Web Summit start-up profile: Gradpush on the investment trail

Roisin Hynes of Carlow-based start-up GradPush is on the investment trail. In Dublin on Monday night she met with investors, and on Tuesday at Web Summit she is hoping to meet more.

Her start-up uses video to help job seekers better understand companies. Companies seeking to hire can upload videos to the GradPush platform, videos which give an insight into what their culture and working life is like.

“It’s a fun to discover companies in line with your goals, companies that you might never have heard of or thought of otherwise. Candidates can search by interest, career goal or personal goal,” Hynes says.

For example, a job seeker could search for companies using the terms “crèche on site” or “no corporate dress code” or “flexi-time” and see videos of companies hiring, which have an onsite crèche or flexi-time or allow workers to wear casual clothes.

Hynes says people will come across companies they might not have thought of. They might not have considered working in the IT department of Bank of Ireland because they don't like suits, only to find out the bank has a no-tie policy in the IT department.

The idea for GradPush came to Hynes while in Australia.

“I was lining up interviews for myself shortly after arriving and I didn’t like the vibe or first impressions at a few companies from the offset. In fact I thought that attending those interviews had been a big waste of time, energy and money.”

After getting a job with recruitment firm Hays in Sydney, she came up with the idea to send job candidates recruitment videos along with job descriptions.

“No one else was doing that. The idea worked immediately. Candidates responded straight away. I then would explain how these companies were in line with their personal and career goals and bam, they agreed to interview.”

She says the videos helped candidates put a face to the brand and see for themselves the energy and vibe of the team and the company.

“When they realised their goals could be met by working there, they got excited and interviewed better.”

However, the videos were often time consuming to find. She had to spend a long time searching for videos on social media sites, career pages and on YouTube.

When she moved back to Ireland, her careers goals changes. Facing a gruelling daily commute to work in Dublin while caring for a newborn, or the possibility of relocating and paying high rents, she decided to take the plunge and set up her own start-up.

Though not yet launched, Hynes says the GradPush website will be similar to YouTube in that users can view, rate and share videos but with the benefit of personalising their video and job search. She says the site is currently inviting people to apply for private beta and will launch in the near future.

“Our mission is to make job browsing fun. What makes it kind of cool is the fact that you can refine and personalise your company video searches based.”