Transcend Newsletter VIII - The Future of Hiring | Transcend Newsletter 2.0 🤝
Welcome to another week of updates and opportunities around the future of learning and work! We have a few important updates:
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This week we are focusing on the future of hiring.
Our interest in this space started when we found ourselves making ~5 connections a week between startups in our sector and young talented people looking for opportunities. How can it be that these individuals never found those opportunities and flew under the radar for the startups? Our starting point to break down this space is that it’s a very complex and fragmented place:
Companies have to spend more and more every year on outbound recruiting, but the existing tools (built on the foundations of a primitive hiring structure) don’t satisfy their need for global reach and more holistic fits (rather than just looking at one’s CV). How is it the case that some of the smartest people I know are struggling to find the right job for them after college?
If the traditional pre-internet system for hiring is analogous to horse carts, most projects in hiring to date are simply “faster horses”, like Henry Ford famously said (or not).
Given the technology and tools we have, what are the ways in which we can reimagine a more effective and more human hiring process, completely removed from outdated legacy solutions?
We think there are three exciting approaches to this question, but would love to know your thoughts if you think there are more:
The “Kill-the-CV” approach: new startups like Skillist or Stackraft are using better methods to assess skills-based hiring, while other like Torre (featured company today!) are looking to assess fit through multiple variables previously unused. Another slightly different ones is Wethos, which quickly hires teams of freelancers with complimentary skills.
The Coaching approach: companies like HireClub are bringing coaching into a platform for hiring, and developing a community of support to create opportunities for their customers.
The Market transparency approach: new players focused on specific niches (small newsletters and communities) or connection types (hiring through investor referals, like Via, by OnDeck) are bringing increasing transparency to the market to make better connections between candidates and employers.
We want to see these three approaches evolve and will keep a close eye on them. As for Transcend, we are running our own small experiment to match young talent with startups in our network. Register here if you are hiring or looking for a job.
Other news and exciting projects
Minerva announces its Series C of funding to separate its venture-backed educational platform (The Forum) from the university (Minerva Schools). The new funding led by Bytedance hints at new possibilities to use AI to improve the learning experience; CEO Zhang Yiming and Wendy Kopp (Teach for America) join the board.
Minerva is also looking for partners across its global rotation cities, so drop us a note if you are interested in connecting with the team.
Tim Salau (WeWork) announces series of podcasts and live interviews on the future of work.
For those of you interested in Business Development, here is a collaborative manual for all things BD, full of resources and people to follow in the space.
StreamWork is looking to bring tutoring to a wider audience by creating universal access at a marginal cost. They just launched their MVP and announced their first partnerships and funding, and we are rooting for Jared and the team. Get in touch if you are interested in learning more.
Our friends Matt and Krish are starting a project around learning communities, focused on creating effective learning environments for any topic or skill. Sign up below!
Esther Wenger - “I started out in the NGO and international development space, but increasingly realize the importance of private sector action and financing. I'm now finishing my undergrad with Minerva Schools (San Francisco this Fall and Taipei next Spring). I'm looking for work post-grad in an impact-oriented startup or VC. I'm generally curious about everything, so send me an email and I'd be down to chat about whatever is on your mind!”
Wanna say hi? Tell us about yourself and we’ll introduce you in the next issue!
Torre
Background
Torre’s mission is to make work fulfilling for billions.
Torre is currently building an end-to-end recruitment tool (that you can use for free) and services (recruitment starting at 5% fee over yearly salaries), powered by AI. They've been granted 3 patents related to talent matchmaking and are currently pursuing 4 additional patents as the result of 3+ years of research on building the leading global platform for matching talent to the most fulfilling professional opportunities.
How is it shaping the future of learning and work?
Hiring is broken. It takes months to find a good fit for an opportunity, recruiters and candidates are resorting to spamming each other desperately for results, and multiple studies state that the majority of humans find work unfulfilling.
The problem begins with CVs, continues with how we review and screen candidates, and finally with the lack of structured data that hiring managers and team leaders receive about each candidate. Torre is shaping the future of professional development by:
Building tools that can be used by any company, anywhere in the world, to find candidates and rank them by relevance - free of charge
Developing matchmaking algorithms that consider factors that, while very relevant, have not been considered by traditional résumés and job boards. These factors include professional reputation, values, team-to-candidate match, professional development interests, companies, and people candidates are interested in working with, the delta of career growth, potential, and much more.
Researching what makes a candidate a good fit for an opportunity, and what makes an opportunity fulfilling for a candidate, through hundreds of interviews with companies and leaders of all sizes, and close monitoring of the candidates that have been hired through Torre.
Call to Action (from Andrés Cajiao, Head of Marketing)
If you'd like to use our free tools, please visit https://www.torre.co/home/talent-seekers
If you'd like Torre to crawl the web and find you jobs that match your interests, dreams, ambitions, please visit: https://www.torre.co/home/job-seekers
If you'd like us to help with recruiting through our Torre Managed service, please contact us through https://www.torre.co/home/managed
Please, take some time to give us feedback on our product, marketing, and overall ideas. We'd be happy to hear from others that find passion in solving the problems we're trying to solve!
Featured Opportunity
Sunlight grows your people by curating and giving your team access to any learning resource. They recently launched a new version of their product and had the most votes on Product Hunt, and they are looking to keep improving their product with the addition of a UI/UX Designer.
The ideal candidate should have an eye for clean and artful design, possess superior UI skills and be able to translate high-level requirements into interaction flows, and transform them into beautiful, intuitive, and functional user interfaces.
Check out the job description here and let us know if you are interested in learning more about the role.
Jobs in our Network
Account Executive
Graide Network - Marketing Manager
BetterUp - Operations Analyst
Hopelab - Young Adult Advisory Council Member
Balloonr -Multiple roles
OpenIDEO - Community Manager (6 month contract)
d.school K12 Lab - Education Futurist Fellow
Contracting opportunities with Transcend Network
We are always looking to match individuals in our network with opportunities, particularly if you have a background in a) learning/curriculum development, b) community management/social media or c) product management
Let us know which skills and sectors you have experience in, as well as your interest, by dropping us an email here.
Want to submit open positions for your organization? Let us know here
Remember to fill out the survey (only takes ~3 minutes) to win an Amazon giftcard
Thanks for reading another issue of the newsletter! Will be back soon with more content and many more opportunities. Stay tuned and check out our website for more info!
For any feedback, requests or suggested content/listings, take just one minute to fill out this form.
Alberto (alberto@transcend-network.com) & Michael (michael@transcend-network.com)