So here you are—investing time, money, more time and more money into an education. Whether you’re a bright-eyed and bushy-tailed freshmen or a jaded senior, your reasons for spending countless hours at Bobst and/or consuming copious amounts of caffeinated drinks are the same: to get a job.
But wait: what’s the news saying? The economy sucks and current college grads are feeling the brunt of it? They invest in aggravated internships and ridiculous essays just to add to the unemployment margin? They’ve sat, secluded by the walls of Bobst and suffering from severe heart palpitations, for nothing? And nothing—no LinkedIn or GlassDoor profile—can come to the rescue?
Enter our hero: Jozii.
Jozii is a website started by NYU alum AJ Smith and Brandon Maier, the former who served as an optical engineer and programming analyst for the Navy (and who also happens to be an award-winning songwriter with a number-three hit in Australia) and the later with consulting experience for various start-sup including Purpella, Preo, Bitcoin, and others (as well as having accomplished the task of being the proud owner of two gorgeous Yorkies). HC NYU scored an interview with Mr. Smith in order to get the score on Jozii, and why you should make the Jozii acquaintance ASAP.
HC NYU How and when Jozii was formed? AS Brandon and I met in my sophomore year at NYU and actually started our friendship co-writing songs together. Over the course of the next five years after Brandon, he and I became inseparable and worked at the same BitCoin company together. After the CEO of that start-up ran it into the ground, Brandon and I decided to start our own company that focused on helping college students like ourselves find jobs. After months of concept development, etc. it was this past summer (July 2014) that we finally took all of our ideas and put them to use as we started developing Jozii into what it is today.
Mr. Smith (left) and Mr. Maier pictured hard at work
HC NYU What problems did you see what other sites offering listings for jobs and internships, and how does Jozii deal with those problems? What distinguishes your site from other sites and how do these differentiations give you guys a leg up in comparison?AS There are several issues that we found with the current available tools/sites in the online job market. One of the biggest problems when applying to jobs is the uncertainty. Did the company even read my resume? Did they hire someone else for the position? Waiting to hear back to only get no response is so frustrating and something that we’ve fixed. Students will get automatic notifications if a job post expires or if someone else has filled the position. They no longer have to wait around in uncertainty and can move on to find other opportunities unburdened by doubt.
Yet beyond this uncertainty is an even bigger problem that students face when applying to jobs: lack of experience. Talented students are finding it harder to break into full-time paid positions out of college when they are overlooked due to a lack of relevant work experience. Jozii aims to help fix this problem in several ways:
First, by staying .edu exclusive, our students aren’t up against competitive job seekers with 5+ years of post graduate experience. To help employers recognize not only the benefits of hiring college students and alumni, but also the benefit of using Jozii to do so, we have free comprehensive applicant analysis tools for employers and recruiters alike. These advanced tools help employers sort their applicants’ work/education experience, video introductions, and more. Employers who may be multiple business owners or have multiple clients with hiring needs can even track their various companies hiring needs from a single portal and share permissions for each company individually should they desire.
For students, we made Jozii as easy as possible as well. There’s no hoops to jump through, but rather the easy single-click application process. We are also targeting companies with needs of current students so that we can bring more current students internships and part-time jobs while they are in school so that upon graduation, their resume isn’t merely a name and a GPA. As such, part of our outreach is in working directly with schools through resume workshops, mock interviews and more to better educate students on the value of having an internship or part-time job pre-graduation when it comes to job hunting with diploma in hand.
Perhaps our biggest impact, though, is our compatibility based job-matching (set for public release later this year) which provides two match percentages. One is calculated based on how qualified a student is predicted to be for a position and the other is how well of a fit a student is into a company’s culture. We’re tackling job-matching like dating sites have done with romance because even the larger corporations will admit that personality and culture fit of employees at a company or in teams are directly related to turnover rates. In other words, we want to help students find jobs that they will actually love, where they can be passionate about what they’re working on instead of watching the clock tick while longing for the weekend.
HC NYU Do you find your site to be in heavy competition for other platforms, such as Internship.com? AS Competition breeds creativity. While there may be websites already out there that focus on internships or other jobs, we’re creatively looking at a new solution. After all, we’re not looking to help students merely find jobs, but to get hired and enjoy their jobs. So we’ve taken a different approach that makes us unique. Certainly, there is a gap that we have to bridge in terms of user base, but we view this as a welcome challenge to demonstrate the benefits of using Jozii to students and employers alike.
HC NYU Where do you see the company going in the future? AS At the moment, we are focusing on the market centers of New York City and Los Angeles. In the future, we aim to be present on every campus in the USA and then begin taking our service abroad to international markets as well.
So good head: make your day and your Jozii account now. Also take advantage of the crew’s headshot program where they take your profile’s professional headshots for free (!)! There’s even a free shot of the process below: