at the initial market entry stage, indicates high service satisfaction.” He continued, “Based on actual recruitment cases secured in some areas of Seoul, we aim to surpass 30,000 monthly active users (MAU) by next year and establish a foundation in the Seoul area.”

The growth of Jigeum Alba has been significantly supported by the SBA Seoul Startup Center Dongjak. CEO Song stated, “Index Finger received essential startup space at low cost through the support of SBA Seoul Startup Center Dongjak, and has expanded its business with various growth support programs for resident companies, such as mentoring for investors, IR pitch deck enhancement, media promotion support projects, and startup education.”

Meanwhile, CEO Song also expressed concerns about changes facing the employment market. He stated, “The advancement of physical AI may encroach on the simple labor market itself. Just as kiosks and serving robots currently replace tasks, the mass production of robot technology could shrink the part-time job market itself,” adding, “Index Finger plans to prepare for various future scenarios by attempting vertical or horizontal expansion and preparing for flexible structural improvements.”

Finally, he stated, “Jigeum Alba is a business model that can coexist with existing platforms rather than being a zero-sum game,” adding, “We found a realistic solution in the market to implement trust restoration between employers and job seekers through technology, and aim to become a widely used part-time platform in Korea within three years.”

IT Donga Reporter Kim Ye-ji (yj@itdonga.com)

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