CHENNAI: Little did 30-year-old Sankara know that her educational qualification would become shrouded and further take a back seat after she gave birth to a boy in 2021, which eventually pushed her into taking on the role of a homemaker, a job she thought she was overqualified for. As a young mother, struggling to manage her career and family, she thought the decision would lead her to a better, happier life. But soon enough, she realised it was not the case. The awkwardness of being financially dependent on her family members, especially her husband, haunted her, throwing her into a full-blown identity crisis.
She then began to search for a new middle ground, one that will allow her to be a mother and a career-driven woman at the same time. However, she was only met with disappointment, as she failed to find any job structure that would give her what she wanted. Seeing the many success stories of mothers on social media only made her more miserable, but these encounters also proved to be pivotal – she realised, the number of mothers struggling to break out financially is way higher than the ones who actually made it, and this made all the difference. She focused on creating a platform that is tailor-made for mothers who are looking to build their professional careers, and 'Overqualified Housewives' was born in August 2022. A start-up based in Chennai, that bridges the gap between employers and women, especially mothers.“I believe every woman is overqualified to just be a homemaker, which is where the name comes from,” Sankara Karpagam says with a smile.
Born to a middle-class family in a village in Thoothukudi, Sankari’s life has never been a cakewalk. Though she secured high scores in both Class 10 and 12, sending her away for higher studies was a tough decision for her family. Her parents faced severe criticism from her close circle for their decision. Nonetheless, they stood with Sankara, making her one of the first girls to get out and pursue higher education. After completing her studies from MIT, Chennai, she joined Infosys, Mysore, as a trainee software developer and within four years, rose to a team leader position in the organisation. “Life in Mysore completely changed how I viewed the world. From Kashmir to Kanniyakumari, I met so many people, and all of them influenced my life, turning me into the Sankara the world knows now,” she reminisces. However, she had always known the IT job was not where her passions rested, and the birth of her boy –Veer – in 2021, put her on a path of self-discovery.
“After a pregnancy, followed by a C-section, I was completely drained, and decided to end my career as an IT professional. After all, that was never my passion. Still, the decision left me grappling with emptiness. I found it hard to even take care of my child as an unhappy person. I realised it would make me happy to help other mothers struggling with a similar situation, and after many days of deliberation, I decided to become an entrepreneur,” she says. With the support of her husband Sudharsanan Ganapathy, a businessman himself, she set on her voyage as a start-up founder. As of today, Overqualified Housewives has over 1,000 women registered and 175 companies that are ready to provide work for these women. The platform offers flexible working hours for women and helps them find freelancing jobs and opportunities despite a career gap. Moreover, the start-up does not charge women for registration, and sustains itself by taking commissions from the hiring companies.
Speaking of the difficulties in running an enterprise structured around women, she recounts being approached by many looking for cheap labour, while others wanted woman employees to perform unskilled tasks such as data entry. “This one time, we even encountered a client who was misbehaving with women. Initially, the women kept the mistreatment to themselves but resigned from the job within days of joining. We immediately felt that something was off and decided to sit in during the interview process, which is when we figured out the kind of person the client was. Next thing, we cancelled his contract,” she explains. Apart from such bitter experiences, Sankara’s journey as an entrepreneur is annotated by many moments of happiness too. Overqualified Housewives has touched the lived of so many women, completely transforming some of them even. One such person is Radha Gowrisankar. She was a working mother, and all was well until the death of her first sonin 2009. The tragedy drove her into a deep depression, and she quit her job at a logistics company. “I was determined to turn my life around and face the challenges that came my way, including the health complications that kept me from working in a typical office environment. Eventually, I found a work-from-home opportunity with the help of Overqualified Housewives. That was a major turning point in my life, and I am proud of all that I have been through,” Radha says.
Another ‘overqualified housewife’ with a heart-warming story is Karthika from Bangalore. An engineering graduate, she had a career gap of seven years. She says, “After working for 1.5 years, I quit, got married, and had two beautiful daughters. Years passed, and my supportive husband always asked me, ‘Is that all Karthika?’ and after seven years, I finally decided to restart my career. I found it particularly difficult to find a job with a work-life balance. It was then that I found Overqualified Housewives, through my college friend Sankara. I landed in a job as the Chief of Communications with convenient timings.”