Assignment 14A

Looking back on the first half of this course, I noticed there are several behaviors I have had that have helped me with this course. One of which is discipline. I work an 8 hour job on Mondays and Wednesdays, meaning I do most of my work on Tuesdays and Thursdays for this class. It would be easy for me to not do any work Tuesday as the Friday deadlines seem so far at that point. however I learned pretty early on in the semester that it is nearly impossible to create three quality posts in just one day. I have really made an effort to get a head start early in the week on my homework to spare myself the stress later in the week.
One of the biggest motivators for me in this class has been how close I am to graduating. In my opinion, this class can be a bit of a handful and sometimes find the assignments to be a repetitive and I sometimes wanted to give up. I have been able to pull myself out of this thinking and get back on track by remembering that I am planning on graduating in the fall. I want to be able to finish strong and get a good grade in this class and I definitely do not want to have to retake this class, so that has been a big motivator for me.
One piece of advice I would give to a student taking this class int he future is to find something you are passionate about for your business concept. It is easy to cruise through the early assignments, but it pays off to take the bug list seriously and come up with a business opportunity that you can and want to talk about because you will be working on that for the majority of the assignments in this class. Another piece of advice I would give is to create your own schedule. I have learned that this is not a class you should be procrastinating in. Set yourself with hours to watch videos and time to complete assignments to see the most success in this course. Lastly, do not be afraid to reach out to friends and family for advice. This course requires a lot of creativity and sometimes it can be helpful to bounce ideas off of people. The more perspectives you collect, the better your knowledge of your product will be. It will also help when you need to interview for assignments, because your friends and family will already have a basic understanding of the product.

Assignment 12A

Segment:

The segment I have selected for this assignment is upcoming college graduates studying finance or accounting. While my business concept would have customers with any kind of professional background, I expect my concept to be most appealing to this segment.

Interview 1:

My first interview was with my roommate who is graduating in December with a degree in accounting. He said he would ideally like to work for a big four accounting firm, but he is intrigued by working for a small business starting as an accountant and working his way up to an executive position, which is much tougher to do at a large accounting firm. Lately he has been struggling in his career search and would love if my service was available for him so he could receive professional help in his job search. He said he has looked for jobs online on sites such as Glassdoor and Monster, but it is hard to refine the search to opportunities he is both interested in and qualified for.

Interview 2:

I conducted this interview with a family friend who is a business owner. He said he does not search for new talent often because it is a small organization, but he likes candidates fresh out of college because they are usually more driven at the start and more likely to stay at the company long-term compared to those who have been int he work force for a while and hopped form one job to the next. He said young candidates are ideal, specifically in finance and accounting because they can be groomed for upper level financial positions like a CFO. Despite his business's affinity for entry-level talent, they have struggled to find it because the business does not have the name recognition of larger companies. He has went to career fairs to find entry-level employees, but he said his booth is often overshadowed by larger firms. They typically hire quarterly, so twice a year he hires at the same time as when university semester end: January and June.

Interview 3:

I interviewed one of the recruiters at the firm I interned with and she said finance and accounting candidates are some of the easiest to recruit and hire, but they are currently in excess. They are easy to hire because certifications such as CPA's are required and are easier to get up to speed than positions that require soft skills, such as marketing or sales. She said because there are so many candidates with finance backgrounds looking for work, they do not all get to work for Fortune 500 companies and would most likely take work at smaller firms if they need to. She said her firm does not typically recruit for entry-level positions, but when they do it is hard to find candidates unless they specifically contact the firm, which is uncommon.When they do look for recent grads, they search for résumés on job sites like Monster and very few recent grads publish their résumés here.

Findings:

These interviews confirmed my hypothesis that my business concept is appealing specifically in the field of finance. I found there are a lot of people in finance out of work because they do not know where to look and a lot of small companies that want entry-level candidates that are unable to successfully tap into the candidate pool. I believe it would be much easier to put small businesses and candidates in touch with each other with a recruiting firm and the use of on-campus reps.

