Press Releases

Readyforce Acquires MIT-based Umeqo for Access to MIT Talent and College Event Management Platform

San Francisco, California – January 31, 2013…Readyforce, the leading career network for college students, has acquired Umeqo, the MIT student-built, student-run platform that connects Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) students with prospective employers. With Umeqo, Readyforce acquires a complementary, robust event management service and a tool to immediately establish presence at one of the country’s most prestigious universities, with access to thousands of students enrolled in MIT’s  top-ranked undergraduate engineering programs.

Simulating an Eventbrite-type experience, student groups use Umeqo as a free tool to organize career fairs, create events, track RSVPs and share student resumes with companies that are looking for the right student talent to hire.  Joshua Ma, managing director of Techfair and MIT Engineering Senior said, “Using Umeqo saves hours and hours of painful administrative work while giving companies a powerful tool to pick out the right students to contact.”

According to the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE), U.S. Engineering graduates were the highest paid majors in 2012, with average starting salaries of $70,400. Students are leveraging the opportunities, responding to demand by increasingly running their own career events and creating their own career opportunities by facilitating student and company meetings. NACE calculates there are 10,510 career fairs held annually at 4-year institutions in the U.S. In February, Techfair and MIT’s TBP Career Fair, MIT’s most popular tech career events, will both rely on Umeqo to manage the connections before and after the events.  Companies looking for student talent that matches their culture’s needs for innovation and who want to hire MIT students or find the right students to hire from colleges and universities nationwide, can learn more at www.umeqo.com.

Readyforce is making Umeqo free to all U.S. students who want to set-up and manage their own events to attract more career opportunities to their campuses.

“With remarkable success, leading companies used Readyforce in 2012 to find the nation’s top college talent. Umeqo gives Readyforce clients even more ways to discover talent and more choices, as they can assess more students and access a growing pool of talent.  Umeqo empowers students, and we’re making it free to motivated students and groups eager to capitalize on demands for their talents with events that bring the career opportunities home − to their own campuses and their own students and graduates,” said Readyforce CEO, Alex Mooradian.

Umeqo’s founder and MIT senior, Dmitrij Petters built the platform with the help of five students, from MIT and the University of Waterloo, Joshua Ma, Zachary Dearing, David Guo, Arkady Blyakher and Joshua Dhaliwal. Petters recognized the need in his own market for an easy way for students and companies to connect online. Through Readyforce, Umeqo becomes a nationwide free tool that makes it easy for students everywhere to create events that connect their students with companies seeking talent to hire and acquire. “Dimitrij had already established himself as a leader in the growing community of college entrepreneurship,” said Julie Deroche, Head of University Talent at Greylock Partners. “Assessing the niche market, coding an early product prototype, launching it and building a company around it while in college is incredibly impressive. With the sale of Umeqo to Readyforce, he’s moved into a different strata. He’s a role model for the most innovative, technical talent currently at our nation’s college campuses.”

As part of the acquisition, Dmitrij Petters joins the Readyforce Advisory Board to help raise visibility of the combined Readyforce/Umeqo platform at MIT and other universities.  “I’m excited to see Umeqo as part of the industry-leading Readyforce brand and look forward to its bringing cutting-edge recruiting tools to students and companies across the country,” said Dmitrij.

Though Readyforce and Umeqo will continue to operate separately for the foreseeable future, long term plans are to integrate the two sites under the Readyforce brand.

About Readyforce
Readyforce, the leading career network for college students, is the easiest way for students to launch amazing careers.  Focusing on engineering students in 2013, the Readyforce network connects students to influential business leaders, powerful campus programs, engaging networking events, and exciting jobs and internships at cool start-ups and innovative companies of all sizes.  Readyforce is backed by Menlo Ventures, US Venture Partners, Pivot North, Founder Collective and First Round Capital.
www.readyforce.com

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Media contact:
Suzanne Matick
831-479-1888
suzanne@matick.net

Facebook College Recruiting Leader Adam Ward Joins Readyforce Advisory Board

San Francisco, California – December 12, 2012 … Readyforce, the career network for students building the easiest way for companies to hire college students for internships and jobs, announced today Adam Ward, Global University Recruiting Manager at Facebook, has joined the Readyforce Advisory Board to counsel the rapidly growing company.

With a rich, extensive background in recruiting college and university talent, Adam Ward is renowned for both his vision and execution abilities. He is uniquely qualified to critically advise Readyforce as the company positions to take the lead amidst overwhelming demand to find and hire the right tech talent. Mr. Ward will assist Readyforce with product and market strategies as well as accelerate key business development initiatives.

