Entertainment Company Employment Training Specialist 'ConnectusLab'
Co-founded by CEO Sanghwan Lee and Director Seongguk Kim
With 40,000 Members... Pursuing Music IP Investment
"Due to the nature of the entertainment industry, there are many trade secrets, making it difficult for job seekers to access hiring information. To assemble an excellent teaching staff, we mobilized our network of current industry professionals."
Compared to the rapidly growing K-pop market expanding globally, the entertainment industry's hiring doors remain firmly closed. Unlike large corporations, they do not hold recruitment fairs, nor is it easy to find training programs for skill enhancement. CEO Lee Sang-hwan of Connexus Lab decided to create educational content to address this information asymmetry and closed-off nature. Since 2007, he has worked in HR for over a decade at various companies including Mnet Media, CJ ENM, and HYBE.
CEO Lee met Director Kim Sung-guk, who founded the online community "Entertainment Job Preparation Group (Enjunmo)," and together they co-founded Connexus Lab in May 2019. Despite a seven-year age difference, they united under the shared goal of creating educational content for employment in entertainment companies. Director Kim said, "At the time, I had given up my dream of becoming an artist and was working at a company producing job training content. By creating a caf? to provide job information, young people naturally gathered." The membership, which was only 500 at the time, has now grown to over 40,000.
Connexus Lab invites current entertainment industry professionals to introduce strategies for employment, such as how to write self-introductions, interview tips, and job preparation methods, through both online and offline formats. CEO Lee himself is a "top instructor" who has helped over 150 candidates gain acceptance into entertainment companies. He stated, "Since the COVID-19 pandemic, as large corporations have reduced open recruitment, the job market has become even narrower for humanities and social science majors. I want to help young people aiming to enter media content and the entertainment industry."
The K-pop market includes various roles. From A&R (Artists and Repertoire) who plan and produce albums, visual directors who create music videos and album jackets, marketers, to road managers, countless collaborations behind the scenes are necessary for idol singers to perform on stage. Director Kim emphasized, "For the music industry to grow, it is important to have an educational environment that develops the skills of staff working behind singers and musicians." Recently, Connexus Lab has been promoting various collaborations, including launching a comprehensive course for entertainment employment with RBW, the agency of the girl group Mamamoo.
CEO Lee said, "Domestic entertainment companies like SM and JYP Ent. are each expanding overseas and nurturing local idol singers in their own ways. We are preparing multilingual services such as English, Japanese, and Vietnamese for job seekers targeting overseas subsidiaries." Connexus Lab, which secured 1.1 billion KRW in seed investment last month, is looking toward a larger market beyond educational content, including investment and production of music IP (intellectual property).
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