I-Corps L: ET-CONNECT: Employer-Talent CONNECT Pathways for Long Term Employment for Innovative and Motivated STEM Workforce

Northeastern University, Boston MA

Investigators

Abstract

College graduates receive excellent formal education and earn a degree. But they never receive formal mentoring and coaching, before they embark on jobs, to transition to the workforce. As a result, mismatches between employers and employees often happen. According to a recent Wall Street Journal article, over 50% of the workforce is disengaged and stuck in jobs they do not like. This project is, therefore, motivated by the national need of providing recent college graduates with meaningful paid project-based internship opportunities in various STEM fields. The project develops a model that offers formal mentoring, proactive coaching, effective guidance, and supportive career networking opportunities that are otherwise unattainable by recent graduates. As a result, recent graduates become better informed and prepared to decide, based on both coaching and real life experience, whether a field or a company is the right choice for a successful and rewarding career or not. To fulfill the aforementioned national need, the project creates an exchange platform for recent college graduates (learners) and companies to share common interests and provides an opportunity for both to explore each other for the best match and growth potential. This team has created a cloud-based system and portal that allows learners and industry partners to share and exchange their data and facilitate data search for matching and aligning learners and companies, in addition to providing "just-in-time" resources for both learners and companies. The project is expected to have profound impact and benefits. In the scientific and technological area, it builds on the STEM research discoveries and shows the best technological methods to implement them to benefit society. In the societal and commercial area, it serves recent college graduates and small businesses well. Recent college graduates are provided opportunities to: (1) explore project-based jobs. Providing a job pool is especially important for the underrepresented, women, and minorities who lack contacts and social networks to facilitate their entry to the job market; and (2) explore multiple career pathways and select the best fit. Similarly, the project serves companies equally well by reducing their hiring overhead and burden, especially small businesses and startups that do not have the resources for the traditional hiring processes to seek out qualified employees.