SNU Students Line Up for This Recruitment Fair: "Better Than Large Corporations" [Report]

Seoul National University X FuturePlay Deep Tech Talent Recruitment Fair

"Interested in Developing Technologies Not Addressed by Large Corporations"

"In the past, students only pursued large corporations, but now startups have become a viable career option."

During the "2026 Seoul National University X FuturePlay Deep Tech Talent Recruitment Fair" held on September 30 at the Global Engineering Education Center, Building 38, Seoul National University, Gwanak-gu, Seoul, Seong Yunmo, Senior Investment Manager at FuturePlay, stated, "While large companies focus on mass-producing existing technologies, startups are more interested in developing new technologies." On this day, FuturePlay, together with Seoul National University, organized a recruitment fair featuring 12 companies from its deep tech portfolio. Representatives from companies specializing in artificial intelligence (AI), bio, and robotics—including FuriosaAI, Claro Robotics, Loai, among others—were present.

On the 30th, at the Global Engineering Education Center, Building 38, Seoul National University, Gwanak-gu, Seoul, students are having conversations with startup recruitment officers at the '2026 Seoul National University X FuturePlay Deep Tech Talent Recruitment Fair.'
Photo by Seoyul Hwang chestnut@

It is rare for a recruitment fair to be organized directly by a venture capital firm partnering with startups, rather than being linked with large corporations. Students visited booths of their interest and engaged in discussions lasting over 10 minutes with startup representatives, actively asking about the companies. At particularly popular booths, some students waited for their turn as consultation times got longer. According to FuturePlay, more than 200 people attended the fair that day.

Students participating in the fair cited "autonomy" as the main reason for preferring deep tech startups over large companies. Shin Jihoon (25), a student from the Department of Industrial Engineering at Seoul National University, remarked, "While you have to work within fixed frameworks at a large corporation, I believe you can take a more proactive approach to work at a startup. I'm interested in startups because they allow you to consider both research and commercialization."

At the '2026 Seoul National University X FuturePlay Deep Tech Talent Recruitment Fair' held on the 30th at the Global Engineering Education Center, Building 38, Seoul National University, Gwanak-gu, Seoul, Kang Kunwook, Director of the Seoul National University Startup Support Group, Kwon Ohhyung, CEO of FuturePlay, and startup representatives are taking a commemorative photo. Photo by Seoyul Hwang chestnut@

Ko Kwanghyun (39), a graduate student in the Interdisciplinary Program in Computational Science at Seoul National University, said, "I'm interested because these companies can utilize my field of study and actually connect it to development. The companies I visited don't create CPUs or GPUs, but rather develop their own computing units and build AI models suited for those, which is related to projects I've worked on." He added, "These are technologies not addressed by large corporations."

This growing interest in startups is also evident on the ground. According to Innovation Forest, a startup data and analytics platform, 138,555 people joined startups from January to July of this year, marking a 2.65% increase compared to the previous year. In particular, 57% of companies established within the last three years expanded their workforce. This figure is based on an analysis of 11,598 companies for which the number of employees could be tracked monthly from December last year through July this year. Chae Yoosung, Senior Researcher at Navipra, commented, "Last year, we had about 50 employees, but this year that number has grown to 100."

Startup representatives who participated in the event also observed that students were giving serious thought to their future. Senior Researcher Chae noted, "They were concerned about which direction to take in the future. In fact, one student who was very interested in joining the company asked detailed questions about the workplace and what preparations were required." An anonymous startup representative added, "Students seem intrigued by the high-risk, high-return nature of startups. The fact that they can pursue their own dreams is a major advantage."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.