“I’m thrilled to be a part of Readyforce and to have this chance to help shape the company’s promising future.  Readyforce has highly respected founders, and CEO Alex Mooradian has assembled an impressive, smart, and nimble team. In just a short period of time, they’ve enlisted a notable and diverse set of employers and a deep database of engaged students to meet the demand for this critical talent pipeline,” said Adam Ward, Global University Recruiting Manager at Facebook.

Adam is well known and respected as a leader in the college recruiting world. Prior to joining Facebook in 2011, Adam spent years building and leading the staffing and campus teams at Qualcomm and Trilogy. He was also a founding member of CollegeHire, a tech recruiting start-up focused on students.

“I’m very excited about Adam joining the Readyforce Advisory Board, and the timing couldn’t be better.  We’re coming off an incredibly successful HackerTour with hundreds of companies and thousands of students joining Readyforce as members in the last few months.  Adam’s perspective, experience and network are invaluable to the Advisory Board as we build on this momentum and continue to innovate in this space,” said Alex Mooradian, Readyforce founder and CEO.

Bill Trenchard, Readyforce founder, chairman of the board and First Round Capital partner said, “Readyforce is redefining the way tech companies and start-ups recruit students. The reception Readyforce has seen from both businesses and students clearly demonstrates the need for a better model of connecting these two groups. We’ve seen fantastic success from our recent HackerTour 2012 in the form of connections, interviews and hires, and I’m excited to have Adam join our team as an advisor to help us do great things in 2013.”

Readyforce is designed to facilitate enduring matches and help launch meaningful careers, by focusing on proven interpersonal factors that contribute to job satisfaction, such as work style, personal preferences, interests and cultural fit.

Readyforce invites companies to join Readyforce and find and connect with college talent that matches their needs. Students and recent grads  can join, complete profiles and request introductions through Readyforce to get started interviewing with great companies now.

About Readyforce
Readyforce, the career network for students,  is building the easiest way for companies to hire college students for internships and jobs. Companies search, review profiles and get introduced directly to students from around the country. Readyforce investors include Menlo Ventures, US Venture Partners, Pivot North, Founder Collective and First Round Capital.  www.readyforce.com

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Media contact:
Suzanne Matick
831-479-1888
suzanne@matick.net

Hundreds of Companies, Thousands of Engineering College Students Connect with Readyforce

Mid-tour Results Illustrate Early Success of Hacker Tour 2012

San Francisco, California—October 18, 2012 …Readyforce, building the easiest way for companies to hire college students for internships and jobs, announced today that its first nationwide tour, Hacker Tour 2012, is reporting remarkable results at its midway point. Thusfar, 2,000 new students from 15 campuses in 10 states have joined Readyforce, along with 150 new companies. Launched September 10, 2012, Hacker Tour with its 26 sponsoring companies continues through October to promote career opportunities at career fairs and custom student events across the country, reaching students at the country’s top engineering schools and placing them in internships and full-time positions.

“When we say ‘Do you want to work for a startup?’ students get wide-eyed and very excited. Many of them don’t realize that there are hundreds of small, innovative tech companies eager to talk to them about job opportunities,” says Anna Binder, VP, Client Services at Readyforce.

Hacker Tour Buoys Students’ Career Prospects

In stark contrast to the black hole of applying through any of the major job boards, students are noting the engaging experience of Readyforce.

According to Ashley Chou, a senior at Duke University, “Readyforce has been amazing and extremely crucial in my job search this year. I have been surprised by how many companies have responded to my introduction requests. I’ve got interviews lined up with five great companies.”

Readyforce’s HackerTour has already brought startup career opportunities to thousands of students who never before were able to connect with them: “Getting introduced to a real person from a company that I could only dream to work for before is such a great feeling. Looking for a job in a real startup had never seemed possible until I joined Readyforce,” said Karan Talati, a senior at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

“Readyforce is the quickest, easiest, and most effective way to contact a company and show your interest on a more personal level. It gives you a chance to really talk with employers, and not just sit on an application page for 40 minutes while you fill it out. Already, I’ve had six phone interviews with companies that I found on Readyforce,” said Robert Wagner, a senior at Virginia Tech.

Tech Startups Leverage Hacker Tour

Anyone familiar with on-campus recruiting knows college recruiting takes significant time, effort and resources that are well beyond the capacity of most small tech companies. Traditionally, only the largest companies have been able to organize real college recruiting programs. Readyforce provides a new model of economic college recruiting that gives smaller, fast-growing companies access to great candidates from many more campuses across the country. The tour’s fast growing sponsoring companies are looking to hire engineering students for internships and jobs.

