Chennai-based Sankari Sudhar, a graduate in computer science engineering, worked for eight years before quitting her job in 2020 after her maternity leave.
“I became a homemaker assuming it would give me the required space to take care of my family and be happy. But that was not the case,” she says.
Sankari saw her peers getting promoted, landing better jobs, or moving abroad for higher studies. While the entire world seemed to be moving ahead, she felt stuck within the four walls of her home.
After a career break of a year and a half, she started looking for flexible work opportunities from home.
After facing multiple rejections and coming across similar stories of mothers, she understood that Indian women have long been burdened with the ‘motherhood penalty’.
This inspired her to start ‘Overqualified Housewives’ to get women like her back into the workforce.
With her startup, she connects mothers with companies based on their skill sets and also focuses on upskilling them to rejoin the workforce after long career breaks.
The startup does not charge a penny from these mothers except Rs 199 for an hour-and-a-half upskilling session, which is not mandatory to attend.
Since its launch in 2022, Overqualified Housewives has helped over 600 women rejoin the workforce and onboarded 700 companies, including PickMyAd, The Social Company, and Amenstra Consulting.
“When they are welcomed into a job after career breaks, I see a whole new level of confidence among these women. It gives me a lot of peace and contentment, which is beyond the money I would make in any job or my own company,” she shares.