Chicago Founder Institute Graduate Better Weekdays was recently profiled on Silicon Prairie News.
Millennials are occupying a significant amount of the workforce and Better Weekdays is focused on getting hiring employers information out to young students early and often to help with influencing career decisions.
Much of this stems from many companies not having a consumer-facing brand, making it difficult for millennial to associate potential jobs. As an example, two-thirds of the open positions at BJC healthcare are not healthcare practitioners.
Career fairs have typically been the way to solve the issue, though it is only a single touch point. Further, it's difficult to convince students to apply for jobs as well as to assess whether they are a good fit prior to the interview.
Better Weekdays is a startup company that uses technology to place employees at companies based upon compatibility. The startup has already raised $1.35 million from investors, as filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. The capital is in addition to $350,000 that they raised initially, back in May of this year.
Better Weekdays was founded in 2011, in Chicago. The job-matching technology focuses on pairing job seekers with potential employers. The company will be used by TechHire Initiative to connect workers to tech-related jobs. The TechHire Initiative was implemented by President Obama and will make $100 million in federal grants available to help individuals find jobs within the tech industry.
Chris Motley's Journey
Chris Motley is a graduate of Columbia University. He holds a graduate degree in history and also has an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management. Prior to founding Better Weekdays, he was the Director and EVP at 1888 Mills. It was this position with the global textile manufacturer that allowed him to head the apparel division and lead expansion into Ghana.
The CEO at 1888 Mills, Jonathan Simon, commented that Motley is a “master strategist” and that he always focuses on the “desired outcome.”
More About Better Weekdays
Better Weekdays was founded in Chicago, Illinois in 2011 and is currently based in St Louis, Missouri. The job matching technology is designed to automatically capture more than 1 million jobs every day. It analyzes career transitions as a way of suggesting jobs based upon job seeker career patterns with similar qualifications. Personalized user experience is incorporated as well, taking insight from students, employers, and educators.
The platform strategy delivers end-to-end solutions that have been used by a variety of industries, including universities such as Harvard Graduate School of Education and Regent University.
Currently, Better Weekdays showcases more than 1 million jobs, 125,000 companies, and has generated more than 53,000 job matches.
The SaaS career management platform is focused on the higher education industry, enabling University career centers to provide career management experience to students and graduates alike. Inbound recruiting makes it possible for companies to locate passive and active job candidates as a way of attracting talent, getting a higher level of engagement, hiring quality employees, and focusing on employee retention.
While Better Weekdays offers a relatively unique, all-in-one platform, there are other forms of career development software available on the market. This includes Insala, Halogen, and Talentia, However, it is not as comprehensive and is not specifically designed for the higher education market.
Recently, Motley was awarded with the 2016 Entrepreneur of the Year Award for the work done on Better Weekdays. It was awarded by Governor Jay Nixon of Missouri.
Better Weekdays continues to work with universities to engineer a positive experience for students who wish to find a career. Students can be transitioned into career's that match the student's profile better with the use of the SaaS platform.
With the use of the funding that was recently acquired, it is no doubt that Motley and the rest of the team will focus on creating more career-guided pathways and continue to grow the company. It will be introduced into more industries, making it possible for more employers to be matched with quality job seekers.
