CareersCrossroad

We are a job marketplace focusing on helping people of non-traditional backgrounds and underrepresented communities get jobs in tech while helping companies achieve their diversity and inclusivity initiatives with more diverse candidates in their talent pool. We are helping non-traditional candidates get noticed by employers through a hiring platform that utilizes AI to match candidates with job opportunities that are a good fit.

Currently, we are starting with the underserved bootcamp community, which could potentially bring in an infusion of $632M to low-income communities when they are successfully hired. With unemployment at an all time high, complicated by massive economic disruptions such as Covid-19, artificial intelligence, and automation, we plan to scale this technology to serve millions affected by matching them to new job opportunities that are a good fit.  

Coding bootcamps are growing at a unprecedented rate (+50%/yearCoursereport2019)to keep up with the growing demand especially now during this pandemic where most traditional institution are catching up on the transition to online learning while most bootcamps are already online.  Most graduates that go to coding bootcamps are people who are of non-traditional background(different degree/no college degree->41% and increasing-Coursereport). There is an explosion of bootcamp graduates(88,990) but they are having a hard time to getting notice and getting jobs as compared to others with traditional background. This is because current recruitment system favors someone with a 4yr traditional degree from an expensive popular school than someone from a non-traditional background who could only afford to go to a bootcamp who might be just as good or even better. Pre-COVID, career fairs and networking event were their only way to get noticed but with COVID it is now harder or near impossible. Moreover, companies today are trying to hire diversely as numerous studies have shown the importance of diversity and inclusion but there's a gap of no specialized tool out there searching for these non-traditional candidates. Companies with the resources have to create those expensive career fairs just to discover them.

We created CareersCrossroad to help increase visibility for candidates from non-traditional backgrounds. We help showcase bootcamp graduates and underrepresented individuals from non-traditional backgrounds to get them discovered by companies that would otherwise overlook them. With the use of our AI matching system, we are working to match candidates more holistically, taking into account their passions, interests, and skills acquired from their previous non-tech experiences to match them with roles that will allow them to thrive. Hybrid, diverse backgrounds are an asset that help candidates stand out at CareersCrossroads. This will help many of these underrepresented communities which would traditionally not be able to afford college get a chance for a better life with better job opportunities breaking into tech with the more widely available and affordable bootcamp education.

 Bootcamp graduates and companies

For many bootcamp graduates that didn’t have college degrees, bootcamps serve as their pathway to an affordable education, offering a pathway to high paying jobs that can help them escape poverty (boosting their local communities by a total of almost $632M once hired). While educational access is opening up including to those communities rurally around the world due to the use of technology, the tools to hire them after graduation haven’t caught up.

Pre-COVID, career fairs and networking events were the primary way that bootcamp graduates worked to get noticed but the loss of in-person networking events, these opportunities are harder to come across. Moreover, many companies today are actively seeking diverse candidates without the geographic restriction thanks to remote work due to Covid-19 but there is a gap in terms of specialized tools to help their search for these non-traditional candidates. CareersCrossroads helps bridge that gap.

We are reimagining new pathways to match employers to diverse non-traditional bootcamp talents

Challenge/Problem and target population:

There is a large, untapped network of diverse, non-traditional talents being left out due to the narrow-minded focus of existing platforms available today.

Solution: Fairer and more inclusive matching platform

An AI-powered hiring platform that helps showcase and match these candidates to jobs, allowing them the chance to break into the tech industry and into better financial situations, while helping companies to increase diversity easily.

Fulltime: 2

Part-time Volunteers: 20

• 1 PM
• 2 Tech Lead
• 1 Design Lead
• 2 UI
• 6 UX
• 8 Engineers
• 1 Data Scientist

We've been recruiting people based on their merit, passion and if they resonate with the mission that we are doing. When we do that we are blind to race, gender, origin, status or background. We practice what we preach, and this is reflected in our team as it is made up of diverse members from all walks of life, including our international folks that we welcome. Hence we are able to understand the pain of people coming from diverse culture and background because we are "them".