“The Readyforce Hacker Tour is a perfect opportunity for us to spread the word about our new recruitment campaign, which we launched this month with the aim of attracting the best and brightest engineering talent to join SoundCloud,” said Mark Dewings, SoundCloud’s head of brand communications. ”Through the Hacker Tour we’ve had the opportunity to engage with hundreds of the smartest students in the US and highlight why they might want to help build the world’s leading social sound platform.”

“I’ve interviewed five great students that I found and connected with on Readyforce. As a small, growing start-up, this is powerful as I don’t have any other way to find these types of candidates,” Dan Whaley, CEO, hypothes.is.

“College recruiting works on an established cycle and it’s very competitive. Top students are often getting multiple offers in October. Readyforce has made it easy for us to connect with best student from across the country early in the recruitment cycle,” Julia Lipton, Director of Marketing for Quixey.

 

“A marketplace like Readyforce that connects companies to students doesn’t work without active users on both sides and we’re very happy to see solid demand from students across the country along with that of the hundreds of new companies that have signed up on Readyforce in the last few weeks,” said Alex Mooradian, CEO of Readyforce.

Unique Readyforce Profiles Compel Introductions and Hiring

Readyforce highlights the importance of student profiles to compel company introductions and hiring. Examples of profiles that are a attracting a lot of interest from companies:

Nicholas Knudson
http://www.readyforce.com/rf/profile/user/197246/1

Kelsey Leighton
http://www.readyforce.com/rf/profile/user/198042/1

Anna Marie Baker
http://www.readyforce.com/rf/profile/user/198009/1

David Michaels
http://www.readyforce.com/rf/profile/user/198467/1

Evan Noon
http://www.readyforce.com/rf/profile/user/198268/1

Readyforce is designed to facilitate enduring matches and help launch meaningful careers, by focusing on proven interpersonal factors that contribute to job satisfaction, such as work style, personal preferences, interests and cultural fit.

Readyforce invites companies to join Readyforce and find and connect with college talent that matches their needs. Undergraduate, graduate, post-graduate students can join, complete profiles and request introductions through Readyforce to get started interviewing with great companies now.

About Readyforce
Readyforce is building the easiest way for companies to hire college students for internships and jobs. Companies search and review profiles and connect directly with students from around the country. Readyforce investors include Menlo Ventures, US Venture Partners, Pivot North, Founder Collective and First Round Capital.  www.readyforce.com

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Media contact:
Suzanne Matick
831-479-1888
suzanne@matick.net
suzanne@readyforce.com

Click here to download a copy of the press release.

Readyforce Presents “Hacker Tour 2012″ — Recruiting at 25 Campuses to Create a Better Way for Fast-Growing Tech Companies to Recruit Engineering Students

SAN FRANCISCO, CA–(Marketwire – Aug 7, 2012) – Readyforce announces Hacker Tour 2012 as the new model in scalable, economical college recruiting for fast growing tech companies. Readyforce is representing sponsoring companies as Hacker Tour 2012 travels to 25 campuses this fall, connecting sponsors with 20,000 of the best engineering and computer science candidates in the U.S. Starting September 12, Hacker Tour 2012 will promote its sponsors and their career opportunities at career fairs and custom student events across the country.

As anyone familiar with on campus recruiting knows, college recruiting takes significant time, effort and resources that are well beyond the capacity of most small tech companies. Traditionally, only the largest companies have been able to organize real college recruiting programs. The Readyforce Hacker Tour 2012 provides a new model of economic college recruiting that gives smaller, fast-growing companies access to great candidates from many more campuses across the country. The immediate and urgent hiring demands of Hacker Tour 2012 companies paint a very different picture than current Department of Labor Job Reports. The tour’s fast growing sponsoring companies are looking to hire engineering students for internships and jobs.

“We developed Hacker Tour 2012 to close the gap for many companies seeking better access to college candidates but working with limited resources. Sponsoring companies want to employ engineering and computer science candidates now. They want to have more choices, while spending less time and money, and Readyforce makes it possible for any company to recruit from campuses countrywide and hire their ideal candidates,” said Readyforce CEO Alex Mooradian.

