This Moncton Startup Wants to get More Millennials Hired
A Moncton-based startup called GradsFinder wants to get more millennials hired.
“We see that there’s a huge gap between these companies and young people,” Thierry Comtois, the founder of GradsFinder. “We heard that young people can’t find jobs, and companies have jobs, but they can’t find people. Gradfinder is a way to connect these two parts.”
Comtois says GradsFinder is a search engine that matches companies and job seekers together.
Students and recent graduates can create profiles based on their personalities, skills and personal values instead of experience or expertise. Companies build profiles based on their work culture and working environment.
Comtois says these students and recent graduates are considered “high-potential millennials” because they could be the perfect fit for any company’s’ work culture and work environment.
“[GradsFinder is] a search engine that instead of creating a job post, [companies] go there and create filters, [the companies] put the information and the keywords that they are looking for, and [GradsFinder’s] algorithms do the rest. It will give some suggestions of the potential candidates that could fit the company,” says the founder.
“So when you are looking for used cars on Kijiji, you have some filters, ok you want a blue car, an automatic car, you want a Toyota Corolla, you want it to be more than five years old. So that is the same type of search engine but for candidates, for students and recent grads.”
Comtois came up with the idea while he was studying business management at theUniversité de Moncton, where he had the opportunity to work for his father’s company.
“I saw that I could bring a lot of value to [my father’s] company and at the same time I was getting a lot from the company, from the older people that have more experience. So I was like, how can I make this happen for everyone that I am with in school that can’t find jobs?” says Comtois.
Comtois has been playing hockey throughout his time at theUniversité de Moncton. When he graduated in April 2016, he had a chance to pursue a career in professional hockey. However, he chose to continue on his entrepreneurial journey instead of hockey.
Oulton College is one of the educational institutions that partners with GradsFinder. Darcie Robichaud, the president, says the college is happy to work with GradsFinder, because it’s a great tool to increase the students’ success rates with finding employment.
“It’s exciting to partner with a young entrepreneur who can help us find employment connections for our graduates,” says Robichaud.
Launching on Feb. 8, Comtois says that GradsFinder already has 700 students signed up and many companies are ready to get on board.