Assignment 11A

1. My name is Jackson Gore. I am a senior studying Food and Resource Economics with a emphasis on Agribusiness Marketing and Management. I would like to pursue a career in business and one day become an entrepreneur. I hope to one day make my business concept a reality and be able to help college students find jobs after they graduate.

2. The service I am offering is a recruiting firm that works specifically to place recent college graduates into jobs they are qualified for at small to mid-size businesses. It has become increasingly difficult for recent college grads to find work they are suiting for and as of now, there are not any recruiting firms that have addressed this need. My solution is to create a recruiting firm dedicated to placing college grads at entry level positions. Firstly, the recruiting firm would have to build a large portfolio of small to mid-size businesses that are interested in finding new young talent but do not have the hiring resources a larger company would.
Once my recruiting firm has built its catalog, the firm would hire "on-campus reps" across the country to network on their respective campuses. When they find candidates on campus that interested in receiving free hiring assistance, the rep emails the candidate's résumé to the firm, and from there the candidate will have a phone interview with the firm to refine their search based on desired career path, job location, salary, etc. At this point, the recruiters take the reins in the career search and notify the potential candidates if they have an ideal position.

3. My business concept has both customers and clients. The ideal clients for this firm are small to mid-size businesses. These businesses are ideal because they do not receive as many applications from recent grads as Fortune 500 companies would. it is difficult for students to find these companies on their own and this is where my recruiting firm would come in. The ideal clients would be looking for long-term placements, as they are small firms. This would allow my firm's customers to take entry -level positions and have a lot of room for career growth within the business.
My ideal customers for my business concept are college seniors intending on graduating within one year. These students would typically have a business background and interested in working in a professional office setting.

4. My product is valuable to both my customers and clients for various reasons. My customers need this service because it is so difficult for many students to find work after they graduate. Furthermore, these students are more interested in a career than a job. My firm's portfolio would have small to mid-size businesses that are looking to hire driven candidates at entry-level that want to move up the ladder and take on leadership roles in the business in the future.
My clients need my product because small to mid-size companies do not have the same draw to many students as the nationally recognized companies. My service would help these businesses gain exposure at the university level and tap in to high-level talent they would not be able to find on their own.

5. I believe that I am in a very unique position as I have first-hand insight into all three parties of my business concept: students, recruiters, and small business owners. As a student planning on graduating in six months, the need to find an ideal job and career is a need I know very well. I have talked to many of my peers and I believe they feel the same way. Last summer I interned at a recruiting firm and learned a lot of the inner workings of recruiting firms and how recruiters search for candidates. Lastly, I have a couple family members that run small businesses and I have seen how they struggle to find quality candidates at the entry level despite how many of them look for these candidates specifically. My knowledge of all three of these parties would allow me to successfully integrate and apply my business concept.

Assignment 10A

https://youtu.be/BfbkCIJcTY0

Assignment 9A

Interview 1: Local Recruiter

I conducted an interview with one of the recruiters I worked with at my internship last summer. When I discussed my solution to finding jobs for recent college graduates she confirmed my suspicions about why recruiters are not often utilized by college graduates. Because most recruiters look to place experienced candidates in temporary jobs, the recruiters at her firm do not yet have to resources to begin placing recent grads. If this were to take place, there would have to be a completely separate branch of recruiters focused solely on placing individuals new to the labor force and would require training slightly different than the training they what currently receive at her recruiting firm. The recruiting done at her firm, like most, is compartmentalized, meaning there are branches that specifically hire IT, health science, business professionals, et  cetera and placing recent college graduates would be no different.

Interview 2: College Junior

This interview was conducted with a 3rd year university student studying general business. He said while there is absolutely a need for many college students, particularly in business fields, to receive professional help, this is not always the case. This student recently received an internship with a well-known marketing firm this summer and the firm usually offers a full time position post-graduation to interns who see success in their program and this would not be necessary for him and others with internships that hire immediately. He also claimed this may not be a need for undergraduate students planning on attending graduate school as these students often find jobs easier than a students with bachelors degrees.

