With planned layoffs sinking to a 14-year low and employment surging, the job market in America seems to have finally crawled back from the darkest days of the Great Recession.
And as the jobs market heats up, a whole host of apps have launched with new ways to help recent grads and current employees find the perfect job. One tool that recently launched from the Techstars Accelerator program in New York is Lynxsy, which aims to connect recent college graduates with companies in part-time positions so that job-seekers and employers can try before they commit to applicants for a full-time position.
This try-before-you-buy model is appealing to both job seekers and employers, because it lets candidates get a sense of office culture and their role at a company, before having to commit for a full-time position.
Hiring managers post jobs to Lynxsy’s talent network and candidates apply from their mobile phones. When a candidate gets a gig, Lynxsy then manages the payroll process with a third-party provider. Right now, the company focuses on non-technical roles such as customer service, sales and operations.
So far, Lynxsy has 100 companies and 5,000 candidates on its platform. The New York-based service has partnered with 15 universities in the Northeast including schools like New York University, The University of Pennsylvania, Bentley College, Cornell University, Vanderbilt University, Georgetown University and more.
Typically, trial periods for candidates last from one to three months, during which the candidate is working through a third-party payroll provider.
“We are specifically focused on high-growth companies,” says chief executive Susan Zheng. “We curate the companies on the candidate side so that they know that they’ve been vetted.”
Lynxsy focuses on non-technical positions at these companies and has so far placed over 70 candidates. “There’s been such high unemployment rate among recent grads,” says Zheng. And while the service isn’t much different from temporary staffing agencies, Zheng argues that there’s a group of new graduates that doesn’t know about those kinds of services.
“There are people who don’t know about them or don’t find them appealing in terms of the types of jobs they offer,” says Zheng. “The platform is not about a temporary job. It’s really for candidates to get their foot in the door.”
Through her vision, Zheng and her co-founder have been able to attract $800,000 in financing from investors including Joanne Wilson, VaynerRSE, Great Oaks Venture Capital, Silicon Badia and The Vedas Group.