Jobwell aims to help individuals find jobs better and faster
Master of Information and Data Science student Daniel Kent is currently participating in the LAUNCH — UC Startup Accelerator for Jobwell, a job search organizer that allows jobseekers to take control of their job search. Kent tells us more as the team prepares for LAUNCH Demo Day, where they will present their product to investors and VCs.
Tell us what Jobwell does
Jobwell is a visual job search CRM with built-in job-hunting and networking good practices to help jobseekers land a job faster, easier and with more confidence. With increasingly more personalized content and data-driven guidance, Jobwell will help jobseekers make smarter choices in navigating their job search and exploring career options. Jobwell’s mission is to reduce frictions and improve efficacy in bridging the path between ongoing education and employment, encouraging lifelong learning and professional development in a purposeful manner.
What inspired you to pursue this?
I started Jobwell with my close friend and former colleague, May Lu — we were previously part of the Research & Development team at LegalZoom and had worked on a number of exciting products and services together for over four years. May and I witnessed many of our friends, family, and colleagues experience the uncertainty, chaos, and frustration in going through a job search. At my previous grad school, the Yale School of Management, I became a peer career coach after going through the process myself and wanting to help others avoid the pitfalls and mistakes I made. Together with May, who strives to support her colleagues through career choices and traditions, having experienced first-hand the challenges faced by a minority woman in corporate America, we learned how valuable it is to have access to support and guidance along one’s career journey.
We want to empower jobseekers with the tools necessary to recruit into their dream jobs. Leveraging Kanban methodology, tried-and-true sales-pipeline management techniques, and a dose of AI, we developed the Jobwell.co platform.
We want to empower jobseekers with the tools necessary to recruit into their dream jobs.
How has LAUNCH helped you develop Jobwell further?
We’ve been working on creating a replicable and scalable service through the Lean Startup methodology frameworks we’ve learned during the program. The Lean Startup methodology is very similar to the empirical techniques and procedures that I’ve learned in courses like RDADA (Research Design and Applications for Data and Analysis) and Statistics from Professors Brooks Ambrose, Jennifer Shin, and Paul Laskowski — creation of hypotheses and ideas, test these assumptions through experimentation, particularly through talking with many, many customers, review the resulting data, identifying patterns and insights, develop more hypotheses and insights, and so on and so forth until you have a product-market fit.
LAUNCH has been instrumental in providing us the frameworks, mentorship, and connections to take Jobwell to the next level. We’ve been fortunate to make a lot of really great friends, meet new customers and partners, and grow as both entrepreneurs and as a team.
How has your I School experience influenced your pursuit of this project?
The I School has provided me a tremendous opportunity to pursue my venture through a number of means and access to resources from the MIDS program. Through my coursework I’ve been able to apply the technical skills, models, and best practices that I’ve learned in classes, in addition to problem solving frameworks, to developing the Jobwell platform.
I am most grateful for the network of I School students, alumni and faculty that I’ve been able to engage during my education in this entrepreneurial venture.
Realizing that there is only so much one can learn in a defined time period, I am most grateful for the network of I School students, alumni and faculty that I’ve been able to engage during my education in this entrepreneurial venture. Students have been generous in giving meaningful feedback, I’ve been grateful to tap Rebecca Anderson, the Director of Career Services at the I School, for her expertise and experience, and to access the entire UC Berkeley community — meeting with students all across campus — from undergrads to the graduate and professional schools — and gain mentorship from faculty and staff. We’ve been fortunate to also work closely with some faculty, alumni, and current students on the product in their professional careers in data science including Professors Gunnar Kleeman, Chris Llop, and Denis Vrdoljak, and my classmate Matt Stevenson. Everyone with whom I’ve reached out and spoken to have been incredibly generous, and I’m grateful for this opportunity to be a part of this community.
What are the next steps for Jobwell?
In the near future, we’re excited to continue to iterate on the Jobwell platform based upon the customer feedback we receive. We’re also growing our team, seeking IP protection, and, following our graduation from LAUNCH in late April, we’re anticipating raising a pre-seed round to help us continue to demonstrate our product-market fit, scale, and continue our push to acquire users.
Longer-term, we’re working on our platform to provide more tactical and strategic recommendations beyond an individual’s current job search. May and I feel that while most companies working on the employment problem focus on the company and recruiters, those that are focusing on the individual jobseeker, take a very short-term, transactional perspective. We want Jobwell to be the trusted platform that individuals engage with through the duration of their professional career.
Learn more about Jobwell at jobwell.co. The Jobwell team will be participating in the LAUNCH Demo Day, on Thursday, April 26, at the Haas School of Business.
