As Ivy League students, Cornellians like to be at the front of the pack. No one understands this more than freshman Luke Hagy. A standout rookie running back for the Red and 2012 Ivy League Rookie of the Year nominee, Hagy’s motivation to succeed extends from the football field to the corporate world. This year, Hagy became a campus liaison for a start-up company called Endorse.me. An online platform to connect college jobseekers with prospective employers, the startup company focuses on sharing information privately as to give companies a better way to identify top talent. “I was contacted by a kid from back home that went to a rival high school who played football against me, and he asked me if I wanted to be a liaison for Cornell,” Hagy said. “[Endorse.me was] trying to find other people who would be good for the job, and for me, it sounded like a cool opportunity, so I had a few interviews and eventually got it.Currently on 17 campuses across the country, Endorse.me aims to connect qualified stuents with firms on Wall Street and in the tech industry, according to Hagy. While it is similar to other online sites that pair potential employees and employers, such as LinkedIn, Endorse.me sets itself apart by focusing on sharing confidential information between students and companies.“Their main thing is that they use private information instead of public information so it’s more credible to the companies,” Hagy said.With the job market becoming more selective due to an influx of applications, students and recent graduates are finding it more difficult to find work. A one-page resume isfinding it more difficult to find work. A one-page resume is no longer enough to set a candidate apart from the rest, which is where the fundamental idea for Endorse.me emerged. The startup has students create private profiles and ask for personal recommendations to complement their resume.“You get a private endorsement from a past professor or coworker,” Hagy explained. “You request it [and] then they write a letter of recommendation that is put on your profile. When you make your profile you select a list of firms, then those firms are notified that you’re interested in them.”Students begin the process by creating a list of employers that they would like to see their profiles. Since the profiles are private, they tend to contain more personal information — including what job offers a person is currently considering — that have the potential to carry more weight than a general resume and make a candidate more competitive in the job hunt. Once the professors submit the recommendations and they are added to the profile, the students can choose the companies with which they want to share information.“For underclassmen, this is a way to make themselves stand out,” Hagy said.As an underclassman himself, Hagy is already making a name for himself as the Cornell liaison to Endorse.me. “I contacted a lot of my friends to see how they reacted [and] then I emailed 25 or 30 clubs and at first no one responded, but in a week or two, a lot began to respond,” he explained. “I created an email that basically said what Endorse.me was what the benefits were and why people should sign up.” Mainly targeting the financial and technology sectors, Endorse.me is beginning to broaden its scope, as companies like Citi, Mozilla, Pinterest, Spotify, Twitter and Zaarly are currently using the website to look for candidates. While it is available exclusively to students as a free, cloud-based service at this time, Endorse.me plans to begin creating mobile applications over the summer, which will expand the audience it can reach.“I think this is going to be a very successful [start up company] and if [the students at Cornell] don’t start doing it, all of these other elite schools are going to be ahead of us,” Hagy said, describing reasons why Cornellians should join the site. “You always want to be at the top. Even if a lot of people don’t sign up, I think that for the people who do it is a great idea. Anything that helps you set yourself apart from other students is a good thing.”
Original Author: Lauren Ritter