Interview 3: Small Business Owner

I was able to interview my neighbor who has been a small business owner for the last decade. He sees this as a big need for not only the students but his company as well. As a small business looking to grow, he often seeks out candidates that are recent graduates because these employees are often looking for something permanent or semi-permanent and would be able to develop professionally along with the company. This can often be difficult for him to find as his company is small and he only hires a handful of employees per year compared to the Fortune 500 companies that hire dozens if not hundreds each year. These companies also have superior hiring resources as well as brand notoriety that allows the candidates to flock to them, leaving his company along with smaller ones with candidates that may not be as ideal as the candidates hired by larger firms. He believes that if a recruiting firm existed that focused on hiring recent college graduates, the most applicable customers would be smaller to mid-size companies that do not have the hiring capabilities of larger companies.

Interview 4: Recent College Graduate

I conducted this interview with a friend that graduated college two years ago. She said the job search for her was very difficult as she had zero experience looking for work prior to graduation and almost no professional connections to network through due to lack of professional experience. While she is content with her current job, she is actually overqualified for her job based on her résumé and higher education compared to some of her colleagues and believes if a service like this existed for her when she was in college, she may have a job more suited to her skill set.

Interview 5: Recent College Graduate

This interview was done with a college graduate who graduated this past spring semester. He has struggled to find a job due to the outbreak of COVID-19 and would have appreciated having a recruiting firm assist him in finding an ideal placement. He has a technology background and is interested in working for a larger tech company because he believes that would provide him with more expert knowledge about his work and the tech business itself than a smaller or mid-size firm would be able to provide. In normal circumstances, he would have preferred a larger firm, but he would have been willing to work for a smaller company for the time being because he wants to start working as soon as possible. 

	Inside the             Boundary	Outside the Boundary
Who is in	Recent college graduates with a business background Small to mid-size companies A recruiting firm or sector dedicated to hiring recent grads	Experienced candidates Recent graduates with STEM backgrounds  Large companies or Fortune 500 companies General recruiting firms Students planning on attending graduate school
What the need is	Assisting recent college grads in the hiring process who have little to no experience searching for jobs Facilitating the hiring process for small to mid-size companies	Helping experienced professionals find work  Placing students at Fortune 500 companies
Why the need exists	It is difficult for many recent graduates to find jobs that fit their interests and skill sets It is difficult for small to mid-size companies to get access to a high-level candidate pool of entry-level employees	Students want to work for large, well-known companies Students are looking for work after graduate school  Large companies need assistance finding high-quality, entry-level candidates

Assignment 8A

The one opportunity that I examined that I found was most important to myself and my peers is how difficult it is for recent college graduates to find jobs they are qualified for. This has been an issue for at least a decade and has become increasingly difficult, particularly now with the prevalence of COVID-19 in the United States. Prior to the COVID-19 outbreak, it was difficult because most recent grads have little or no experience searching for jobs. Additionally, every person in the graduating class is entering the job market simultaneously seeking a limited amount of jobs. It is even worse now because much more experienced candidates are competing for these jobs because they were laid off or furloughed due to the virus.
I believe the solution to this problem can be solved by recruiting firms. Recruiters are experts at matching candidates to the ideal job for them and vice versa. They work with both the companies hiring and the candidates themselves to find their exact needs and skills and are able to find a fit that leaves both parties satisfied. Most recruiting firms focus on finding placements for temporary work, so they do not work with recent grads often. However, I believe if there were a recruiting firm dedicated specifically to placing college students or if an existing recruiting firm were able to expand to meet the needs of recent college grads.
The recruiting firms would be able to gain exposure on campuses by offering internships to current students. The firms would be able to hire current students as on-campus "reps" for their university and work for commission as a typical recruiter would. The ideal on-campus rep would be a student studying business, marketing, or communications and is interested in a career in recruiting or sales. The duty of an on-campus rep would be to reach out to students on campus, particularly seniors, that are looking for work following their graduation. If students are interested, they would send their résumés to the rep and schedule an interview with a recruiter so they can get a better idea of what the candidates are looking for specifically, including type of work, location, and salary. From this point, the students could spend more time focusing on classes and extracurricular activities while the recruiters search for jobs for them.