Because of the remarkable demand for engineers in the tech world, Readyforce’s first college recruitment tour, Hacker Tour 2012, focuses on engineering and computer science students and recent grads. Kicking off with the Cornell University career fair in Ithaca, NY, the tour continues through October, with the Readyforce bus connecting sponsoring companies with engineering and computer science candidates from the leading college and university programs. Hacker Tour 2012 targets campus career fairs and includes Readyforce special events like interactive tech talks and competitive challenges designed to promote the sponsors and encourage students to set up Readyforce profiles.

The tour will travel to outstanding schools like Cornell, Penn State, Princeton, Virginia Tech, University of Virginia, Ohio State, University of Michigan, University of Wisconsin, University of Illinois, North Carolina State, Duke, University of NC, Stanford, University of California-Berkeley, University of California-Santa Barbara, University of California-San Diego, University of California-Davis, University of Washington, MIT, Yale, Harvard, University of Texas, and University of Colorado.

Readyforce allows companies and students to connect directly with each other, eliminating prohibitive recruitment times and costs, geography, time zones, and soulless paper resumes. Readyforce is designed to facilitate enduring matches and help launch meaningful careers, by focusing on proven interpersonal factors that contribute to job satisfaction, such as work style, personal preferences, interests and cultural fit.

Early sponsors of Hacker Tour 2012 include 10gen, Box, Chegg, Codecademy, Quixey, ReTargeter, and Square. Readyforce invites all companies interested in joining Hacker Tour 2012 to learn more and register today: www.hackertour2012.com

Praise for Hacker Tour 2012

Square:
“We’re proud Square was first to sponsor the Readyforce tour,” said Greg Marsh, University Programs Manager at Square. “Participating in Hacker Tour 2012 will dramatically extend our access to exceptionally qualified candidates while curtailing our time and cost. We’re excited to partner with Readyforce and engage with 20,000 potential candidates in an innovative, interactive way.” https://squareup.com/

Box:
“Box is so excited to participate in Readyforce’s first ever Hacker Tour! It was an obvious choice for us with the widespread reach to some of the best college campuses in the country. Without Hacker Tour, we wouldn’t be able to have a direct presence at all of these universities,” said Jennifer Nguyen, Recruiting Operations Lead, Box. “We have high hopes for this inaugural trip and can’t wait to see the bus traveling the country with our logo on it!” https://www.box.com/

Chegg:
“Chegg exists to serve students and to help them save time, save money, and get smarter. We are building a consumer-friendly experience for students; to do this effectively, we must maximize the student DNA in the company. This is why we offer an extensive intern program and we hire as many new college graduates as possible,” said Tim Wenzel, VP Human Resources, Chegg, Inc. “We are excited to partner with Readyforce on their hacker tour as we seek out talented students to help continue building a great product and a great place to work.” http://www.chegg.com/

Codecademy:
“Readyforce’s Hacker Tour looks like a great way for startups like ours to get great exposure on college campuses that would normally be off limits due to the time commitments of traveling and speaking,” said Zach Sims, co-founder Codecademy. “We’re looking forward to working with them as we look to hire great college graduates this year.” www.codecademy.com

Quixey:
“The Readyforce Hacker Tour is an exciting opportunity for a great set of fast-growing tech companies to come together and show off the next big things in tech,” said Julia Lipton, Quixey Director of Marketing and Communications. “Readyforce is putting together an awesome tour of 25 campuses and we’re excited to be represented across the country among the leading brands and innovators.” https://www.quixey.com/

ReTargeter:
“Attracting great talent is a challenge for any company, but thanks to Readyforce we’ve been able to bypass a lot of the traditional intermediaries and connect with students directly,” said Hafez Adel, senior director of Marketing, ReTargeter. “ReTargeter is proud to be a part of Hacker Tour 2012, and we’re excited to meet the talented young men and women who will be participating in it.” http://www.retargeter.com/

10gen:
“We are very excited to be part of The Readyforce Hacker Tour,” said Martin Cooke, Vice President of HR, Recruitment and Training at 10gen. “Amidst a competitive market, we’ve had great success attracting college talent to 10gen and it’s become an important part of our continued growth. As a well-funded company, we offer graduates an exciting career in a fast-paced, challenging environment. Readyforce is creating a powerful forum that allows us to showcase an outstanding opportunity to be part of the next wave of innovation, compared to being a cog in a big, well-known company.” http://www.10gen.com/

About Readyforce
Readyforce is building the easiest way for companies to hire college students for internships and jobs. Companies search and review profiles and connect directly with students from around the country. Readyforce investors include Menlo Ventures, US Venture Partners, Pivot North, Founder Collective and First Round Capital.

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