Using own platform to do what it is designed for which is to search for more diverse candidates to recruit from.

CURRENT TEAM:

Gender:

• Male: 14
• Female: 8

Sexual Orientation:

• Straight: 20
• Gay: 1
• Bisexual: 1

Race/Ethnicity/Origin :

• Vietnamese: 5
• Indian: 4
• White: 2
• Hispanic/Latino: 2
• Chinese: 2
• African: 1
• Black: 1
• Taiwanese: 1
• Indonesian: 1
• Korean: 1
• Russian: 1
• Malaysian: 1

There are a lot of job markets out there like hired.com/vettery.com but there is none that is focused on helping the bootcamp graduate niche which are growing exponentially. Recruitment has been a lucrative market and companies have been focusing on making the big bucks off those talents from traditional institutions that they are missing out on this growing talent group with traditional tools. While others see the different non-traditional background as baggage that doesn't fit the usual mold, we see it as an asset especially with the growing trend on on-demand skill learning online. We use AI to better find and match how these non-traditional backgrounds would actually be an asset to companies for a better fit and how their skills and passion are transferable especially in this age of automation. This also eliminates the need for physical in-person networking events and career fairs which bootcamp graduates have been relying on prior to Covid-19 which are no longer possible now with Covid-19.

Existing Technology: Online Marketplace

Enhancing new Technology: AI-powered matching using deep learning We use AI to help better match these non-traditional candidates with diverse backgrounds which will be a better fit to companies which would see it as an asset. The technology we developed will be used initially to help showcase and match companies with these non-traditional candidates with skills, backgrounds and passions which will be a better fit.

87.7% of the American workforce do not have passion for their work.(Deloitte 2014) This mismatch cost companies billions of dollars a year due to disengagement. It is a huge problem for both companies and job seekers. The proprietary technology created by our PhDs can help the people affected especially now with many of the work being displaced with over 36 million unemployed due to covid and AI. This will help match for example, the many truck drivers who would be replaced by self driving trucks to see how their skills and passions will be transferable to other new jobs and industries that would be in demand.

We are combining 2 technology:

• Online marketplace
  • Examples of successful online marketplace: Airbnb, Ebay, Amazon, Etsy, Vettery, Hired, Fiver etc
• AI-powered technology
  • Many companies are already using big data/machine learning/AI to improve their processes and matches. This is also used in recruitment for better matches. We created our own AI and are just using it for a different niche that is still underserved which is the bootcamp graduates.

JOBSEEKERS

Activities: create a job seeker profile

Output: Getting a job in tech

Short term: Save time from applying on numerous company websites/ platforms and from long agonizing job search 

Medium term: Reduce depression and anxiety from not hearing back from companies, build self confidence, more time to live life and spending time with friends and family than fighting the broken ATS bot/hiring system

Long Term Outcomes: Better health, better economic outcome and societal impact especially those in low-income/poverty communities. As research shown from Course report, nearly half of the graduates do not have a degree, which means to many of them this is the first affordable real education they have that would make a difference and would give them a better job and life. As the report stated it helps salary increase of 128% of low-income student. With an average starting salary of $67,000, that's bringing in over $632Million dollars to these low-income communities a year alone if they were all to get jobs. With a yearly growth of 1.5x this would be more and more significant over the years. 

EMPLOYERS

Activities: Create a job opening on our platform

Output: Getting diverse non-traditional bootcamp graduates recommendations based on multiple data points

Short term: Save time by getting a shortlisted list of recommendations of diverse non-traditional candidates

Medium term: Save time and money without having the need to create those expensive career fairs or diversity event just to funnel these diverse non-traditional candidates in.

