INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
When it comes to calibrating for an optimal workforce, diversity and inclusion have become a more prominent priority for companies in recent
funding to capitalise on a rise in demand for its services
Jumpstart, which provides a way for organizations to tap into a wider pool of candidates, who themselves have been more carefully ordered by
Founder and CEO Ben Herman said in an interview that the plan will be to continue moving up the funnel to target an ever-wider range of
To date, the company has helped place people with big-name firms like Akamai, Adobe, Twitch, Lyft, Pinterest and many more.The Series A is
Joshua Steiner, the co-chairman of commodity trading firm Castleton Commodities International LLC
Those names and affiliations, significantly, speak to what kinds of power holders are looking at the challenge of diversity and inclusion in
Sequoia.Jumpstart has an interesting jumpstart story of its own
Ben Herman, the founder and CEO, got his start in recruiting when he dropped out of high school in north London, England
He turned out to be a scrappy and very successful recruiter, working on behalf of a number of companies, in part because he was good at
looking beyond the basic signals that many use to decide whether inbound applicants are good bets (those basic signals include things like
putting his enterprising nature to work for himself by starting his own business at age 21
Eventually, he found himself working for a lot of companies out of the U.S
specifically by using AI to replicate the pattern recognition that Herman himself had used up to then in his successful recruiting
But the consequence is that they escalate the other problems [such as addressing diversity]
what might be the best fit for a specific person looking for a job
of every problem now being a tech problem, this is now getting addressed, and Jumpstart is one of the companies aiming to do that.As Herman
described how it works, the process starts in part by working with big companies, which are given access to the pool of candidates on its
Those candidates themselves have been screened in advance with a set of questions that help place them into more ordered categories based on
what they are looking for in a job experience, and what they are qualified to do (based on what they studied)
In all, there are some 30 data points on each person in the Jumpstart system, he said.The pool of candidates grows, meanwhile, both
organically (people can sign up on their own), or by way of those companies recruiting them onto the platform
Once the companies sign up to Jumpstart, they are asked to invite candidates to opt in to become a part of the pool.The thinking goes
something like this: You may not have gotten this job, but sign up here to get considered for other exciting roles here and elsewhere
entry-level roles at the most sought-after places of employment, Herman said
This gives those employers a way of helping that other 98% find other opportunities.Herman says that the basic platform is already a big
development for many of these companies, which in the past might have made a few trips to select schools to connect with students at career
fairs, essentially leaving out most other universities and candidates from getting a look in.The focus on taking the recruitment game away
(Its efforts specifically start with university relationships.)It also seems to be working
Herman says that Lyft hired one-third of its interns for 2020 via Jumpstart, and 82% were from underrepresented groups
(He also noted that Lyft used to use four different platforms to do the same work that it now does just through Jumpstart.)Like Handshake,
Jumpstart (and others) are capitalising on an interesting moment in the world of online recruitment
Companies like Indeed and LinkedIn (not to mention behemoths like Facebook that are new to the space but are big enough to be formidable
rivals) have long been able to leverage their economies of scale when it comes to sourcing qualified applicants, or for applicants to tap
into an interesting pool of job opportunities.More recent shifts, however, into looking for more diverse workforces has changed the game:
since platforms like LinkedIn were never built (and cannot really be used today) to help source more diverse candidate pools, that creates
for recruiters, but also for the people getting recruited
On the part of students, the aim will be to do more than just give them access to more job openings, but also a way to share questions and
ideas with others like them
