American entrepreneur confident to revamp Korean resume market

Rezi founder and CEO Jacob Jacquet speaks during a seminar at DREAMPLUS Gangnam startup innovation center in southern Seoul, May 25, 2019. Courtesy of Rezi

By Lee Min-hyung

Jacob Jacquet, an American entrepreneur, is trailblazing new frontiers in the Korean job market by offering cost-efficient and highly-accurate resume review services here.

At the age of 23, the founder and CEO of Rezi, an online English resume generator, came to Seoul in 2016, identifying Korea as the key Asian market for the global drive of the company.

“Just after China and India, South Korea is the third-largest English market in the world,” he said in an interview on Feb. 4. “Incredible focus and importance are placed on secondary education, and English learning, however, the job market here is unable to support young job seekers.”

Demand for quality jobs remains very high in Korea just like any other countries, but most job seekers here were unable to produce quality English resumes on their own, even if global companies are rapidly making their inroads into the Korean market, according to him.

“I think the Korean market is ready to be disrupted,” he said. “From an analysis of domestic companies, traditional English resumes services are simply not competitive. Consultants charge hundreds of dollars for English resumes of quality that would never meet the standards of a Rezi product.”

Rezi is carrying out a two-track strategy to generate revenues. Firstly, the startup chalks up profits from subscriptions of its resume polishing service. The company also makes money by signing software licensing contracts with marketing partners in the United States.

One notable feature of the company is that it is operating a business with a high profit margin, compared with most other startups.

“Our revenue for 2020 is on track for 250 million won ($210,000) while operating at a very high margin considering we are selling software subscriptions and our company consists of just two employees,” he said.

The young entrepreneur studied economics in college where he developed a sense of enthusiasm towards how companies interact with each other in pursuit of market share.

Rezi runs applicant tracking systems (ATS), allowing job seekers to have more chances of getting jobs, particularly at international firms.

“You will be able to generate concise and powerful resumes that allow you to put your best foot forward, thanks to a series of algorithms that optimize your resume for a variety of ATS,” he said.

He expressed confidence that demand for his platform would grow further down the road, as a growing number of global firms seeks to raise their profile in Asia's fourth-largest economy.

“For our services, I see the Korean market expand as global companies enter Korea which drives demand for bilingual job seekers. Industry-shaping giants such as eBay, IKEA, or Amazon, all require an English resume,” he said.