Kyle
Finding the best job applicants seems to be getting harder and harder every year. The applicant pool gets bigger every year and normal application/resume hiring practices aren’t providing enough background to possible employers in just about every situation. This is the pain point that Phoebe Farber and her team at Prospective Plus are hoping to solve.
Through their SaaS platform which targets entry level candidates, Prospective Plus is carving out a niche in the employment world by providing more robust feedback for candidates.
Prospective Plus calls their approach “Culture Fit” and it’s a holistic approach to applicant screening that provides recruiters and HR professionals with more well rounded information about prospective employees (hence the name).
We got a chance to interview Prospective Plus. Check out the interview below:
What is Prospective Plus?
Prospective Plus is developing a subscription based SaaS platform for recruiting entry level candidates. The pain points we see are: 1. Resumes aren’t enough and don’t offer sufficient information. 2. Hiring processes are inefficient and not standardized. 3. Taking culture fit into consideration is necessary for a successful hire. Our holistic approach to the application problem can help streamline the hiring process and reduce their screening time for HR executives by offering them more meaningful information. Our culture fit focus can help them to make educated hires that will be productive within the position they are hired for and stay with the company longer.
Who are the founders and what are their backgrounds
Phoebe FarberFounder & CEOPhoebe Farber is currently a Senior at Northeastern University and is studying Business Administration, concentrating in Entrepreneurship with minors in Psychology and Organizational Leadership Studies. When she was younger she worked with marketing in her martial arts school, working on lead generation and daily operations. She was a member of the Future Business Leaders of America for four years, a state officer in NY for two year, and has served at the President of the Alumni Association for just less than one year. In 2009, FBLA named her Ms. Future Business Leader and she won 1st place in the Business Ethics competition. She has had extensive experience applying for entry level jobs and came up with the Common Job Application concept to help simplify the process and offer applicants the chance to offer more information about themselves than just a resume can offer. She has a passion for entrepreneurship and real estate as well as this venture and hopes to pursure all of these to the full extent over the next several years.Nicholas Rufa
Principal EngineerNick is an experienced tech consultant and has recently worked with Projects in Knowledge as their CIO, MedPage Today as their CIO, Everyday Health as their VP of Tech, and Politiclear Media. His area of expertise is in determining the best existing or evolving technology to use to satisfy a business need. His strengths are in publishing, marketing, e-learning, social media and healthcare, in both traditional and mobile platforms. As principal engineer, Nick is in charge of building out the front and back end of the site and is excited to work on this venture.
Nathaniel PhillipsLead DesignerNathaniel Phillips is currently pursuing a BFA in Graphic Design at the Maryland Institute College of Art. He specializes in branding and identity, and has received several scholarships and awards for his work, including two American Graphic Design Awards from GDUSA Magazine in 2011.
Where are you based?
All of the founders live in New York but Phoebe Farber, the Founder and CEO, is finishing up school in Boston, MA so that is the main location for the company for the next year.
What is the startup culture like where you are based?
Boston has an amazing start up ecosystem and Northeastern University, where Phoebe attends school, was recently nationally ranked for their entrepreneurship program. There are numerous entrepreneurship events every week, companies that provide discounted services for start ups, as well as numerous VC’s and angel investors.
What problem does your startup solve?
We solve pain points for employers as well as students. Employers, our paying customers, need to be able to screen candidates quickly, make educated decisions, and hire employees that will be productive and stay with the company for a substantial length of time. We help them by offering them more meaningful information with our three forms – the main application, references, and culture fit component – which allows them to quickly choose who is worth pursuing and ultimately who they should hire. By taking culture fit into consideration they can hire people who are both qualified for the available position and who will fit into the company culture and will remain with the company as valuable employees.Candidates currently need to fill out a different application for each job they apply to when all companies generally ask the same questions. There is no way for them to track their applications or regularly get application feedback. Job search sites currently suggest jobs to candidates solely based on their geographic location and maybe the industry or position they are interested in. We are giving candidates the opportunity to complete a detailed application in a central location and provide employers more information than they would have received otherwise. We essentially aim to be the Common App for job applications and have created a standardized application to simplify the job application process.
What is one challenge that you’ve overcome in the startup process?
One of our largest problems starting out was getting a solid team together that had all of the necessary skills. I spent 3 months learning what my technical needs were and finding people to join us. I brought on two people who backed out and I learned that you really need to find someone whose heart is into entrepreneurship. I had great success with Cofounders Lab and have since brought on a back developer and am speaking with a front end developer. Our team is crucial for product development, interesting investors, and ultimately the success of the company.
Who are your mentors and role models?
We have one official adviser who has a wealth of experience in HR Tech and we are highly supported by NU IDEA, Northeastern University’s Venture Accelerator. We are also getting more involved in the Boston Start Up community and are meeting many more inspirational entrepreneurs and business people. More public figures who serve as inspiration are Dr. Robert Sternberg, whose Theory of Successful Intelligence partly inspired our concept, James Citrin, whose book You Need a CEO, Now What? urged us to consider culture fit, Tony Hsieh, whose book about his experiences with Zappos made me think more about start ups, risk, and culture fit, and finally Reid Hoffman, the visionary co-founder of LinkedIn whose company and quoted words of wisdom inspire me and who I can only hope to meet one day.
Whats one thing the world doesn’t know about you or your startup?
That our ultimate vision is to become the new industry standard. We want to be the preferred job application. We want people to think about applying for jobs and instantly think to go to our site. We want to make a difference in our peer group and change an industry for the better.
What’s next for your startup?
We are currently moving ahead on 3 fronts: building our Beta, fundraising a seed round to launch, and working on customer development. By Fall we expect to launch our Private Beta and hope to have early adopters ready to test it and a seed round in place to pay for legal fees to launch. Then we see how far we can go!
Linkage:
Startups, Prospective Plus has a great pitch deck and doesn’t mind sharing, check it out here
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