One of the greatest anxieties for college students is the search for a full-time job upon graduation. However, Pathrise — a corporation dedicated tocareer acceleration for competitive jobs in the tech industry — claims they have developed a business model to mitigate these fears and spur the next generation of graduates towards a successful career in the ever-emerging tech market.
With the development of new technologies from corporations like Microsoft, Google and Apple, the demand for technologically based jobs has reached levels of unprecedented need. In the same fashion, this demand has been met with congruent supply, propelling the tech industry into one of the most competitive fields in modern job markets. However, this growth has created an increased utilization of employment seeking software from job seekers, hoping to create an occupational advantage to land competitive tech jobs. Among these software’s is Pathrise.
Founded in 2017, Pathrise claims to provide a different approach to conventional job seeking, and offers a personal aspect that is unrivaled by competitors, CEO Kevin Wu said.
“What we do is more education-centric, more coaching and advising-centric,” Wu said. “I’d say LinkedIn, Glassdoor or any kind of hiring agent right now, functions more as a broker or hiring agent that acts on behalf of the front office. That is very different than an agent who acts on behalf of the job seeker. What Pathrise does is act on behalf of the student.”
Companies like Indeed and Glassdoor largely focus on making positions available and evaluating potential employees for a position upon hiring, what Pathrise does far exceeds this, Wu said.
“Pathrise offers one on one sessions, programs with lectures, assignments, and resources to benefit you in your job search,” Wu said. “Pathrise’s focus is on education, and one of the big focuses is getting people that job and ensuring they can stay and grow at that job long afterward as well. ”
Pathrise focuses on education to help users find successful jobs, Wu said that the majority of the information compiled to teach users was custom developed.
“We try to bring together people who have as much industry experience as possible,” Wu said. “We have them draw from their own experience, while doing research with other industry professionals. Our professionals have backgrounds from places like Facebook, Microsoft, Yelp, Google, the White House and many more. We bring all these people together in a central office space to break down the job search. From all of this, we create a curriculum that is focused on ensuring our users find great jobs in the tech market.”
Within this curriculum is information like how to write a resume, profile, and how to communicate with recruiters and employers when searching for a job. The lecture-based content continues into behavioral interviewing skills while also teaching negotiation methods to ensure the best financial outcome upon hiring. Wu said he believes that these acquired tools are reasons why their users are having such great success after completing the program.
Pathrise is different not only in the way they teach and work with users, but also for how their payment method and sign up process works, Wu said.
“It starts with some sort of application to test baseline skills,” Wu said. “The student then enrolls in the program which starts with paying nothing up front. The way we ask to be paid is through an income shared agreement, which states that a percentage of their salary will be paid to Pathrise after receiving their first job. Pathrise is the first company ever to use this model.”
In this shared agreement, Pathrise requests that users pay nine percent of their first-year salary to Pathrise. However, Wu states that this is a small price to pay with respect to all the things Pathrise will offer users.
“Research shows that Pathrise users have a five to 20 percent negotiation lift on income,” Wu said. “This negotiation lift alone covers the cost of the program entirely. The interview scores being two times that of the average likely improved your job search by at least nine percent already. With a sum of all the things we offer, Pathrise essentially pays for itself and much more.”