Berkeley Startup Helps You Find Your Dream Job

A matching score is given for each job opening provided. Candidates will then tell the system how they feel about each job, so it can learn their preferences. WorkTies

Looking for your perfect job is a bit like looking for a relationship—it’s important to understand what you really want, and what will really work for you. For example, a person might think her ideal partner is Brad Pitt, while in truth she would be happier with Woody Allen.

WorkTies, a new mobile job-match app, aims to solve this problem, at least in the case of job-hunting.

WorkTies’ forte is matching in skill-oriented jobs—for example, technical, legal, financial, or project-management jobs. It can also help discover candidates’ preferences for job type, which they might not have fully realized themselves.

David Lin, founder of WorkTies, worked for SAP before he founded his company. He told us that the idea came from his own experiences in hiring people.

“It’s hard to find the right people,” he said.

By the right people, he means the people who have the right skill sets for the job. He gave the example of data analysis. Under the job title “data analyst,” different teams may require different skill sets. So if candidates are matched by their skills, it will be a timesaver for recruiters.

After candidates fill in their profile, WorkTies will respond with potential job postings, eight postings every 72 hours, each with a matching score.

The goal is to provide a quality match. If the recruiter and the candidate are interested in each other, they can start chatting right away through the app.

Afterward, the app will send the candidate a feedback card, asking them if they liked the postings. WorkTies will learn the candidates’ preferences according to their responses.

Lin said many people looking for jobs may not know what they really want. He gave us an example. The app found that a candidate who was searching for a software developer job was actually more interested in data analyzing positions. So the app suggested this to the candidate and matched a data analysis job for that candidate.

As a skills-oriented job-match app, it is more suitable for people who already have some skills, as mentioned above—technical, legal, financial, and so forth. Lin also said that even if you don’t have solid skills, but you have a direction on what you want to do, WorkTies might also be a good place to start.

However, this app currently only allows companies with more than five job postings to use it. People who are looking for smaller companies may also want to try other sites, such as craigslist.

Lin is an MIT materials science and engineering graduate. He founded WorkTies in 2014. He said the company has five full-time employees, and is already making a profit.

His sister, Debra Lin, who is also an MIT materials science and engineering graduate, joined the company full-time as well. She says she finds it interesting and inspiring to help provide an engaging interface for users.