Long Term Outcomes: Great company growth as numerous studies have shown a diverse team generates higher return for the company. Better insight to connect to customers with similar diverse backgrounds as having a diverse team which shares and understand the background of your customers helps better connect to your customer's need and expand to markets which you might not have access to previously. More unique and unexpected ideas from the diverse backgrounds and insights that each brings to the table which you might not even know existed previously due to bias from homogeneous teams.

Within the next year:

We plan to roll out the platform and partner with bootcamps and institutions starting with several larger tech hubs and then rolling out nationally. 

Within the next five years:

Bootcamp graduates are just a starting point of the underserved. Once we prove our technology works, we hope to expand to other areas, incorporating transitional professionals and those affected by unemployment(>30M) due to economic disruptions, including Covid-19,AI and automation. Our goal is to ultimately perfect our technology so that all candidates can get matched to jobs that fit them without struggling to fill out countless applications only to receive limited traction and responses. Our technology can assist not only candidates but large companies and recruitment firms. We’re already gaining traction from multiple companies, including a large recruiting firm that was recently acquired for $2B to pilot and partner. We just need the resources to perfect our technology and scale quickly.

Next year

Financial connections to investors, mentors and fundraising help: 

• We already have a lot of interest organizations and institutions. We need the operation resources to serve them and scale. 
• We have some great talented and passionate volunteers that are helping in this project as they resonates with its mission. We want to hopefully be able to afford to turn some of these volunteers into full-time team members eventually. 
• Financial resources to acquire software tools to scale user, channel partner, and customer growth

Legal: 

• We have no legal expertise on the team and will really need help there as we grow

Marketing and partnership: 

• We need to get the word out to more graduates, institutions and organizations and have strategic partners.

Culture:

• Convincing traditional companies to change the mindset they have of bootcamp graduates are not as good as traditional and are hesitant to hire. However research studies have shown that it is not the case.

Five Years

Scale phase:

• Resources(financial and operations) to scale nationwide
• Partnerships nationwide
• Legal team to have our back
• Talents to perfect our technology before we scale
• National Influencers to help spread the word nationally especially when we roll out to other niches and larger markets
• Sales team

It's a chicken and egg problem. As a marketplace we need to solve both the supply(candidates) and the demand(jobs) side. Currently we have been approached by bootcamps and institutions due to the severity of the problem they are facing and are partnering with them to have their graduates on our platform. We plan to partner with many other institutions across the nation and also with companies which especially those who are into diversity and inclusion. That will help us get to self-sustainability and hopefully profitability soon which will help give us the resources to eliminate most of these barriers. We hope we will also be able to utilize the help from Solve, Morgridge Family Foundation, New Profit, workforce board and America job centers for the connections to these jobseekers, employers and resources to overcome some of these barriers. Having a partner behind like Solve or the partners to be a champion and advocate would help convince traditional companies to change the mindset that bootcamp graduates are indeed as good as traditional ones and they should hire them.

This project only started this year but we hope to be able to collect these long-term outcome data once we have enough longevity for the program to compare.

• Placement data to show how successful we are helping these communities (avg/median salary, length within the position, industry feedback on individual's success, career growth, etc.)
• How many people our platform successfully helped change the lives
• How much of an improvement in terms of diversity and inclusion we helped for a company over the years
• Increased in dollar amount from salaries increase our platform help bring into these low income communities
• Retention data on the employees hired
• Happiness score and life quality data over time of those candidates we successfully helped placed
• All data stats to look for trends of why certain candidates were more successful getting hires vs those who are not and see how we can help to improve those numbers

Founder-Ed Tan

Ex-rocket scientist turned entrepreneur and startup advisor. A serial entrepreneur who has built multiple startups from scratch with a previous exit. The founder is a serial entrepreneur who has spent many years in the recruitment space himself and experienced the problem personally while working in NASA to Fortune 500 companies . Throughout the years he has researched and interviewed numerous people who experienced the same. Has many years of experience in the recruitment space and know the problem well on both ends. We practice what we preach, many of us experienced this problem ourselves so we know the pain of it well. With mentors and advisors who have decades of experience in the space and numerous exits in the recruitment space like Good.co and Shiftgig to name a few that have exited. Expertise of team members with PhDs in the AI space bringing years of experience working as VP of engineering in numerous large companies leading tech teams like in Rocket Fuel Inc and Intuit. In addition we have over 20 volunteers helping out with the project and many of them are bootcamp graduates themselves so our team reflects the community we serve and the problem is very close to our hearts, hence we are in the best position to understand and solve this issue. The team experienced a lot of pain points looking for a job in this pandemic as existing solutions out there that just don't fit our need.

