College students study for years and spend thousands of dollars to earn a degree, but research shows that only half of college graduates are working at a job that requires a college degree and many aren’t working at all.
A new company, Student Genius, provides an online platform for students to post resumes and portfolios. The company is working to beat the student unemployment epidemic by assisting students and graduates in showcasing their skills and getting jobs they deserve.
James Crawley, a sophomore from Pleasant Grove studying accounting, works as an intern for Student Genius.
“If Facebook and LinkedIn had a baby, it would be Student Genius,” Crawley said.
Crawley said the site is still in a developing and testing phase, but currently has 750 accounts uploaded and has set a goal to get 10,000 uploaded within about a month.
“We want to give students the ability to showcase themselves, really start a movement and kind of make this thing go viral,” Crawley said.
To help reach its goals, the company recently launched in BYU’s advertising lab and has hosted iPad contests, where contestants have to do a variety of things with Student Genius to apply.
James Taylor, a junior from Monument, Colo. studying advertising, won an iPad in the company’s first contest.
“In order to win the iPad, I had to invite people to the site through Facebook and tweet about it,” Taylor said in an email. “For each invite, tweet, like, etc. you got an entry into a random drawing for a new iPad.”
Jason Zippro, a senior from Farmington studying Italian, is an intern with Student Genius and said the purpose of these contests is to get students to use studentgenius.com. He said students can visit the site to learn contest rules and learn more about the company and its platform.
“It is an amazing platform to help students showcase their skills to potential employers for jobs and internships,” Zippro said in an email.
Patrick Tedjamulia, a BYU graduate in information systems, is a co-founder of Student Genius and said the company has been developing the company for several months and feel it is something that really needed to be done.
“We’re trying to show employers what students can create,” Tedjamulia said. “If we unite students and show them what we can create, then we’ll show employers that they need to pay more attention to students.”
