Advice for Students and Recent Graduates on Finding Jobs – Liz Wessel of WayUp

Founding Journey and Early Ventures

• The founder identified the opportunity for a student discount platform during sophomore year at the University of Pennsylvania (Penn), sparked by a 10–15% Jamba Juice discount for Stanford students.
• He launched "The Pennies Card," a physical loyalty card business, by selling logos of local businesses to students for $15 each, raising capital by outsourcing card production to a Chinese manufacturer.
• The founder's initial venture was non-technical, relying on a basic website and plastic cards, which ignited his addiction to solving problems by creating something from nothing.
• During senior year, he co-founded a project with JJ (Joel Flegelman) to help students find campus ambassador jobs; this evolved into the precursor for WayUp.
• WayUp was officially launched two years after college graduation by the founder and JJ after they quit their respective jobs, realizing the original college project had organically grown to tens of thousands of users without marketing.

Career Decisions and Mentorship

• The founder chose to work at Google over a top-tier VC fund offer to gain operating experience, a decision influenced by a cold email to Sequoia Partner Roloff Botha.
• Botha advised taking the Google Associate Product Marketing Manager (APMM) role to learn from top managers and engineers, predicting these connections would be vital for future hiring.
• The founder secured the Google role by explicitly informing HR of his two-year departure plan to start a company; Google supported this path, whereas the VC fund suggested an MBA first.
• Roloff Botha's guidance was obtained via a cold email strategy that involved researching specific personal details (e.g., the founder's high school water aerobics experience) to craft a personalized subject line and narrative.
• The founder utilizes the tool "Reportive" to guess and verify email addresses of potential contacts when they are not publicly listed.

Personal Habits and Lifestyle

• The founder operates on a genetic trait requiring only 3 to 4 hours of sleep per night, a trait shared with his father but not his co-founder JJ.
• He avoids structured workouts, relying on walking (specifically in New York) and daily yoga for physical activity.
• He maintains a high water intake, often consuming two pitchers of water during meals, and avoids sweets.
• He does not own a physical assistant, relying on a high-volume, self-managed calendar that runs from 8:00 AM to 1:00 AM, five to six days a week.

Recruitment and Interview Methodology

• WayUp profiles are designed to be more holistic than LinkedIn, incorporating GitHub, YouTube, Instagram, volunteer work, and hobbies to present a 360-degree view of candidates.
• The founder advocates for an acronym "REAF" for interview success: Research the company, Express enthusiasm, Ask specific questions (avoiding Googlable answers), and Follow up.
• He recommends sending thank-you notes via handwritten mail to stand out, though email is acceptable if delivered within 24 hours to ensure receipt before feedback is submitted.
• The founder advises against "picking brains" in emails, suggesting instead requests for short, 20-minute calls or coffee meetings.
• He emphasizes that candidates should apply to significantly more jobs than the traditional two or three, given the current low unemployment rate.

Team Building and Management

• WayUp hired its first senior executive (VP level) using external recruiters to implement "scorecards," defining specific criteria for skills, culture, and soft skills to rank candidates.
• The founder manages direct reports by aligning them with specific personality types, prioritizing "Type A" individuals who strive for "great" rather than just "good."
• He acknowledges that he struggles to manage employees whose personalities do not gel with his; in such cases, he delegates them to other managers within the organization.
• The founder and co-founder JJ have complementary management styles; the founder is blunt, while JJ is more tactful, allowing them to cover different leadership strengths.
• WayUp employs a specific VP of Product to help the founder prioritize between the numerous opportunities in the HR tech space and avoid distraction by "shiny objects."

Product Strategy and Market Position

• WayUp differentiates itself from general job boards like Indeed through three core components: personalized job recommendations, candidate sourcing via rich profiles, and targeted content/advice.
• The platform claims a 1-in-3 hire rate for applicants, a metric the founder attributes to personalized recommendations based on user data rather than generic matching.
• Content strategy focuses on countering corporate myths (e.g., the stereotype of boring Wall Street jobs) by highlighting unique, specific roles to underrepresented groups or specific demographics like freshmen engineers.
• The company utilizes targeted Facebook ads and paid acquisition specialists to reach specific candidate segments.

Future Outlook and Philosophy

• The founder's ten-year goal is to make a lasting positive impact on the world through WayUp, while personally hoping to start a family and get married.
• He holds the philosophy that finding a career one loves is as critical as finding a spouse, as professionals spend more time at work than with their partners during their first 40 years of career.
• He advocates for college students to test various roles via internships before their first full-time job to avoid early career dissatisfaction.
• The founder believes the education industry is shifting positively away from strict major requirements toward skills-based hiring, allowing students to pursue passions without mandatory career alignment.
• WayUp has observed that unpaid internships have become rare, with less than 9% of internships on their platform being unpaid.