Several bootcamps and institutions, they consist of some of the 10 largest and most popular bootcamps in US to some smaller local bootcamps.(Names omitted for their privacy)

We are working with them by getting all their graduates on our platform to help them track their job search progress and outcome. This is a mutually beneficial partnership as the incentives are aligned as they get paid by their graduates only when their students successfully get hired while we get paid by the employers only when we successfully find them a good diverse non-traditional hire.

Revenue stream:

1. A fee of first year salary of a successful hire to hiring companies. (This is a pretty standard and proven model in the recruitment world as shown from our competitors vettery.com or hired.com who are focused on the generic traditional markets)
2. Fees per seat to track their graduates success for Bootcamps and institutions. (A model that we will roll out in the near future as many bootcamps have already requested this features as they are paying alternative tools not built for it just to solve that problem now)
3. Licensing the technology

We plan on raising investment capital to help speed up and jumpstart our first year of operations. Once we are fully operational, we should be able to  generate enough revenue from the services we provide to companies and be profitable. Take Vettery.com(one of the competitor in a different niche which was acquired for $100mil)as an example, we are following their path very similarly. While doing this, we are also bootstrapping and selling our service to companies to generate revenue for every successful hire they make which would help us achieve financial sustainability very quickly.

We are seeking to raise $400k on a SAFE note with 20% discount and a Cap at $8mil  

Details are omitted to enable public viewing, happy to share more information privately.

2021: Total estimated expenses combined: ~$350k-400k

• Funding and resources(in-kind support from partner organization for access/credits for their tools/services)
• Access to network of mentors and advisors
• Access to peers, partners and experts
• Help getting the product out to the community

• Partners in helping to get the word out and marketing (0 marketing talent on our team at the moment)
• Connection to funders, advisors and legal help so we can make sure everything is right on the books and focus our energy on making the impact with our platform.
• Connections and introductions to partners like institution which we were not able to get onboard yet who need their graduates hired
• Connection to organizations who are looking to hire diverse non-traditional talents
• Always welcome more talent experts to use our platform and give us more feedback and advise to improve it.

General:

• Connections to partners like institution and bootcamps in Solve's partner community who need their graduates hired
• Startups and organization looking to hire talents
• Other solve members looking to recruit
• Access to MIT's mentors, advisors and talents

Specifics:

• IBM
  • Since we are building a deep learning recommender engine, access to their IBM technical experts and cloud credits would be a great help.
  • Potentially utilizing IBM Watson to improve our AI 
• Workforce boards
  • Expand our reach to the numerous US regions for both job seekers and companies especially now with covid remote work is the new norm so geography is no longer an issue
  • Test our solution along with workforce development experts
  • Funding from workforce boards to improve our technology
• Kapor Capital, Morgridge Family Foundation and JFFLabs
  • Warm intro to them as we fit very closely to their mission and goals and would be ideal for their investment portfolio. Not to mention a potential great partnership collaboration for one of their other investments(CareerKarma) to help get their graduates hired. 
  • There is a lot of alignment on what they do so their network, connections and tools would be very mutually beneficial
  • We fit very closely to all of them as a project to incubate and fund
  • We have the passion, motivation, did all the years of hard work and connections, just need some help in resources in other areas we lack to scale this and bring the desire impact we envision.
  • Be the go-to-partner to hire diverse non-traditional talent for all their portfolio companies